Since our Nourishment Economies Action Summit in 2017, some hurdles that inhibit young peoples’ confidence in launching new enterprises have become clear to Jake Foreman of the Native American Community Academy and the Native Entrepreneur in Residence Program in New Mexico, USA. These include lack of basic financial skills, frequent exclusion from the American financial system, and a mismatch between that mainstream system and the more community-oriented values of marginalized parts of society (including many Native American communities) which also influence these young peoples’ perceptions and actions.
To help stimulate practical insights and action, we convened this “Huddle” with Jake and two accomplished social entrepreneurs who are pioneering new programs and tools for tackling these hurdles with other communities:
– Lily Lapenna, CEO and Chairperson of MyBnk, stimulating confidence and skills among people ages 5-25 on enterprise skill development, startup of new financial institutions, and financial inclusion rather than exclusion in society.
– Hamse Warfa, founder of BanQu, developing personal ledgers and blockchain technology to create economic and career identities among refugee communities and others traditionally excluded from global economic systems.
Facilitating and sharing insights were Bill Carter, chair of selection panels and Science and Social Entrepreneurship initiatives at Ashoka, and David Strelneck, founder of Nourishn, which support and organizes social entrepreneurs and new communities to help spark regenerative Nourishment Economies in society.
View the 1-hour video (YouTube) or download the transcript (pdf)
Some Insights from the Huddle
This lively discussion surfaces intriguing insights and examples, on the following topics and more:
The importance and approaches for people practicing financial literacy from a very young age, not to gain skills per se, but to gain confidence in their own relationship with powerful institutions in society.
The conundrum that mainstream financial and banking services are much more expensive for poor people to access than they are for more affluent people.
How personal, blockchain-based ledgers (such as the BanQu app) can help young people understand and document that their participation in activities and events — including simple jobs and volunteer activities they perform — hold importance for themselves, their communities, and also for financial institutions which seek indicators of an individual’s credit-worthiness as demonstrated through past actions. The transparent personal ledgers document and demonstrate these factors.
How similar approaches and technologies might help establish transparent accounting and compensation for the exponential value creation of enterprises which cut across multiple sectors in society. This includes, for example, the combined health, food, farming, and environmental impact of most nourishment-cycle enterprises.
The remarkable success of youth-led learning and co-creating (not adult-led teaching) on these kinds of issues.
How young people intuitively see loans as an opportunity to enterprise, not as a financial burden.
As Jake says at the end of the discussion, “We’ve got a lot of work to do, let’s start!”
View the video (YouTube) or download the transcript (pdf) now.
Background
This discussion is part of a series bringing together social entrepreneurs whose insights and innovations build on cyclical relationships between biological, economic and cultural forces in society: what we call Nourishment Economies.
These Huddles help push further on insights, challenges, and opportunities, for the participating social entrepreneurs, for people considering launching such enterprises in other communities, and for funders, investors and policymakers seeking to help spread this positive force in the world.
Nourishn‘s Nourishment Economy series is co-hosted with Ashoka. This particular Huddle was sponsored by The Christensen Fund.
Please add any observations, insights, questions, and examples in the Comments section below, or email to huddles@NourishN.com.