Bren Simon: What Does ‘Entrepreneurial’ Mean Anyway
Continuing a legacy of respect, kindness, and compassion
The following is adapted from a previous posting from Bren Simon regarding how the entrepreneurial mindset can help nonprofit organizations solve problems.
Successful non-profits think of operations like as business. “Business” can mean infinite things to people, not just specific practices but whole mindsets as well. Mindsets like “Entrepreneurial.”
For example, when I last watch the videos on this site about Gleaners Food Bank in Indiana – which Bren and Melvin Simon Foundation proudly supports – the first thing that struck my ear was the use of “entrepreneurial” to refer to the people who founded and operate Gleaners.
I can confirm that Gleaners is indeed an entrepreneurial operation – because I simply know entrepreneurship when I see it. Yet I’m a little hard-pressed to articulate in words what “entrepreneurial” actually means for a food bank or similar entity.
I don’t think it’s the same kind of entrepreneurship we find on Wall Street where capital funds are grown from scratch and whole fortunes staked on promising investments. Nor is it quite the entrepreneurship we find in Silicon Valley where inventions are nursed, financed, and sold to happily startled markets.
Here, I think, entrepreneurship drives an even broader dream. It’s one thing to make millions or market new mobile phones – but something else, even more daring, to resolve to eliminate hunger entirely in the state of Indiana. It’s Gleaners’ explicit mission, which may well seem unachievable to less entrepreneurial people.
Entrepreneurship also means eternal patience. The sad fact is, hunger is only getting worse in Indiana where one of five children suffers some form of it. Yet if that tragic number doubles, so will Gleaners’ resolve double in intensity. They will not budge from their vision.
So here’s my (at least partial) definition of “entrepreneurial” in a non-profit context: Entrepreneurial means knowing what you want and not stopping until you get it. In some business circles, that kind of resolve can get ugly. In Indiana, the “entrepreneurial” instinct of Gleaners Food Bank is God-given.
Dan Rene
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