Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurs are dissolving boundaries in business. Their mission is clear?positive social impact. Today consumers, investors, and employees are demanding more than profits. They want social returns. In the Triangle, socially-motivated companies are blending for-profit and non-profit strategies. They are making money and doing good.

Next Generation Radio?s Meenakshi Chivukula Reports:
(Mee-knock-shee Chiv-vu-cool-ah)

Script:

//YMCA Splash// FADE UNDER

The sun is shining and the temperature is rising. Summer is here. To many kids, there is nothing more synonymous with summer than swimming.

Across the nation at YMCAs, parents are hauling their kids to swim lessons and summer camp.

[Swim instructor, ?The barbell will be on my tummy??]
//FADE UNDER//

At the Chapel Hill ? Carrboro YMCA, little heads bob up from the surface. These polywogs are learning how to blow their noses under water. Guppies grab onto barbells, and at the end of the pool sharks make graceful summersaults.

//Bring up splash with YMCA Pool AMBI // FADE UNDER
Lifeguards monitor pool sides in hopes of preventing accidents and tragedy. But drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death amongst children.

//end YMCA Pool AMBI//
//Kevin Trapani AMBI//

Kevin Trapani is founder and C-E-O of The Redwoods Group. The Morrisville-based business is a Commercial Specialty Insurance Company. Over the years they?ve become the biggest insurer of YMCA?s in the country.

[CEO Kevin Trapani, ?In the last five years on average five people have died by drowning. I?m not proud of five. So, what?s the long term impact? We have a big hairy audacious goal. That B-HAG, as Jim Collins calls it, is no one will drown in a guarded pool in the United States.?]

Trapani modestly refuses to define himself as a Social Entrepreneur. But that?s what he is. Besides insuring the hard to insure, The Redwoods Group gave away 50-percent of its income last year. Trapani says he may not always be able to afford to be that generous but he challenges others to do something similar.

[Trapani, ?We have to compete like everybody else does. We have to compete for capital if we want to expand our business. We have to compete for our customers everyday. So we have to be, this is not sort of a bunch of ex-hippies sort of hanging out and you know eating granola. This is a very disciplined business.]

From Silicon Valley to Research Triangle Park, there is a new generation of businesses building on an old idea that a company?s wealth comes in different forms.

Paul Bloom is with the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University?s Fuqua School of Business. Bloom says there is no clear definition of Social Entrepreneurship:

//Fuqua AMBI//
[Paul Bloom, ?You?ll find as many definitions for social entrepreneurship as there are people who study it. In my mind, a social entrepreneur is someone who uses very innovative approaches to try to help some type of social purpose. And that can be done within a non-profit organization, or it can be done within a for-profit organization. ?]

There is no question, today, more and more businesses want to do good and more people want to work for business that make them feel good.

But why now?

[Paul Bloom, ?Out of the late 90s you had quite a number of successful for-profit entrepreneurs generate a lot of wealth for themselves. And some of those people have decided that they would like to give back to society.]

One of the most well-known Social and Entrepreneurial ventures in the Triangle is TROSA which stands for Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers. Kevin McDonald founded TROSA?s Durham campus in 1994. The two year rehabilitation program started out as a social program.

After Hurricane Fran hit North Carolina, McDonald had the bright idea to start a business.

[McDonald, ?The lights were out in our facilities so we had about a hundred people go out and help the neighbors. And uh when they were you know cutting and moving trees and stuff like that I saw one guy was from you know the mountains of North Carolina, and he really knew how to do it. So I said, hell, let?s start a business (quiet laughter) you know, there are a lot of trees around here.?]

Today, it takes 9-million dollars to run TROSA and most of it comes from the for-profit side. TROSA Moving and Storage is the biggest money maker. There?s also a lawn care business, catering, and a picture frame shop:

//Chris and Meen//
[? ?Is this somebody?s order right now??
?Yeah.?
?Okay.??]
//FADE UNDER Wood saw//

Chris Watson of Newport News Virginia is close to completing his first of two years at TROSA. For nine months Watson worked at TROSA?s moving company?two months ago he began to train at the frame shop, and now he?s cutting frames to fit orders.

[Watson, ?It?s awesome. I mean, really, cause everybody?s got good positive outlook on everything that you know you learn stuff from people that have more time in the program than you. And you want what they have, and, it?s just, it?s a great feeling to see someone who cares about you and wants you to be better.]

Watson says that each day at TROSA he is surrounded by people with positive outlooks. That?s what it?s all about ? balancing making money and changing lives for the better.

For Next Generation Radio ? I?m Meenakshi Chivukula

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