Scaling Social Businesses Through Design Thinking

The premise is to bring together public sector experience with private sector expertise to support the growth of socially-oriented commercial enterprises, creating a market-driven ecosystem to sustain social impact. The SPRING accelerator program was designed to address the challenges of developing scalable impactful businesses in developing markets. These challenges include limited infrastructure, inefficient distribution, ineffective government systems, unreliable supply chains, and unpredictable regulatory environments. The program aimed to unlock meaningful scale by developing a hyperlocal understanding of market contexts at both a systems and human level. The SPRING accelerator combined human-centred research with an intensive operational focus to design products, services, and business models that work for people in a developing world context. The program provided local businesses with the potential for scale and impact through prototyping, capacity building, mentorship, peer-to-peer collaboration, visual design, and investment support. The program was designed to combat the inherent power dynamics of a team heavy on advisers from high-income countries working with entrepreneurs in a developing context. The program's human-centred design process involved research, storytelling and synthesis, write design, brainstorming, challenges, solutions, and prototyping. The program closed with a second bootcamp that allowed for further refinement based on learnings from the field. The program was iterated and improved over the course of four cohorts, allowing for more successful partnering with start-ups to scale their social enterprises. One of the key insights from the SPRING accelerator is the importance of using technology to formalise the informal sector. Informal economies are a significant contributor to the macroeconomic problem in developing markets, with two billion people constituting more than 60% of the global labour force working in the informal economy. Informal markets are at the heart of emerging market economies, and businesses can gain immediate access to customers and leverage established distribution channels by tapping into these networks. However, informal economies are also a symptom of the challenges plaguing developing markets, including a lack of infrastructure, limited resources for governments to invest in their economic foundation, and a lack of basic protection or social safety nets for informal workers. The ability of informal economies to largely avoid taxation and regulation gives them an "unfair" advantage, allowing them to persist and proliferate in the face of circumstances. The SPRING accelerator aims to reach 200,000 girls in nine countries through customized support to 75 businesses helping girls earn, learn, save, stay safe, and be healthy. The program's mission is to create a market-driven ecosystem to sustain social impact, and the insights from the program highlight the importance of developing a deep understanding of the people involved in designing products, services, and businesses that change the world.