We are starting a weekly series of suggestions for would-be Social Entrepreneurs interested in developing social ventures called the 10 Commandments for Social Entrepreneurship. This series will cover initiatives that are designed to address any social problem around the globe and include 10 things that every socail entrepreneur must think or do before they jump in. This week we command that:

Thou Shalt Dig Deeper

So you see a problem. This problem bothers you immensely. You wish that you could do something to change and/or stop this problem. You are passionate about it and you talk to your friends and family all the time about this problem. One day a light bulb goes off and you realize you know exactly how to solve this problem. You write down this idea and it expands to a plan that you see you could, personally, implement. You begin to pull together the necessary resources, the people and the systems that you need to address this problem and you think you are ready to jump in. At this point or hopefully sooner, you should stop, take one more look and see if you can go deeper.

Are there any other people or organizations on this earth doing this work that you don’t know about it? Have they tried a similar method and learned there is a barrier to achieving a positive outcome? For many big (and even little) social Continue reading