The BEST Society: From Charity to Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

This chapter is a case study of a multi-award winning Malaysian non-governmental organization (NGO), the Borneo Ecotourism Solutions and Technologies (BEST) Society, and its sustainable community development model. The case study draws upon social entrepreneurship literature, Diffusion of Innovations theory and the concept of toxic charity to propose a four-step sustainable community development model, which nurtures social entrepreneurship in the final step. As financial difficulties increasingly trim direct and indirect governmental support for those in need, NGOs such as BEST seek to address this shortfall with long-term and sustainable solutions for the underprivileged and underserved. Based on almost two decades of experience, BEST has learned that simply giving charity creates dependency, a non-sustainable and temporary patch that tends to make the recipients worse off than receiving no charity. BEST has shifted from giving charity to developing social entrepreneurs, who create and sustain both social and private value. The first step in BEST’s community development model, community consensus, drives the next three steps: interrupting dependency, building capacity and developing social entrepreneurs. The final step gives the recipients self-belief, self-reliance, self-determination and self-esteem. The chapter and accompanying model provide recommendations for application and future scholarly research of social entrepreneurship and sustainable community development.