A couple of years ago I had the privilege and honour to be involved in a social enterprise called Dialogue in the Dark (DID). DID organises educational and entertainment experiences in specially constructed dark rooms guided by the blind or the visually impaired. Visitors to these dark rooms are able to experience normal daily places such as a park, a market and a café through sound, smell, temperature and texture. Such normal routines take on a completely different experience in the absence of light. DID also provides an opportunity for a reversal of roles where sighted people are taken out of their familiar environment while the blind provides the assurance and security in a world of darkness.
DID is a social enterprise because it straddles the middle ground between a for-profit enterprise and an enterprise that is driven by a social mission. DID makes money by charging its visitors a fee in consideration for the experience of a world of darkness. The fee earned are used to cover its rental and other operating expenditure including paying its visually impaired guides and facilitators fair wages. Surplus from its revenue generating activities are used to enhance the skills of the visually impaired and to fund other related social initiatives such as the prevention of unnecessary blindness and creating awareness of the role of guide dogs in helping the visually impaired community.
Unlike in a pure for-profit venture where profit maximisation is its primary objective, the social mission of DID takes precedence over its profit making activities. Adopting a revenue generating model enables DID to reduce its reliance on donations to fund its social mission. A revenue generating model, if successfully implemented, can provide a means to sustain its social mission. A charity model that relies on donations are often unreliable and not sustainable. DID, the social enterprise, therefore adopts the view that making profits should not be an end unto itself but a means to continuously support its social mission.
Starting with Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship has become a key social and economic development agenda for Malaysia. In 2013, the Government announced a special allocation of RM20 million to set-up a social entrepreneurship department within the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC). The National Social Entrepreneurship Blueprint was subsequently launched in 2014 to provide a roadmap for the creation of a social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Malaysia. There are now an estimated 100 social enterprises operating in Malaysia.
DID Malaysia was established in 2012 by Stevens Chan, who lost his eyesight at the age of 45 years due to glaucoma five years earlier. DID Malaysia is part of a global organisation that started in Frankfurt, Germany in 1988 and is now present in 30 countries and 130 cities. DID provided Stevens with a renewed purpose in life to prevent what had happened to him from happening to others. DID became his vehicle to sustain his mission to prevent unnecessary blindness by enabling the sighted to experience the world without sight for a brief moment.
Meaningful Learning
The first key lesson that I have learned from my involvement with DID is that running a social enterprise is so much harder than running a conventional profit-making business. While the latter has only one single focus which is to maximise profits, the former needs to balance its social mission with its revenue generating activities. For example, there is a need for DID to provide a conducive and supportive working environment for the blind and visually impaired which may often limit its ability to innovate its product offerings. There is often no exit strategy for a social enterprise like DID as its founder is too invested in its social mission. The return on investment is not measured financially but on the social impact the social enterprise is making.
The second lesson is the challenge to make people believe in DID’s business model of selling the darkness experience as a bona fide learning tool that can be commercialised. The world without light offers a tremendous learning environment to experience empathy and to practice effective listening and communication skills. It also provides a superb platform to learn about leadership and team work. The sustainability of social enterprises like DID requires people to look beyond the social good and be able to see that what they offer will add value to their lives and they are willing to monetise that value through their purchasing power.
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