Taiwan’s first integrated social enterprise Internet platform, 17 Support, will come online Aug. 10, selling cakes and confectionery made by such places as sheltered workshops and institutions caring for the mentally handicapped, and environmentally-friendly organic farm produce.
“People can give to charity at the same time as shopping,” said Hu Jersan, a management professor at Fu Jen Catholic University and secretary of Taiwan Social Enterprise Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society, which established 17 Support. “Regular businesses try to maximize profit for the shareholders, whereas in a social enterprise, profit is split between workers, shareholders and the community.”
TSEIES is headed by renowned computer science professor Lee Chia-tung, and the platform’s first offering is a boxed gift set for the Hungry Ghost Festival, which falls on the 15th of the seventh lunar month.
Hu said that unlike charities, social enterprises still have to make money and are structured differently to nonprofit organizations. But at the same as making money, social enterprises work to solve social problems, which is their big difference from regular businesses. For example, the Big Issue magazine is sold by the homeless and NT$50 (US$ 1.68) of the NT$100 cover price goes back to them.
TSEIES is holding a launch party and social enterprise fair Aug. 10 at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial hall in Taipei City, featuring stalls from 51 charity groups including Deaflive Bakery, the Garden of Hope Foundation, Mama Su’s Handmade Meatballs, Taiwan Wheat farmers’ cooperative and Victory Potential Development Centre for the Disabled.
Mama Su has been suffering from two types of cancer for the past 19 years, but she keeps an optimistic outlook and is busy visiting patients at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital. The 80-year-old has taken on the challenge of handmaking borax and preservative-free meatballs, donating the profits to such groups as the Taichung and Kaohsiung City Anti-Cancer Societies.
“Taiwan has about 150 social enterprises, and plenty of them are microbusinesses run by one or two people,” Hu said, adding that there are two kinds of social enterprise: the English style, which is directed by the government, and another type like Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, based in civil society. Taiwan has both kinds, he said, and they are imbued with the entrepreneurial spirit of small and medium enterprises.
DBS Bank (Taiwan) Ltd. is supporting the social enterprise fair, timed to coincide with Family Day. “Better to give someone a fishing rod than a fish,” said DBS operations manager Yang Chen-li.
Social enterprises are suited to the warm, giving nature of Taiwan’s people. (SDH)
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw