The Global Social Benefit Fellowship is a nine-month undergraduate research fellowship funded by Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Each year a cohort of fellows is selected to conduct action research for a variety of social enterprises in the developing world. The social enterprises that participate in the fellowship have previously gone through Miller Center’s Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI) accelerator programs through which they receive business mentoring from Silicon Valley’s top executives. Enterprises can then apply to GSBF and welcome fellows to their organization who, through the GSBF, will create deliverables that add value to the enterprise. Once a cohort of social enterprises has been chosen, undergraduate students in their junior year are invited to apply to the fellowship and the specific enterprises they are interested in researching for.
The 2019 cohort has nineteen fellows and nine social enterprises. To learn more about the fellowship and this year’s cohort, visit the GSBF webpage here.
Solar Sister
My partner Amanda and I were placed with Solar Sister, a social enterprise dedicated to eradicating energy poverty and promoting women’s agency in sub-Saharan Africa. Solar Sister recruits and trains women, primarily in rural or off-grid areas, to become micro-entrepreneurs of solar light products. Once trained, Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs) distribute solar throughout their communities. This process has two primary impacts. First, by recruiting and training local women to develop business skills, women are economically empowered which improves not only their livelihood, but the livelihoods of their entire family. Second, distributing solar to communities without a reliable, affordable source of light transforms lives. Many off-grid communities rely on kerosene fuel to provide light. However, kerosene is expensive and must be continually re-purchased, often forcing women to walk many miles to the nearest point of sale. In addition, kerosene lights emit carbon dioxide which negatively impacts the health of those using them and contributes to environmental pollution. Switching to solar saves money, reduces health risks and pollution, and provides a better quality, longer-lasting light source to communities in darkness. To learn more about Solar Sister, visit their webpage here.
Our Project
Solar Sister is in the process of expanding into new geographies, with the intention of extending its customer base and scaling its impact. One way to acquire new customers is to partner with a variety organizations, from community based development groups to international NGOs, that have access to new and different networks of women with the potential to become Solar Sisters. Solar Sister has requested a partnership playbook, that presents a standardized approach for developing successful implementation partnerships. This deliverable will serve as a guide to optimize Solar Sister’s partnerships and reach.
To create this deliverable, we will spend a week in Arusha observing Solar Sister both in its office and in the field to develop a deeper understanding of its operations. We will then visit several willing and welcoming partner organizations including past, present, and future partners. The information we gather from each partner visit will be primarily collected through observation and informal conversations.
The partnership playbook that we will deliver to Solar Sister in November will help typify, assess, and categorize potential successful implementation partners. As a result, this playbook will improve Solar Sister’s partnering capabilities by clarifying value exchange potential and organizational compatibility. With this deliverable, Solar Sister will be better equipped to meet its scaling goals and increase its presence in new markets, ultimately increasing its impact in last mile communities.
The three key research questions we aim to answer are:
What are the key attributes of successful implementation partners?
What potential barriers are likely to cause partnership challenges?
What are the critical success factors to working with different kinds of organizations, from community based organizations to international NGOs?