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iced__honey's review
5.0
I read this book Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works for a class. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a great introduction for me into social entrepreneurship. I felt that my understanding of social entrepreneurship was deepened. The book is very easy to understand *only if* the reader is familiar with specific terms such as social entrepreneurship, change-making, equilibrium etc. The point of this book is to encourage folks to create lasting change, not necessary introduce them to social entrepreneurship jargon, which my teacher was doing on the side.
I like that their overall message was to change the existing equilibrium to a new one that can create lasting change. And while this is a big feat for many people to do, it is a wonderful goal to continually reach especially since many businesses seek to create solutions without changing the factors that create these issues. It was extremely important for me to read that they emphasized going into communities to understand their need, addressing past solutions that didn’t work and then continuing community engagement to create the solution or set of solutions. The overall message is to first learn about what makes the equilibrium exist and maintains it, and then to create a lasting change that would positively impact the community (84).
The part that was most educational and useful for me is the four step method. It is one that I think I’ll use moving forward:
1. Understand the world
2. Envision a new future
3. Build a model for change
4. Scale the solution
Although this framework can be quite difficult to actually implement because of the work that goes behind it, I think that the writer did a great job in describing each step.
The book also provides engaging short snippets of origin stories from different social entrepreneurs’ which includes their struggles, original problem, potential solutions and where they took their venture. These snippets detailed their overall trajectory of their venture, which made the book much easier to read. I felt that I was able to see other people’s ventures reflect a bit about my own trajectory and I felt comforted by that. It proves that their framework is useful when beginning a social entrepreneurship venture.
One thing that I did not like about the book was that I felt that there needed to be a list of definitions or resources for others to understand the social entrepreneurship jargon. Without the class, I think that this book would have been difficult to read. It would have been helpful if they had additional reading materials or a references list for the absolute beginner that wouldn’t know what social entrepreneurship is. All in all, this book was extremely valuable for me to understand how social entrepreneurship works, what doesn’t work, and what are the best steps to take.
Despite this, I never felt like I was reading to finish the chapter, but rather I was reading because I wanted to read more! For this reason, I would definitely recommend this book to others to read especially for those that are already doing social impact work, have an interest in business and/or have a passion for creating lasting change.
I like that their overall message was to change the existing equilibrium to a new one that can create lasting change. And while this is a big feat for many people to do, it is a wonderful goal to continually reach especially since many businesses seek to create solutions without changing the factors that create these issues. It was extremely important for me to read that they emphasized going into communities to understand their need, addressing past solutions that didn’t work and then continuing community engagement to create the solution or set of solutions. The overall message is to first learn about what makes the equilibrium exist and maintains it, and then to create a lasting change that would positively impact the community (84).
The part that was most educational and useful for me is the four step method. It is one that I think I’ll use moving forward:
1. Understand the world
2. Envision a new future
3. Build a model for change
4. Scale the solution
Although this framework can be quite difficult to actually implement because of the work that goes behind it, I think that the writer did a great job in describing each step.
The book also provides engaging short snippets of origin stories from different social entrepreneurs’ which includes their struggles, original problem, potential solutions and where they took their venture. These snippets detailed their overall trajectory of their venture, which made the book much easier to read. I felt that I was able to see other people’s ventures reflect a bit about my own trajectory and I felt comforted by that. It proves that their framework is useful when beginning a social entrepreneurship venture.
One thing that I did not like about the book was that I felt that there needed to be a list of definitions or resources for others to understand the social entrepreneurship jargon. Without the class, I think that this book would have been difficult to read. It would have been helpful if they had additional reading materials or a references list for the absolute beginner that wouldn’t know what social entrepreneurship is. All in all, this book was extremely valuable for me to understand how social entrepreneurship works, what doesn’t work, and what are the best steps to take.
Despite this, I never felt like I was reading to finish the chapter, but rather I was reading because I wanted to read more! For this reason, I would definitely recommend this book to others to read especially for those that are already doing social impact work, have an interest in business and/or have a passion for creating lasting change.
emonroe26's review
4.0
I think this book provided some really interesting background to social entrepreneurship and how social entrepreneurship works (which, as the subtitle of the book, is the main point), even if some parts seemed fluffy or repetitive. I found it easy to read and engaging, which are two very good perks to assigned school reading.
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