Laura Haverkamp On German Social Entrepreneurship & Restructuring Enterprise To Achieve Systemic Change

Laura Havercamp is a partner at Ashoka Germany and Board member at the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany (SEND). As a social entrepreneurship enthusiast, she believes in the power of each individual to support and create change for the better. Laura strikes to make great ideas happen on the way to creating an ecosystem in which social innovation can thrive and more people can find their roles as change-makers towards a sustainable and just world.

Laura has a B.A. in Comms/Mandarin and a Master of Public Policy as well as great networks like the ThinkTank 30 of the German Society to the Club of Rome, of which she’s a thankful member.

In her spare time, you can find Laura in the next hardware store or exploring cafes and parks of Hamburg, where she lives with her family.

Laura discusses her time working with Ashoka and SEND, and the future outlook for social entrepreneurship on a German and global scale.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Anika Horn] - Welcome Laura Haverkamp, who is currently sitting in Germany in Hamburg at 9:15pm on a Thursday, taking the time now that she's tucked her kids into bed to talk to us about social entrepreneurship. Laura, thank you so much for being here.

[Laura Haverkamp] - Well, thank you so much for having me. It's such a blast to see you again and I look forward to all kinds of curious questions.

Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit more about your specific role and some of the responsibilities that you have in your day to day work with Ashoka?

Well, I'm very happy to obviously. If you look at my name card, you will find Laura Haverkamp, Ashoka, Germany. I have been with Ashoka Germany for the past eight, nine years, really being rooted in what we try to achieve within Ashoka and in Germany. I've been an innovation scout for social entrepreneurs in Germany, I've been a convener and a sparring partner to social entrepreneurs here. I've been a communicator and right now I'm in a position where we actually asked the question of how can we overcome structural hurdles that still exist for social innovators in the German ecosystem. All of this is obviously rooted in Ashoka's broader vision, asking the super easy to answer question of how can we actually create a world in which every person has the capabilities and the power to thrive and to be a change maker for the good of all.

I love how you're easing us into the topic. You already touched on hurdles. Having been in the space for so long, where do you see social entrepreneurs struggle the most?

When we started in Germany 15 years ago, we were really the outlaws saying, ‘This is social entrepreneurship!’ There are people who actually innovate in this space, in between the economy and the social welfare state. And we really had to do a great job of explaining there's these people, they've always been there. We call them social entrepreneurs, they're important for us. And after, I guess, five, six years into the making in Germany, this was around 2011, we had enough knowledge to see that most of the social entrepreneurs came to similar crossroads in their development. And there was the topic about finance, and it was about how do I find the right people? No one knows what social entrepreneurship is. Am I economy, or am I social sector? Why can't I be in between efficiently? What does this mean?

We tried starting all kinds of initiatives to overcome some of these more professional hurdles in terms of organisational development. And again, this was five, six years in the making. So, this has been a couple of years ago. We again looked at social entrepreneurs and we also self critically looked at “How come so many great entrepreneurs with innovative ideas transform some of the most pressing social issues for the better?”

What we are focusing on now with parts of our work is to actually go back to the roots and say, if we want to change things systemically, we need to start with a different kind of mindset. We need a different kind of working with each other. We need to have a new focus on building cross-sectoral alliances.

And really focusing on this ecosystem for systemic change is something that I feel moves many players in the field right now.

Talking about playing on a systems level, I know you have become very involved with the German Network for Social Entrepreneurship, SEND. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you became involved, how long you've been a member, and what your current role is and what drives you to contribute the little spare time that you have to supporting this initiative?

SEND is a super interesting addition in the German space. We had the pleasure of co-founding SEND at Ashoka almost three years ago and I guess we've been thinking about a vehicle that could be the voice towards politics for a longer time. And you know how it is, sometimes you need a couple of iterations and many conversations to figure out what the right vehicle could be. That works not for one player in the field, but for many. And in the end, we were super happy that SEND was born and there is a strong team actually focusing on building a strong voice towards public institutions, towards politics, and facilitating a dialogue between all the stakeholders in the public sphere and social entrepreneurs. I've been involved as a board member for a couple months now only, so I've been in the back seat for a little while, from an Ashoka perspective, but, stepped up to the board role now and it's a super interesting sphere to be working in.

Are you able to share with us at all what some of the priorities are for 2020 or even the next decade with regards to giving a voice to social entrepreneurs in the political context through SEND?

Some of the most interesting and most challenging discussions are really about pinning this down.

What is social entrepreneurship? Because if you want to tuck into innovative ideas and concepts and a view on impact rather than organisational growth, or a monetary profit into the existing structures, you need to really find where you can link existing structures to what you offer or where you need to change existing structures.

We actually talk a lot about the different playing fields that social entrepreneurs are in. Some social entrepreneurs are rather classical social start-ups, which operate in the field of changing the way we consume, maybe the way we produce, the way we go about services, et cetera. And those probably need different things. They need opening up of economical programs. They need accelerators to open up towards non-profit structures and so forth.

There is a different set of social entrepreneurs who really don't play the economic game at all, but they are, as Ashoka will say, innovators for the public. They would be driving movements. They, really with a systems perspective, look at where do we need to change what, build which alliances, which markets, et cetera. And those need different kinds of structural support. And both groups are relevant. If we look at societal transitions for both groups and SEND, we try to really create linkage points. We're good in technical innovation, policy and support of technical innovations. But what does an infrastructure need to look like that supports social innovation?

That changes how we live with each other in the future and overcome social issues. And that's also looking at how we can move forward in certain topic areas. Obviously climate change is an important one, but also new ways of consuming could be one. Innovating in the social sector is an important one. So, talking with welfare players and talking about transfer into welfare organisations. Just to name a couple of fields that we're playing in.

I love this distinction you make between the systems level thinkers who want to change the system. And then I hear what you’re saying on the other hand about the startups that are operating within the system but still innovating in the way they go about doing business. Do you have any favourite or go to examples of such social entrepreneurs that you think are a great example of running a social enterprise, changing systems, consumerism or behaviour?

Well let me just add one thing that I find very helpful when talking about the different approaches and levels and what is social entrepreneurship. Obviously the lines are blurry to some extent, but, at Ashoka we often talk about the different levels or targets of impact, right? Obviously, you can innovate by doing direct service, you can directly help someone and that might be good, and much of our social action and need is on that level and obviously you can move beyond and scale direct service, right? So that's also helpful. Our hypothesis would be, and is underlined also by many findings from very successful social entrepreneurs;

if we actually want to tackle issues - social issues and where they come from - we need to look beyond the symptoms.

And looking beyond the symptoms, what do we say when we talk about the systems perspective? Changing systemic root causes and changing mindsets, and changing how people act and believe addressing symptoms might be a good thing and it could also lead to people thinking differently, but it needs a good combination. We would always call for social entrepreneurs to look at which level they want to address and if there is a systemic thing. That being said, there's a couple of people that I actually am in love with. One of those is Nicole Rycroft. She's the founder of Canopy. You should definitely check it out. There's a nice little anecdote to it too, because she is known for greening Harry Potter. Because after being an activist standing in front of those big machineries, taking forests down, she said, “I need to find a way that's more impactful!”

With Canopy she worked with the key players. She said, “Let's use market logic to change systems. She worked with the most-consuming paper producers in the U.S. and in Canada I believe, to actually unite them in an Alliance, creating new standards for at first recycled paper. Then they developed paper from straw, and they had patents on it and so forth. And then she said, well, let's look at who else needs fibres from trees. And it's the fashion industry. So [she said], ‘hey Zara, hey H&M, let's build an alliance on that level.’ And that, to me, is a perfect example of pulling the right levers and playing on a systemic level.

I think this gives us a fantastic first taste. Between your work for Ashoka, Germany and the Social Entrepreneurship Network, Germany, what is one thing in Germany particularly that you think could be better that we still need to work on and improve?

Well Germany is very organised and that's a very good thing, for many things. But, routines are not very helpful for innovative processes. The further we move towards trying to create a culture that allows innovation, experimentation, failing, learning and all of that quickly and in quick iterations in partnerships on eye-level, the more I see it’s really a cultural thing we need to work on.

The most successful social entrepreneurs tell stories of having funders that see themselves as partners, as long-term partners with an open mind to co-impact and alliance building.

It's just a handful of people and many with good will. But we have too much output orientation. It's a culture of people being slapped on the shoulder for saying “I spent 50 billion on a school program!”, but no one goes beyond that, asking “And what did that change? We do have a cultural issue still if we want to go about things. And this is a big piece of, I want it to say a bad word, but it's a big piece of work.

I think there's certainly a trend that we see in the U.S. as well, of getting really fixated on numbers and outputs without really questioning whether they're meaningful in any way.

It's interesting that you also say that, but those are hard questions, right? And I see that and I don't have the answer to all of them, but it's too easy to say “I can measure how many people we reached and I'm happy with that.” It's just not enough.

I think it ties back to what you said earlier about “You can address symptoms and if that's all you want to do, maybe the reach of people tells you whether you're not successful or not. But once we peel back these layers of this really thick onion of what is the actual root cause, I think our answer to impact needs to be related to those root causes. And that will probably, I would assume, never be completely quantitative and never be completely qualitative, but probably a fine walk between those two.

Right, and I love this book. Have you read this book [called] System's Thinking by Donella Meadows? It's a wonderful book, and one of her first sentences is The universe is messy, deal with it. I love her for saying that!

So simple and so true. As the last question, what resources or books do you recommend to emerging social entrepreneurs or even ecosystem builders like yourself to learn more about social entrepreneurship, social impact, and all of this system thinking that you've been talking about?

Well the one I named, A System's Thinking by Donella Meadows, is a fun to read book. It actually is fun. If I may self-promote the work of a couple of colleagues of mine, look at www.changemaking.net, in which we tried to create an easy guide to systems-thinking and to check your idea: which level are you working on, have you figured out which system you're working on? Do you actually know what you want to change in the world? And so forth. It has worksheets and videos, and it's also fun.

Then there is a German book that I read recently, and I don't know if there's an English translation, but it would be lovely. It is called The Art of Societal Change by Uwe Schneidewind. It is very known in Germany. It's so cool because it lays out six or seven basic transformations that we need to master as humankind. It also lays out which role, each stakeholder group in society can and should play in these transformations. I found it was just a very good contextual thing of finding motivation to work towards transformation and finding your role as a social innovator or maybe also a different role. We need many people on board for the kind of challenges we have.

Fantastic. Laura, thank you so much for your time and sharing. It was so wonderful to talk to you.