A good resource for anyone interested in the future of social capital and innovation. There should be more books on how we interact with the changing world.

I've taught courses in Social Entrepreneurship and found that this book provides a comprehensive background, overview and outlook for the social entrepreneurship movement. The author is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject and provides many interesting examples. I did feel though that his tone is overly enthusiastic in advocating for pro-social enterprise policies. Nevertheless, this book fills an important gap in the available academic literature on the subject.

In The Moral Marketplace, Asheem Singh charts the evolution of social enterprises, their structures and processes as well as the challenges that they face. As is well known, traditional philanthropy is never enough to deal with social problems (they also face donation fatigue) and governments continue to fall short. Hence, the provision of market-based solutions to deal with society’s pressing needs by attempting to earn profits whilst driving change.

Contrary to the common belief that social enterprises began with Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, they have been around since the 1460s with the Italian church-backed financial institutions, Monte di Pieta (Mounts of Piety) which used a form of pawn broking to source capital for the poor. They have since taken various forms and are found across several sectors including co-operatives, ethical and/or responsible financing methods, charities etc.

The book is well-researched and includes interview quotes from industry players. The illustrations are drawn from across the globe but notably from the UK. He also includes anti-liberal opinions from various quarters who dispute imposing metrics on social causes and public spaces. The book has nine main chapters that deal with aspects of dealing a socially-conscious organisation with his own recommendations at the end of the chapters. They can be treated as standalone essays and read in no particular order.

The Moral Marketplace seems like an introduction to the cultures, philosophies and innovations that have and will shape this movement. However, Singh uses highbrow language and assumes that the readers have some familiarity with the subject. Though it may presumably be a slim volume, it will require some time investment to

A well written look into the way driven millenials are changing the world.

Asheem Singh, former interim chief executive of Acevo (British charity leaders group) and a mentee of Paul Farmer, has a new book, MORAL MARKETPLACE, which is about a different kind of entrepreneur. As the subtitle says, it focuses on "how mission-driven millennials and social entrepreneurs are changing our world." Singh uses numerous examples, noting for instance, that "citizens from every other continent outside North America and Europe are more likely to buy from social enterprises than people from these two places. ... we are the ones who have to catch up." He explores topics like incubators, co-operatives, metrics and measure, education, and government action, concluding with a section advocating a new kind of capitalism. Related titles in our collection would include ones like Start Something that Matters, Do the Kind Thing, How We Got to Now, Eric Liu's You're More Powerful than You Think and Yunus Muhammad's Creating a World without Poverty.

Links in live post:
http://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2015/04/do-kind-thing-by-daniel-lubetzky.html
http://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2017/04/youre-more-powerful-than-you-think-by.html

Exciting and well written. .