#4 Malaysian Social Entrepreneurship

I have an infographic about social entrepreneurship in Malaysia from my lecturer, Mr Michael. It was designed by Malaysia Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA Malaysia).The graph showed that the average team size of social entrepreneur is normally developed by 6 people. The gender of founders is normally 1 out of 3 are male. It means there are more female involved in social entrepreneurship in Malaysia. The fact really surprised me which I thought there maybe more male interested in this kind of entrepreneur. Obviously, I was wrong. The areas of impact by Malaysian social entrepreneurship are culture (40%), disabled (20%), youth (20%), delinquent (10%) and human rights (10%). On the other hand, there are various types of industries which social entrepreneurs joined in such as culture/fashion (30%), entertainment (20%), events for youth (20%), food & art (10%), auto (10%) and consulting-research (10%). From the graph shown in picture, there are 50% social entrepreneurs that supported by government, yet the other 50% are not. Approximately 45% of the social entrepreneur companies have either disbanded or changed directions in terms of target communities or products/services.

Besides, there are some startup barriers reasons for social entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The first reason stated is fundings shortage. The fact stated that 90% social entrepreneurs in Malaysia used their own money as startup capital, while another 10% was funded by donations/grants. Yet this is not the biggest problem faced in Malaysia according to the people in SEA Malaysia. The second reason is unable to recruit or retain quality talent. This may be a factor because most of the talented youths will be more interested to higher income and potential job. The third and fourth reasons are lacking of physical infrastructure for community and difficulty sourcing affordable quality materials which I actually not really understand this point. Maybe some of the social entrepreneurs industries need some affordable facilities and sources to develop their corporate. Next, the lack of motivation from addressable communities is also one of the barriers in social entrepreneurs in Malaysia. There are no campaign or media that really works popular to tell people what to do with social entrepreneurship. Another reason is the weak business model understanding and planning. The startup team maybe mistaken the social problems or gave out solution which did not work effectively to the society. The last factor is public's misperception of social entrepreneurship. It is because mostly the people do not know what social entrepreneurship is. The term is too strange for people, it seems like one kind of free business or whatever. Some social entrepreneurs even do not know they actually are social entrepreneurs, but just thought they are normal businesses.

From the infographic, I know more about the situation of social entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The biggest problem we faced is the public do not know much on social entrepreneurship, or some even do not hear it before. When the people have better understanding on it, then most of the barriers can be overcome.