DO GOOD X Podcast

Ep. 42 Exploring Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Impact with Dr. Sara Minard

• Kimberly Daniel, Stephen Lewis, Dr. Sara Minard • Episode 42

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Welcome to the DO GOOD X podcast, your trusted source for insights and inspiration to help you build impactful businesses! In this episode, hosts Kimberly Daniel and Stephen Lewis welcome Dr. Sara Minard for an engaging conversation on redefining development and fostering social entrepreneurship. Together, they dive into topics like the transformative power of informal markets, economist Amartya Sen's profound work, and social capital's critical role in driving sustainable change. Dr. Minard also shares valuable strategies for measuring and demonstrating impact, navigating fundraising pitfalls, and embracing multidimensional approaches to human well-being. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking discussion, resourceful insights. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

(00:00) Introduction
(03:24) Dr. Minard’s journey of social entrepreneurship and sustainable investing
(09:53) Discussion of the work of Amartya Sen
(14:24) Dr. Minard discusses some fundraising pitfalls
(16:18) How can social entrepreneurs measure and demonstrate their impact
(19:57) Head to DO GOOD X to explore resources
(20:16) Dr. Minard answers questions “off the cuff.”
(25:08) The hosts discuss their guilty pleasures and encourage the listener to indulge for a moment

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • Although informal markets are often overlooked, they are rich in social capital and trust and demonstrate remarkable resilience and resourcefulness in low-income communities.
  • Actual development focuses on human well-being and capabilities, going beyond GDP measurements to include multidimensional aspects such as education, trust, and community values.
  • Trust and reciprocity are critical in addressing market imperfections and fostering collective action in communities facing economic challenges.

RESOURCES:  

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DO GOOD X -  Instagram

GUEST BIOGRAPHY: 

Dr. Sara Minard, Ph.D. in Economics from Sciences Po, Paris (highest honors), conducted groundbreaking research on social entrepreneurship in Senegal under Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. Founder and CEO of Manarine LLC, she specializes in impact measurement, sustainable investing, and participatory governance, with over 25 years of experience working globally with organizations like the World Bank, OECD, and NGOs. Dr. Minard is the Associate Director of the Mockler Center for Faith and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a professor at Columbia University, teaching sustainable investing and impact management. Fluent in French and Wolof, she also lives on a family farm in New Jersey and is a certified yoga and meditation instructor.

Episode 42 - Sara Minard, PhD. - Transcript

Narrator: [00:00:00] Welcome to the do good X podcast, a sanctuary from the entrepreneurial grind host Kimberly, Danielle, and Stephen Lewis advocates for impactful entrepreneurship guide you on the path where purpose meets business. Join us to slow down, reconnect, and explore the challenges of under resourced entrepreneurs, uncovering the unique journey of building businesses that make a difference.

Now you're hosts.

Kimberly R. Daniel: Welcome everyone to the Duke edX podcast. My name is Kimberly Danielle, and I am a community builder, a coach, and a communication strategist who comes from generations of faith driven entrepreneurs and leaders who believe that our purpose should drive us to contribute to the common good. And as always, I am here with my wonderful cohost, Steven.

Hey, [00:01:00] Steven. 

Stephen Lewis: Hey Kimberly. I am a catalyst for positive change in communities and businesses. And for over two decades, I've inspired leaders and entrepreneurs to live and work on purpose with intention, faith, and a commitment to the wellbeing. And so I want to thank you for tuning in today for our conversation.

I'm excited, Kimberly, to talk to our guest today. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: I am too. 

Stephen Lewis: Yes. So Dr. C. Sarah Menard is the founder and CEO of Manarine LLC, an international consulting firm dedicated to impact measurement, social enterprise. Sustainable investing and participatory governance with a PhD in economics from Sciences Pro Paris.

Her work, guided by Nobel Laureate Amitara Sen, involves research on social entrepreneurs in Senegal, where she also serves as a small business Peace Corps volunteer. Sarah has served [00:02:00] as a social economist for international financial institutions, regional governments, universities, NGOs, community based organizations, and companies from West Africa to Appalachia to India.

She has over 25 years of experience working with diverse stakeholders on connecting global, regional, and local economic development strategies. with policies and practices for sustainability and ethical private sector investment, particularly in social enterprises. Sarah is also the associate director of the Mochler Center for Faith and Ethics and Public Square at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and teaches at Columbia University, focusing on sustainable investing and impact measurement.

Fluent in French and Wolof, she lives on a family farm in New Jersey and is also a certified yoga and meditation teacher and she is also our [00:03:00] pitch coach. And a champion for I do good ex fellows. So welcome, Sarah. So good to have you with us. 

Sara Minard, PhD.: Thank you so much, Stephen and Kimberly. It's such a delight to be here.

Stephen Lewis: You have extensive experience in ethical investing, social enterprises and in the impact space. So can you share a little with us? about what inspired you to pursue this work in jurn? 

Sara Minard, PhD.: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's a great question. Um, I get it often from my students. How did you get to where you're going or where you're teaching?

Why did you end up teaching this stuff? And I, I would say that, you know, the first piece of this was, uh, in college, as most of us, you know, we find something that really Sets us on fire, you know, so for me, it was, you know, San Francisco women's studies, legal studies, understanding constitutional law, and then, of course, you know, experimenting with the world at that age of, you know, traveling to different places.

I did a little stint in El Salvador, where I [00:04:00] understood really deep poverty for the 1st time in rural villages with women and. The slash and burn techniques that USAID and other, uh, you know, Americans that in my name were destroying communities. And it, it made me really angry. And so I tried to figure out what to do with that anger and that sense of injustice.

Um, so I moved to DC, uh, I wanted to be in the action. Uh, so I wanted to work in women and development in DC and found a wonderful job at an organization called interaction. Which is a coalition of NGOs that work, um, in international development. And it's a great experience, uh, worked with a lot of really cool organizations and all of the cool people that would be coming into this office in DC.

Uh, with, you know, long, cool hair and awesome outfits. And I was like, where are these people? These are, these look like the really cool people. And they all, they, everybody said, oh, those are Peace Corps volunteers. And I was like, oh! So I had not really known about Peace Corps in college or anything. And so it really struck me as like, this sounds like if you really want to be in the [00:05:00] action, you know, this is sort of the thing to do.

Um, and, and so Congress, you know, ripped our funding. Uh, and I was looking for something to do. Uh, did a little stint on a campaign in Louisiana, um, because I just wanted to get active in politics and women's leadership, um, and then went up to the Senate for a little bit. And when I was up in the Senate as a legislative assistant to Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, I, um, I also saw a lot of really Powerful things that policy can do and also, um, the wide range of issues that citizens bring to leaders, um, everything from, you know, um, just, you know, the environmental racism that is in Louisiana with a lot of the sugar plantations, and then a lot of people with just really simple, but also complex issues like health roads, you know, everything.

Um, and it really made me, uh, passionate for finding solutions, but of course you're in Congress, and so it was also frustrating because I was still that college [00:06:00] activist deep down inside and writing letters was just not doing it for me, so I decided to do the Peace Corps. So I applied to the Peace Corps and I went to Senegal, West Africa.

I had two choices. I could have gone to Jordan and work on like NGO development, or I could have gone to Senegal and worked on small business development and coming from a business family. I didn't really have any expectations except that I wanted to work really hard. I was, you know, 27 felt like really in really good shape, you know, yoga and like, just like, I really wanted to be in.

Um, a challenging situation, both intellectually, spiritually, culturally, and physically. Um, and you know, God gave me what I asked for. Um, I was in a really challenging place. It was an incredible experience, but it was also incredibly hard. Um, you know, I was, um, you know, the only white person in many, many kilometers.

Uh, didn't speak the local language, no running water, electricity, and. [00:07:00] Had to rely on some of the most simple things of who I am as a person. None of my training, none of my degrees, none of my, none of that mattered. All that mattered was, can I smile? Can I lift up heavy things? Can I listen? Can I sit for long periods of time and just complete discomfort?

And still respect and honor people and take care of myself. And it was a really amazing experience on how to do that. And those lessons of how to learn and listen from people, despite your discomfort, has carried me through a lot in my life and really shaped a lot of the decisions that I've made about things that I've done.

Um. But I think the most, one of the biggest takeaways from Senegal, uh, was understanding how powerful informal markets are and how they, um, you know, the markets where poor people, right, or quote unquote poor people, they're incredibly rich in so many ways, but [00:08:00] Low income, very, very low income, low resource populations and what they do in terms of developing value and creating value using social capital and trust and how they manage resources.

It's just incredible and watching my village mother do the most amazing things with this women's group and raise 14 children and no one ever went hungry. And it's just incredible when you think about the power of that. So I decided that that's. The stuff I wanted to study. I wanted to study why these incredible markets that are considered informal and peripheral are not central to the way that we understand quote unquote, private sector development.

And so, um, that's what I decided to do my PhD on. Well, I didn't know I was going to do a PhD at that point, but I was going to do a master's degree. So after the peace Corps, I went to Columbia, um, and studied international development with a little bit of a slant on, on economics. And, and my minor was in African studies.

And, uh, and I did that for a couple of semesters, um, and then went to Sciences Po [00:09:00] in Paris was a double degree program and was able to do, um, another degree there on additional masters that really focused more on this kind of, you know, um. African studies slash economics piece. And that was a really exciting experience because not only did I have to learn French very, very quickly, um, and it was wonderful to be in Paris.

But, you know, Paris is so close to Africa in so many ways. Um, just obviously colonial history, but also geography. Paris is like a hub of West African culture. So it's just a wonderful place to study it and to be part of it and immersed in that. And while I was there, um, I learned a lot about the field of economics that I had not really thought about before, particularly how, um, the theories we use shape our thinking, shape the tools we use.

Um, and so I really started to dive deep into the work of Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate from India. Um, whose work [00:10:00] was really around how do we define development through the lens of a multidimensional human being. So most of GDP is, is all income, right? It's all income driven. What rises the economy, what decreases the economy tends to be what people buy and sell and And he challenged that completely empirically by looking at the fact that well being and all the aspects of education and our abilities to live out our capabilities as human beings is actually what creates true development.

And so that was, uh, resonated with my life experience in Senegal and in general growing up on a farm here in New Jersey. But also I think just the ethics of development, which I was, um, I realized there is a lot of inertia in the international development space in any space where there's resources and policies, right?

Uh, there's this thing called path dependence. It's very hard to change things once they're going. And so I wanted to [00:11:00] dedicate my intellectual work to that. And so I did a PhD on the power of social capital. Uh, which is really another way of saying trust because language is a bond that you develop these levels of reciprocity and understanding around shared value and the power of social capital to really remedy is some of the presumed market imperfections that come with poverty.

The idea that you can't predict things because you don't have prices. And so I did my PhD on that work. I did a lot of survey research and of course, interviews with people in my village and other people in Senegal around their experience as social entrepreneurs. And I defined social entrepreneurs through the lens of Senegal.

And my idea was I would have the definition of social entrepreneurship through the lens of social capital and Wolof and trust and actually, um, Religion, because a huge part of their experience is through Sufism, through the brotherhoods, [00:12:00] um, the Maureeds and the Tijan brotherhoods, and the power of religion and faith to actually, um, work on difficult things together in community and create collective action.

Um, and that was, and so social entrepreneurship, my, my thesis was, how do we inform the understanding of social entrepreneurship so that Africa can inform the West? Not have the West and form Africa. And that was really the purpose of my Ph. D. Um, and I think I succeeded. Um, because of Marcia said, uh, was the director of my Ph.

D. jury. And he looked at me after I defended and said, how does it feel to get highest honors? And it was the one moment, as you can tell I'm pretty loquacious, where I had nothing to say, except tears and bows of gratitude and thanks, um, because for, to be seen by someone like that, to really be seen is a powerful feeling.

So I decided to take that work and, uh, teach it. [00:13:00] And make it, um, you know, come alive, uh, in young people and in scholarship and in policy and practice, I'm one of those academics that has to always be doing practice. And so that's why I started a consulting firm. I really enjoy working with private sector and with entrepreneurs, which is where you all come in.

Um, you know, just really being able to engage with amazing social entrepreneurs that, um, are driven by faith, um, but that also understand that so many of the solutions. Um, are, are interfaith in the sense that they tap into values that are in some ways so much universal and, and, and that also, you know, um, the power of ideas of new ideas in practice unleash so much in society and they break down a lot of barriers and they get at that path dependent thing I was mentioning earlier.

So. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: Well, I love that your journey intersects education, policy. Practice and [00:14:00] action, um, and working with social enterprises and kind of zooming in on the work that you've done with social enterprises internationally. Um, I'm curious to hear about what are some of the common challenges or opportunities that you've seen for these businesses that specifically focus on making some type of positive impact.

Sara Minard, PhD.: I think the big challenge is confidence. So a lot of folks think that they don't deserve the money. How can I ask for that much? How can I ask for money? What, you know, there's, there's a little bit of a confidence barrier. Um, there's also a, what part of my story should I be telling? Because, hey, it's my story.

I want to tell the whole thing. So I think part of it is, um, helping them to shape the pieces that they might want to save for a Q& A or they're going to save for another conversation. So what are the nuggets? What are the most [00:15:00] important? What's the hook? What's the, you know, what's the problem? What's the solution?

Um, how is the solution going to be rolled out? And why do they need funding for it? And what are they going to do with the funding? And so I think that's kind of the, the pitch flow and it's hard because. Pitches are short and you have to be pithy and, uh, punchy. And, um, and so there is also an, a personality sort of shaping here that everybody's personality is different.

You don't have to necessarily change who you are in your pitch, you want to be authentic to yourself, but you also have to remember that speaking is an art, um, and that you have to, um, you know, find your cadence in how you speak with your pitch. So that people really understand you. It's the art of persuasion.

Um, and that they're excited to learn more. Um, so it's a balance between confidence and vulnerability. Um, it's, you know, being sort of specific but [00:16:00] also comprehensive. So it's, it takes a lot of practice. I work with clients where we are changing the pitch hundreds of times until we get it right. 

Stephen Lewis: Sarah, so how can social entrepreneurs effectively measure and demonstrate Well, 

Sara Minard, PhD.: the first thing is being really clear about who they're serving and Um, understanding the, the problem, the, um, and the objectives and the expected outcomes and all of that of their business model through the lens of, uh, the people that they're serving.

So, um, so as a social enterprise, really the goal is not just solving problems, but solving problems in significant ways for people on the planet. impact measurement in general, every kind of measurement is by definition comparison. So if you don't have a baseline, if you don't have a [00:17:00] starting point, if you don't have a clear understanding of the depth and scale of the problem, then you don't really know how to Set up your goals for what to look for when change is happening.

So it's really important, whether it's a theory of change model or whatever you want to use to understand the scope and scale of the challenge, how your unique solution is getting at it. What piece of it you're actually holding yourself accountable for, and then how throughout the process of what you're developing and offering, how those people that you're engaging are impacted.

Now, what's challenging, of course, is most businesses don't just work with the people that they want to help. They need everything along the way, right? There's a value chain. So you need people to help you with lots of different things. Um, so the real, the real issue with effective impact measurement and [00:18:00] management is figuring out what it is that you.

Want to manage yourself as an organization and what your relationship is towards all the other people in your business model or in your value chain that actually are, you're, you're affecting whether or not you need something from them or you're, you're, you know, impacting them in some way. And so what we forget about a lot is that measurement is actually relationship.

It's not just you setting up your index and your metrics and checking off the things that you need to measure. It's really getting an iterative relationship with people to understand in what ways that you're falling short or succeeding and how those effects are being felt. And so, so there's a qualitative and a quantitative aspect of all impact measurement and management.

Storytelling is a really important part. So understanding your own [00:19:00] story as a founder, and then understanding the stories of the people whose solution you're impacting and how to capture those stories. There's wonderful organizations out there doing really useful work on how to collect. stakeholder experiences from a more authentic place.

So really integrating equity and diversity into our impact management and measurement models. And then also understanding that measurement is in very imperfect science. Because what you're trying to do is create a limited reality on something that is dynamic, circular, and, um, and sort of always, um, a learning experience.

And so how do you incorporate, back to donut economics, these feedback loops of systems? into your information gathering so that you can really learn from your measurement tools and not just look at it as a reporting or a compliance exercise. 

Stephen Lewis: That's great. Are you ready to level up your business with a [00:20:00] supportive community?

Head to Dougudex. org to explore resources and support that can help you and your journey. And don't forget to share this episode with someone who might be inspired and rate us to help us create resources for others. Now we're going to turn to our segment that we call Off the Cuff. So we have a series of questions that have not been shared with Sarah that we would like to ask at a fast pace.

And here we really want to hear from you your, um, first gut response, Sarah, to these questions and they are uncensored. All right. All right. So what is one daily, weekly or monthly practice that sets you up for success in your work? 

Sara Minard, PhD.: My yoga practice. It's where I connect with, um, the limitations of my human physical form and tap into the breath of life that's given to us by God and let [00:21:00] myself to settle with that and feel the gift of that and also realize how important it is to move our bodies with our breath and feel alive.

And when you feel grounded in that level of kind of acknowledging where you are and that's okay and accepting that. then you're willing to be a good sounding board for other people who also just need to accept who they are and where they are. Um, so that's my, that's my practice has helped me to show up for other people is, is my own personal journey on that.

Kimberly R. Daniel: What is your superpower or a gift that you bring to the world? 

Sara Minard, PhD.: I would say it is, um, consensus. Uh, it's finding ways to bring everyone's different ideas together in a way that helps us move an idea forward. 

Stephen Lewis: Sarah, what do you do to navigate [00:22:00] roadblocks and build confidence? 

Sara Minard, PhD.: Well, again, back to the body. I think, um, you know, doing exercises where you are feeling the strength of your body and just feeling confident in who you are as a person and how God made you and just celebrating who you are, I think, is a really important one.

We tend to always compare ourselves to other people, so it's really important to, um, focus on that. And then, um, I think most of the roadblocks are mental, right? They're, they're sort of, oh, I can't do this or. Um, this seems too hard or, um, I, who am I to do this or, and so I think a lot of it is recognizing that, you know, boldness has power and magic and genius in it.

And so really coming back to the power of that, of the boldness of an idea and, um, remembering that you have no idea what's going to happen around the corner and always to expect extraordinarily wonderful things to [00:23:00] happen. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: How much of your success do you attribute to your own grit, will, and hustle versus your faith?

Sara Minard, PhD.: Um, well, that's a good question. I mean, I, I almost Don't extricate them like I full I think they're inextricable. Um, my ability to respond to things is often because I'm just trusting God because I don't have the answer, which is often and I would say, um, my grit and my desire to do things. A lot of it.

As I told you in my story earlier is, um. When it's driven by my desire to make the world a better place and to make people have access to things they don't and to really remedy injustices that as a privileged white woman coming from a family with resources, I have been able to have so many benefits and I want to make sure that I'm one of the people in the world that Tries to correct the [00:24:00] imbalance in, in our society.

And so, um, that comes from my faith as well, is anchored in Jesus's life. 

Stephen Lewis: We'll complete this sentence. Because of my entrepreneurial endeavors, communities will be or are more able to do 

Sara Minard, PhD.: things that integrate different communities and that see nature as a partner at the table. 

Stephen Lewis: Well, Sarah. We'll have to leave it at that.

Thank you so much for being with us and sharing a little bit of your story and the ways in which you contribute to help a new generation of entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, find their way to make the world more of what we long to see. 

Sara Minard, PhD.: Well, thank you, Stephen. And thank you, Kimberly, for having me. And thank you for all the good work you do at Do Good X.

Take care. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: Thank you, Sarah. We appreciate you.

Stephen Lewis: Kimberly, that was a wonderful conversation with Sarah. And man, I wish we had more time to [00:25:00] dig even deeper into some of the wisdom that she brought to our conversation. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. I wish we had more time too. 

Stephen Lewis: So, let me ask you this. What is one guilty pleasure of yours? Or maybe it's something that you enjoy indulging in.

Kimberly R. Daniel: So I'm always mindful of what I am taking in, even like reading or scrolling through things or what I watch. Um, but I have to say you like one of my guilty pleasures is, is watching. I guess crime investigative based shows. And so, um, uh, for instance, one of the shows that I've recently watched is reasonable doubt, uh, or, uh, found that's another one as well.

Also. I'm [00:26:00] also going back and finishing up Godfather of Harlem, which is a, you know, so, you know, that's one of my guilty pleasures alongside of superhero type shows. Especially now on Prime, there's this show called Invincible. Which is a comic and really been enjoying that. So that's one of my guilty pleasures.

It gives me the opportunity to just turn my brain off, just turn it off. So typically when I'm cooking, I'll put it on, I'll put my headphones in because I do have a little one, you know, there's some things that might be said that she shouldn't be hearing. So I just put my headphones in and I enjoy that while I am cooking dinner in the evening.

So yeah. What about you, Steven? 

Stephen Lewis: You 

Kimberly R. Daniel: know, 

Stephen Lewis: I, my, my youngest daughter and I, we had this kind of exchange. She'll show me [00:27:00] something on Tik TOK. I'll send something to her. And it really is around, you know, like making some of these decadent kinds of sweets. Or maybe it's some type of new meal or recipe that she says, Oh, we ought to try, we ought to do.

And so I really enjoy that time of bonding and sharing with her. But also I really like those sweets that we get to make or bake and be able to indulge in. 

Kimberly R. Daniel: What's your favorite so far that you've made? 

Stephen Lewis: You know, we made this apple crostata and man, let me tell you, it was marvelous. So it's good. It's good.

As you can tell, you know, I have a sweet tooth. So anyway, um, 

Kimberly R. Daniel: okay, well, um, you know, maybe we can start putting in some orders for that dessert. [00:28:00] Maybe I can get one dropped off at my door.

If you are tuning in. You know, at times we just need to have a moment to just indulge in something that brings us pleasure and something that brings us joy because life brings us enough challenges. And so we need these moments. So take a moment today to indulge. Just a moment, even if it's just five minutes in the midst of your busy day, indulge, give yourself grace and enjoy it in those moments until next time, be well and do good.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Do Good X podcast. To continue the conversation or access our resources, visit www. dogoodx. org. Join us again for conversations that will nourish [00:29:00] your soul, ignite your dreams. and empower you to build an impactful business, one intentional step at a time. Until then, keep striving, thriving, and doing good.