Could Social Enterprises be the future?

I recently took a Nonprofit and Social Marketing course at Champlain's Dublin campus. I am passionate about pursuing a career that is socially driven and was drawn to the idea of social enterprises. The idea that socially driven businesses can still be profitable seemed like a sustainable means of business for the future. Through research I found the organization CoderDojo and thought it was a perfect example for what a social enterprise should be.

Model and Context:

CoderDojo creates opportunities for children, ages 7 to 17, to learn the skills required to be active participants in todays increasingly connected world. CoderDojo is a free and global open source movement that “aims to help young people realize that they can build a positive future through coding and community.”

Impact and Scale:

CoderDojo has three areas of focus that correlate to the principles of social marketing and are essential to the company’s growth and social impact. The first area of focus is engagement, which relates to creative orientation. CoderDojo engages young people in creative ways through their dojo model by globally connecting communities with opportunities to share and learn from each other. CoderDojo accomplished creative orientation and engagement by creating community engagement strategies for stakeholders and providing incentives to engage, ninja engagement and emphasis on creating an alumni community, holding global events and creating direct and engaged relationships between different regional dojos. The second area of focus and reason for success is enablement. Enablement plays into client orientation and identifying people’s needs, aspirations, values and priorities. During our site visit Rachel said CoderDojo is unique in that the children are involved because they actually want to learn about coding and technology. CoderDojo recognizes their aspirations and equips and empowers its volunteers and mentors in order to provide the best opportunities for the ninjas. Specifically, CoderDojo works on community platform development and content development through e-learning content, sushi card creations, and content partnerships and community created content. The third reason for success of the operation is their focus on global scaling. Global scaling involves the principle of collective orientation; this means that CoderDojo recognizes that the social context matters. The presenters mentioned that there are not enough software professionals in the world to meet the demand. The foundation knows that this is a problem that matters and is working to combat it by supporting regionalization of groups, growing network partners, developing an ambassador/evangelist model and empowering young people to champion their own dojos on a global scale.

Of the many stakeholder groups, the technology and software industry is greatly impacted. As previously stated, there are not enough software and coders currently in the world to meet the growing demand. If this continues there will be major issues in the future of technology. CoderDojo is teaching the next generation, which will allow the industry to sustain itself long term. The creative and engaging movement has already proven its success and the children involved are creating and coding new technologies, devices, and apps. Many of these inventions are addressing and aiming to fix the social problems of the world. Building the next generation of educated software and coding is essential for the industry in the long run.

Social Marketing Message:

CoderDojo is a movement that spreads the message that all young people should have the opportunity to build a positive future through coding and community. The organization believes that through peer and self-led learning, mentoring, and creative social environments children can learn the increasingly important coding and technological skills that are needed in the world today. Professor Seynor Papert communicates this message, “Children should be programming the computer rather than being programmed by it.” CoderDojo’s marketing and communication messages are aimed to encourage young people to join the world of technology and coding in a free and inclusive way, unlike many other organizations. The dojos not only allow the children to learn and work with technologies but it also provides a social environment where the children make connections and form relationships. They enable children to view technology and coding differently. It is seen as a fun opportunity to learn, grow, create and even use technology to solve other social problems in the world today. Their success is already changing opinions about children and technology globally.