社會企業家開創新民主模式
Silicon Valley’s stereotypical approach to solving public problems is to invest in social entrepreneurship. Bypass lumbering government bureaucracy to find innovative solutions that harness economic incentives to create social value. In place of government-run schools, find corporations to fund charter schools. Instead of foreign aid, fund Kiva, a platform that allows individuals with capital, however small, to lend directly to development entrepreneurs who need it.
硅谷解決公共問題的模式化做法是投資社會企業。繞過遲緩的政府官僚體制，找到利用經濟激勵創造社會價值的創造性解決方法。找到企業資助特許學校，以替代政府辦學。不是直接對外援助，而是資助Kiva平臺，無論數額有多小，擁有資金的個人都可以通過該平臺直接借錢給需要資金的創業家。
The tech titan perhaps most identified with the concept and practice of social enterprise is Jeff Skoll, first president of eBay, whose eponymous foundation has invested directly in social entrepreneurs around the world, as well as establishing the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School, Oxford university, and the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
最能體現社會企業的概念和實踐的科技業鉅子可能是eBay的首任總裁傑夫•斯科爾(Jeff Skoll)。他的與自己同名的基金會直接投資給全世界的社會企業家，他還在牛津大學(University of Oxford)賽德商學院(Saïd Business School)建立了斯科爾社會企業中心(Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship)，並舉辦一年一度的斯科爾社會企業世界論壇(Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship)。
The growing class of social entrepreneurs that Skoll and others fund stands between the private and public sectors, applying new tools and approaches to the work government has traditionally done. But in a new book, Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works, Skoll Foundation chief executive Sally Osberg and Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, present a model of social enterprise that directly engages government in a number of critical ways.
斯科爾和其他人資助的不斷擴大的社會企業家隊伍立於私人部門和公共部門之間，將新的手段和方法運用到傳統上由政府完成的工作上。但在一本新書《超越更好：社會企業是如何運作的》(Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works)中，斯科爾基金會的首席執行官薩莉•奧斯貝格(Sally Osberg)和羅特曼管理學院(Rotman School of Management)前院長馬丁•羅傑(Roger Martin)提出了一種社會企業模式，以多種極其重要的方式直接讓政府參與進來。
They offer a helpful definition of social entrepreneurs, as distinct from direct social service providers and social advocates. Social entrepreneurs, they write, “seek to shift a stable but suboptimal equilibrium in a way that is neither entirely mandated nor entirely market driven. They create new approaches to old and pernicious problems.”
他們提出了一種有益的社會企業家定義，與社會服務的直接提供者和社會事業的倡導者區分開來。他們寫道，社會企業家“尋求以一種既非完全授權，又非完全市場驅動的方式，改變穩定但並非最優的均衡。他們創造應對舊的、有害的問題的新方法。”
Social entrepreneurs who fit this definition include Muhammad Yunus, the pioneer of “microfinance”, or Molly Melching, the founder of Tostan, who found a way to convince African villagers to reject female genital mutilation on their own terms.
符合這一定義的社會企業家包括“小微金融”的先行者穆罕默德•尤努斯(Muhammad Yunus)，以及Tostan的創始人莫莉•梅爾欣(Molly Melching)，後者找到辦法說服非洲的村民放棄以他們的方式對女性行割禮。
It is interesting, and significant, that social entrepreneurs have found ways to work with government rather than around it. They increase “the willingness or ability of the government to invest” in a particular government service “by reframing the way its value is articulated”. Madhav Chavan, for instance, found a way to measure the efforts of Indian teachers in terms of actual student learning, creating an incentive for the government to invest not in inputs (the numbers of teachers in the field), but in outcomes — the numbers of literate students. As Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, puts it: “Nongovernmental organisations can and should strengthen the faltering public sector.”
社會企業家找到了辦法和政府合作，而不是圍繞着政府開展工作，這很有趣，意義也很重大。“通過重構價值的表達方式”，他們提高了對特定政府服務的“政府投資意願或者能力”。比如，馬達夫•恰範(Madhav Chavan)找到一種辦法，以實際學習的學生數量衡量印度教師的工作，不僅推動政府投資於投入（實地教學的教師數量），也投資於產出——有文化的學生數量。就如Partners in Health的創始人保羅•法默(Paul Farmer)所說：“非政府組織能夠且應該加強衰落的公共部門。”
The public sector, however weak, provides vast scale. And, for all its flaws, it is a source of legitimacy. What is more, it turns out that private entrepreneurs can do more public good when they team up with government. The ride-sharing company Lyft, for instance, has partnered with government planning agencies in California on data-sharing projects to help provide a more detailed picture of how it fits into the regional transport network. It has also shared data about how many customers call Lyft to be picked up or dropped off near train, bus, or subway stations, raising the possibility of an integrated public-private transit system.
無論多麼衰落，公共部門所提供的規模是巨大的。而且，雖然有諸多缺陷，公共部門是合法性的來源。此外，事實表明，在和政府合作的時候，私人企業家能夠更好地造福大衆。比如，拼車公司Lyft和加利福尼亞州的政府規劃機構合作開展數據分享項目，就Lyft如何融入地區交通網絡描繪一幅更詳盡的圖景。該項目還分享有關有多少通過Lyft叫車的用戶在鐵路、公交或者地鐵站附近上車或者下車的數據，提高公共-私人交通運輸系統一體化的可能性。
For its part, the American Public Transportation Association has published a report on “Shared Mobility and the Transformation of Public Transit.”
美國公共交通協會(APTA)方面則發佈了“共享移動性和公共交通轉型”的報告。
There are similar examples in other industries. Airbnb has agreed with the cities of Portland and San Francisco to help streamline disaster response by identifying hosts who will take in needy citizens in the event of an earthquake or other emergency and sharing that information with city planners. Uber has launched a pilot project with Macomb County in Michigan to offer free rides for jurors and has begun a programme in several cities to increase the number of Uber drivers with wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
其他行業也有類似的例子。Airbnb已經和波特蘭、舊金山等城市達成協議，通過確定哪些房主能夠在發生地震或者其他緊急情況時接收有需要的市民，並將這一信息與城市規劃者分享，來幫助簡化災難應對流程。優步(Uber)和密歇根州馬科姆(Macomb)縣合作啓動了一個試點計劃，爲陪審員提供免費乘車服務，並在幾個城市啓動了增多有輪椅無障礙車輛的優步司機的項目。
The larger point here is the emergence of an ecosystem for public problem-solving in which government is no longer the only or even necessarily the primary actor. It includes universities, public policy organisations, direct service and advocacy groups, social enterprise and far-sighted private enterprise. All must learn to work together more closely. If they do, the result will be a new model of effective, engaged and connected democracy.
這其中更重要的一點是一種解決公共問題的生態系統的誕生，政府不再是唯一、甚至不再是必不可少的主要參與者。這個生態系統包括了大學、公共政策機構、直接服務和倡導羣體、社會企業和有遠見的私人企業。所有參與方都必須學會更緊密地合作。如果他們做到了，結果會是一種饒有成效、多方參與、相互聯通的新民主模式。
