Guest Speaker: Dennis Whittle

Founder of Global Giving Pops the Question: So You Want to Start a Social Venture in College?

Tips on What It Takes To Launch A Successful Social Venture 

In mid-February, Campus Y hosted a talk with Dennis Whittle, UNC’s 2011 Global Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence and the Founder and former CEO of Global Giving, an online marketplace that matches donors directly with community-based projects around the world. During this roundtable discussion, Whittle provided helpful insider tips to Campus Y committees and the Start-Ups in the Social Innovation Incubator, sharing his honest view and insight into what it takes to launch a successful social venture. 

As a former UNC student, Whittle expressed how impressed he was with the talent of students at UNC and that he is convinced many college students in this generation will lead the way in developing new initiatives and innovative solutions to tackle some of the world’s greatest problems. He urged social entrepreneurs at the roundtable to take their ideas to the next level: “Getting ideas out there is the most powerful thing you can do. You’d be surprised at how few people actually take action and attempt to solve some of the world’s problems.” 

Sharing his own experience getting his idea off the ground, Whittle explained his decision to leave his position at the World Bank where he had worked for over 14 years, armed with an idea to create an online marketplace that would offer donors a transparent, high-impact giving experience. It was a daring leap, as Whittle went from having five secretaries at his disposal, to a bare office running a company that could barely get investors to call him back. This idea transformed into a successful social venture that has raised over $59 million for international development in the past decade and is the world's leading website matching donors directly with community-based projects around the world.

Tip # 1: Working In A Team and Effective Leadership

Whittle believes the most important tip for any social venture is building an effective team:

At Global Giving, Dennis started out with no money, no resources, few people on board, but they had a dream to revolutionize the aid system. The most important lesson he learned during his entrepreneurial journey is that to meet your ambitious goals and sustain your venture, “you need to build a team in a way that every minute of every person matters.” 

Whittle spoke about the importance of motivating your team to overcome the challenge of limited resources that often plagues social ventures. Describing his own leadership style, he stated that he often tells team members that he expects them to be “the best in the world” at one particular thing, and then gives them the freedom to do so. Combining high expectations with a high degree of freedom and responsibility, Whittle found that he could motivate his team to believe in a vision that had once seemed impossible. Whittle also stressed the importance of avoiding burnout and keeping a work environment fun yet professional in order to achieve the highest productivity. 

Tip # 2: Achieving Sustainability

Often times, there are one or two charismatic, driven leaders who launch a social venture during the early stages of development. But what happens when these leaders have to leave or graduate?

Leaders must enable others within their team “to learn the ropes even at the expense of getting something done.” Otherwise, despite developing impressive initiatives and progress, the leadership model cannot be sustained and as a result, these ventures fail. Whittle suggested that it would be a good idea to introduce by-laws to ensure leaders of these ventures can be evaluated on how they handed over leadership as one of their core competencies.

 Tip # 3: Raising Funds

Whittle offered valuable fundraising advice to social entrepreneurs at the roundtable:

• Investors and donors look for critical competencies in social entrepreneurs. These competencies are: confidence, passion, determination, attention to detail, and a track record of success (even if this track record includes having to learn from failure first).
• Social ventures can become profitable by delivering a service or a product that is demand-driven. What is usually not known however is that social ventures have benefited from grants first, particularly when they are just starting out and in the phase of developing their model.
• If a social venture generates revenue by selling products, the product itself has to be high quality. It is not sufficient that the venture promotes its products through the need to support a good cause because markets do not work for a “good cause.” Ventures that become attuned to the market tend to be successful because they are filling a niche in the market.
• Building and maintaining a strong social network is invaluable for fundraising efforts. Whittle acknowledged that he spent much of his time in Global Giving’s early days scrambling to raise money and wished that he had been better prepared in raising social capital to meet Global Giving’s fundraising goals.

 Tip #4: Value of Social Capital and Building Networks

It is incredibly important to maintain networks and build social capital with the people you know. You never know when you are going to call on someone for a favor or when someone will call on you for a favor or send an opportunity your way. 

“There are connections that you can cash in on,” Whittle stated. He explained that when he was pitching to an investor once, the investor responded that he was only interested in investing in education. Dennis recommended another organization with a full focus on education to the investor. When the director of this organization realized that Whittle had recommended his online charity to the investor, he later returned the favor, leading to a $1 million contribution of funding for Global Giving. 

Tip # 5: Keeping In Mind Common Challenges

• Avoiding Burnout: If you overwork yourself, the reach and impact you will have in the world will be limited and seriously derailed. This is why you need to delegate, build teams that can scale the program, and take time for yourself to rejuvenate. Having fun and working hard is an important balance. Fun is also a source of creativity and often times, this is how ideas bubble up. 

• With Success Comes Criticism and Responsibility: When you become successful, how do you take pride in your success and stay humble? You always need to be on your toes and others need to feel like they can give you the honest feedback that you need. Remember that the reflection of your organization or company is also a reflection of your team and your perceived leadership style.

 Staying Inclusive: You must stay inclusive and not become insular. Including people in your team with different perspectives and personalities can make your output more innovative and successful. During meetings, people need to feel included and feel that they have a chance to participate.

 Rethinking Messaging: Whittle explained that he was certain at first that the content on his website was fantastic but eventually saw a need to rethink through his messaging when he realized that donors were not responding positively to the content. The branding and naming of a social venture is critical because it is the first step to describing your venture.

 Lacking Necessary Technical Skills: Social entrepreneurs often times lack valuable business, finance, and marketing skills that can help them become more sustainable and market themselves more effectively.

 Whittle concluded his talk by encouraging social entrepreneurs on campus to make full use of the resources, expertise, and capacity-building services that the Campus Y Incubator provides as these opportunities are highly advantageous for social entrepreneurs seeking to scale their impact.

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Do you want to be a change maker and work to solve a problem? Are you launching or hoping to scale a social enterprise? Do you want to innovate for the greater good? Do you aspire to be the change that you want to see in this world?