Red Cross Youth Social Entrepreneurship Initiative (RYSE)

RYSE: Harnessing the inherent creativity of young people in developing countries to develop innovative and effective solutions to identified social problems, thereby creating community driven, sustainable social change. Young entrepreneurs will take their solutions from ideation to reality and develop sustainable social enterprises through the provision of targeted mentoring support.

1. 

Imagine – a young adult in a developing country has a light bulb moment that can create positive social impact and earn them and others a living. Not only this, they have the contacts, technical expertise, seed funding and support to take this idea to actualization. The RYSE initiative will make this a reality through human connection and digital facilitation.

The RYSE initiative’s methodology will support young people in remote communities to use human centred design and social entrepreneurship skills to evolve their ideas to create social impact and profit. Red Cross staff and Young people from the RYSE mentorship program will be trained to deliver the same mentorship program in their communities for future sustainability, scalability and innovation.

The digital crowd-sourcing platform will enable safe connections between volunteers with expertise, and peers with ideas and experience - to spark collaboration with RYSE participants. 

2. 

“I’m independent and I’m not just part of the workforce, I created a workforce.” That’s what we want RYSE participants to say.

RYSE gives disadvantaged young people the opportunities to utilise their resilience and resourcefulness to solve social problems, build enterprises, and provide jobs.

Our solution removes barriers and limitations to possibilities and learnings for anyone, anywhere; preparing all young people to thrive in the 21st century on their own terms. 

3.

RYSE will support young people to come up with their own solutions to societal problems whilst becoming economically independent. We have the potential to change the landscape of “giving”. The digital platform will connect and empower like minded young people who understand each others’ challenges and inspire each other – creating local business and strengthening their communities.

Ultimately, we envision young change makers doing business differently, inspiring other social enterprises, and making big businesses question their own impact.  

Preparing disadvantaged youth for the workforce requires an innovative approach to foster a youth driven solution to social challenges, income generation and employment preparedness. Innovation is the key to empowering and engaging those most affected by social issues that builds on the social and economic capital in our communities.  Young people with bright ideas lack access and connectivity to new and collaborative approaches to establish and grow their own social enterprises that address local issues. We want to eliminate this digital divide and empower disadvantaged youth with the tools to create their own workforce, income and solve community problems themselves. 

Australian Red Cross has vast experience in cultivating innovation in communities. Solving social problems requires new, inclusive and human-centred approaches that offer choice and relevancy. We’ve worked with disadvantaged young people to train and support them to establish budgets and begin social enterprises in our Young Parent’s Program.  We recognise that one body cannot solve all problems:  crowdsourcing ideas from partners and global actors and providing access to professional and peer support networks opens communities up to innovative approaches to social solutions.  Anyone can be an entrepreneur - who knows what one can do with the right environment for success?

Target Outcomes

• A cadre of young entrepreneurs develop personal and professional skills to take their enterprise from ideation to a sustainable social venture and develop capacity to lead social ventures in their communities.

• Development of future leaders who can mentor and support others in their own communities.

• Establish a cross sector Social Entrepreneurship Support community both in country and online (business, government, community) to support the young entrepreneurs to succeed.

• social entrepreneurs are connected to peers and experts across the world to crowdsource ideas and develop social entrepreneurship.

• Viable enterprises provide economic, social and environmental value back to the communities.

• Mentors from business, government and community actively involved in the initiative

• Satisfaction survey of all stakeholders in the initiative

• Increased brand awareness in local markets.

- A cross sector Social Entrepreneurship Support community (business, government, community), both in country and online, is established to support the young entrepreneurs to succeed.

• Uptake and use of technology platform by entrepreneurs

• Contributions from like-minded peers across the region on the digital platform

• Establishment of entrepreneur network.

- A movement of social entrepreneurs are connected across the world to crowdsource ideas and develop social entrepreneurship

• Financial impact indicators specific to each enterprise

• Social impact indicators specific to each enterprise.

- Viable enterprises provide economic, social and environmental value back to the communities.

RYSE:

• inspires people to create their own solutions to societal problems whilst developing economic independence, inspiring others to think differently and use community resources to create change rather than relying on aid.

• focusses on developing capacity of young people to develop businesses and become leaders and change agents in their community, rather than working for others.

• brings both international and local mentoring and advisory capacity to support the development of business planning unique to each idea

• builds a global crowd sourcing community to share issues and learn from each other via technology

• technology provides a safe environment for interactions

RYSE aims to harness the inherent creativity of young people to develop innovative and effective solutions to social problems, thereby creating community driven, sustainable social change.

We want young people to identify community issues and have access and connectivity through a digital platform, using their resourcefulness, creativity and innovation, to realise their goals. Our solution also allows peers to share learnings, challenges and solutions across borders to support each other. 

We want to remove barriers young people face, through technology and human-centred design practice, to actuate their dreams and solve community problems.

RYSE will be implemented through local national societies via existing Red Cross networks.

RYSE will be promoted in Australia through existing donor, corporate and volunteer networks using direct promotion and our International Volunteering Platform.

We will use Atlassian technologies to develop a global social entrepreneur network to promote  exchange of ideas, mutual learning and collaboration in a dynamic environment. 

RYSE will hold a Social Entrepreneur forum including entrepreneurs, government, private sector, marketing, finance and other stakeholders to review program successes and failures and develop improvement strategies across the region. Business models will encourage repayments to the RYSE investment/seed funding pool.

Australian Red Cross will be providing in kind support throughout the process.  We have in house staff, systems and processes to support the program.  We are able to draw upon our legal, human resources, IT, Engagement and Support and International Programs team to support the initiative.  Our mentors and advisory personnel will be drawn from our network of major donors, corporate partners and extensive volunteer program, facilitated through our existing International Volunteering Platform which matches organisational needs to appropriate volunteers. 

The aim is to identify corporate and other partners who are willing to pay for their staff to attend the mentoring training in Australia and in country.  Mentors will also be required to fundraise a minimum amount for the program in order to participate to ensure they have skin in the game. Mentors and supporters will also be able to provide introductions to potential investors in the program and/or initiatives.

Project challenges include:

• Capacity of local National Societies (NS) to support the entrepreneurs – capacity building for NS will mitigate this risk

• Internet access for entrepreneurs – possibility NS supported to facilitate and provide other administration support

• Proposals not received from entrepreneurs – due to lack of information, access and confidence of young people. Mitigation: communication to target audience.

• Some enterprises may not be successful –an inherent risk.  The selection process, business planning support and provision of targeted expertise to support the venture aim to mitigate this risk.

• Support to access local actors. Mitigation: drawing on existing RC relationships and digital platform.

https://www.facebook.com/AustralianRedCross/

https://www.instagram.com/redcrossau/?hl=en

http://www.redcross.org.au/amber-social-enterprise.aspx

To be successful RYSE requires technical assistance to facilitate and replicate the same learnings and connectiveness available in large cities.  RYSE also requires Solver human centred design expertise to embed skills in young entrepreneurs to solve local problems to provide social impact and financial returns.  Using an online platform and Atlassian technologies, we will remove barriers and limitations to possibilities for anyone, anywhere. We would also create a global economy of knowledge sharing and investment. RYSE requires a common platform that saves data, documents, enables forum discussions, collates feedback from ‘volunteers’, allows presentation tools, and allows channels for inputs.

Partners will be identified from Red Cross networks including corporate partners, major donors, mentors and volunteers to meet specific needs of selected entrepreneurs. We are looking to partner with Atlassian for access to existing and emerging technologies for entrepreneurs and with human centred design specialists for the capacity building component.

No real competitors. TDi has a DFAT partnership to trial social entrepreneurship/start up skills