Stephen Quatrano

Recent Activity

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  Stephen signed the petition | over 2 years ago

  Tell Trader Joe’s to Stop Selling Unsustainable Seafood
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  Stephen commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

  The Acumen Fund and The Decision Students Face

  Great video.  Love it.

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  Stephen signed the petition | about 3 years ago

  Thank Two Lawmakers for Saying No to Creationists
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  Stephen commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Do Social Entrepreneurs Need to Speak In Terms of Human Rights?

  Human rights need to be codified and protected in law to limit what corporations do.  Corporations complain about limitations;  however, what they care about is a level playing field and predicatbility.  If we signal that we are serious about protecting human rights in law and then enforcing the law, corporations will respond.  We've become so enamoured with markets that we have forgotten that economies are always POLITICAL economies.  The interests of the state, society, and PEOPLE have always trumped pure capitalism;  we have just temporarily forgotten this idea.

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  Stephen commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Do Social Entrepreneurs Need to Speak In Terms of Human Rights?

  Actually, the term is quite precise and therefore useful.  When the mission of an organization is only framed in legal or moral terms, you are not really using the forces in the marketplace that drive adoption of new ideas and growth in the production of goods and services.  You are limited by rather conventional fundraising and political processes.  There is nothing wrong with that, of course;  it's just an observation. 
  
  Corporations, on the other hand, rely on missions that are purely economic.  Corporations can, should and often do produce good things for society:  "good work" as it were.  But in governance terms, this is not the main point, a desierable and beneficial side effect.
  
  The social entrepreneur is a hybrid.  The mission must be framed in both economic AND social terms.  Economic forces align with moral ones, as they did for Yunus.  He raised money on private capital markets and grew 100's or even 1000's of times faster than conventional fundraising would have permitted.  This is a very specific idea, a very specific term. 
  
  It's also not as easy as it looks.  Everyone can see what Yunus did AFTER he achieved it.  But to imagine it when it does not exist is another matter.  Even to support it and join an idea like his when it is a half-finished picture can be very, very difficult.

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  Stephen commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Do Social Entrepreneurs Need to Speak In Terms of Human Rights?

  Nice post.  This connected a bunch of things for me.  I really like your formulation that social entrepreneurs are working on the margins of our economy to make markets work better by "regiggering business models" to deliver goods and services where they had not reached before. 
  
  As an entrepreneur, that really resonates with me.  That is precisely what a start-up does.