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New Report Released at Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) Finds Human Capital a Crisis for Scaling Social Enterprise
[June 23, 2016]

New Report Released at Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) Finds Human Capital a Crisis for Scaling Social Enterprise


A report released at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit today shines light on the human capital crisis of social enterprises and provides new insights and actionable recommendations for how entrepreneurs and funders can scale. The research findings reveal that access to talent and funding are by far the two toughest challenges for social entrepreneurs, but talent is the lone challenge that gets tougher as companies mature.

The Human Capital Crisis: How Social Enterprises Can Find the Talent to Scale, published by Silicon Valley-based foundation RippleWorks, is the first report of its kind in that it captures perspectives of more than 600 social entrepreneurs and investors in 59 countries, providing a pulse of the global ecosystem of entrepreneurship. The report was developed with analytical support from McKinsey & Company (News - Alert), funding from Omidyar Network and survey distribution through more than 40 different entrepreneur-supporting intermediaries.

"This research aims to help entrepreneurs, funders and those who support entrepreneurs to dramatically improve how we tackle the human capital crisis," said Doug Galen, CEO of RippleWorks, which pairs world-class business and technology experts from leading companies like Google (News - Alert), Salesforce and Airbnb with rapidly growing social ventures around the world. "This research of over 600 entrepreneurs gives us a pulse of the landscape of true human capital challenges as well as offers actionable solutions to enhance the entrepreneurs' ability to drive real impact."

Key findings from the report include:

  • 63% of young, unfunded companies and 75% of funded, early stage companies believe the inability to access the talent they need will have high or critical impact on their businesses-this talent challenge eclipses funding as the number onechallenge as companies mature.
  • 45% of entrepreneurs (who have raised less than $2M) identify funding as the #1 hiring challenge, and this persists even as entrepreneurs raise more funding. The research findings highlight areas entrepreneurs can focus on to compete for talent beyond compensation, which is a tough battle in emerging markets against highly capitalized corporations. Recommendations include articulating an employee value proposition that emphasizes meaningful mission, challenging work, company culture and professional development.
  • 38% of companies surveyed revealed that their preferred approach to addressing skill gaps is by training their current staff-funders need to actively support leadership development programs, especially for middle management, to create the long-term executive teams required to scale their startups.
  • Go-to-market capabilities (customer acquisition, business development and sales & field management) are rated as the most important skills needed to meet growth expectations, with over 70% of entrepreneurs citing each of those three areas as very or extremely important to enable them to scale their businesses in the next year.
  • Satisfaction with the value of mentorship drops as companies mature-from 53% to below 25% for later-stage companies-underscoring the need to match mentor expertise to specific company challenges as they scale.
  • Entrepreneurs' satisfaction with mentors rises from 21% to 49% when they engage with mentors at least once a week versus a few times a year, highlighting the need for more frequent engagement.



"The findings underscore that enterprises are not just cash-strapped but people-strapped, and that there is a pressing need for entrepreneurs and investors to focus on tackling the talent gap if social ventures are going to thrive," said Sal Giambanco, Partner, Human Capital of Omidyar Network. "At each stage of growth, across sectors and geographies, there is a critical divide between the talent these enterprises need and the talent they have access to, which impedes their ability to scale and have impact."

The report, The Human Capital Crisis: How Social Enterprises Can Find the Talent to Scale, is available at www.TalentToScale.org.


About RippleWorks

Based in Silicon Valley, RippleWorks pairs leading business and technology experts with promising social ventures around the world, empowering rapidly growing enterprises to scale their businesses and impact. RippleWorks' volunteer expert network consists of 150 world-class executives and entrepreneurs, who partner with ventures to solve immediate problems while building future capacity.


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