The Upside of a Downturn

Smita Sircar

January 1, 2009

In the two weeks since the launch of the Volans survey on ‘Social Entrepreneurship in a Downturn’, we had already received about 70 responses by year’s end, plus many notes of thanks from leading social entrepreneurs for this initiative – which they see as very timely. The survey is still ongoing – and social or environmental entrepreneurs not already contacted are invited to complete it by clicking here. The final report will be produced for the Skoll World Forum but we want to present here some of the initial findings.

The survey results indicate most of the social entrepreneurs have been affected by the economic downturn in some way or other, but only 10% of the respondents say that they have been severely affected. About 50% of the respondents thought that the downturn would last between 1.5 to 3 years and so the efforts towards gearing their organisations for the change have already been set in motion. Headline results will be released in early February, with the full results available in time for the Skoll World Forum in late March.