Article on Competitions and Mentorship in Social Entrepreneurship

Social venture planning competitions and the mentorship that is often provided to their participants provide valuable learning opportunities for budding social entrepreneurs. Ashoka’s review of these activities revealed the following different types of competitions: • Web-based single-submission competitions – Competitions such as these are easy to focus on particular topics and are ideal for large numbers of teams (90+), as they require less administrative attention than other types of competitions.

• Web-based multi-submission competitions – A prime example of this type of competition can be found in the Changemakers Innovation Award. Like single-submission competitions, these competitions require less administrative attention, but their multi-submission format allows participants to improve their submission based on feedback.

• Web-based and in-person multi-round submission – The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) is an example of this type of competition. Under this structure, initial rounds take place via the web, while later in-person rounds allow for revision, resubmission and additional learning. Multi-round competitions require more resources, but generate highly polished final submissions and an exciting competitive atmosphere.

• Multi-round with seminars or conferences: As seen with the Social Entrepreneur Awards in Brazil, Peru and Colombia, multi-round competitions with seminars offer ample opportunity for mentorship (in this case an all day seminar with McKinsey consultants). This type of capacity building is best for teams of entrepreneurs, and is resource intensive.

• Informal Conference Competitions/Mentoring: This in-person, less formal structure is used by Harvard in their ‘Pitch for Change’ event at the annual Social Enterprise Conference, as well as the New Venture Labs in conjunction with the annual Net Impact conference. These types of competitions are easy to organize and provide an opportunity for networking.