We Believe...
- In Entrepreneurship. We believe the fundamental force of social change in the 21st century will be forged by social entrepreneurs who create Unreasonable Ventures - innovative, self-sustaining models that address issues in ways that can be scaled to millions across the globe. Entrepreneurship is the answer to our world's greatest challenges.
- In Unreasonable People. George Bernard Shaw famously declared, "the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man [and woman]." We believe in unreasonable people. We believe in those who are just crazy enough to ignore the skeptics, who remain undeterred by persistent failure, and who, above all, are convinced they can change the world. In fact, we select for it. Read more
- In Practicing What We Preach. Every Unreasonable venture must be purposeful, self-sustaining, scalable, and copyleftable, including The Unreasonable Institute itself. Our purpose is to produce globally-minded social entrepreneurs who develop solutions to the world's most pressing issues. Through programs fees and income from the Unreasonable Conference/Pitchfest, we recover the cost of our operations. And once our model is proven effective, we'll copyleft it. In doing so The Unreasonable Institute and similar organizations dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurs will spread around the world - creating a global army of young social entrepreneurs capable of tackling the world's greatest challenges.
- "This is Not Charity." We believe in a new form of social investment. We will utilize the kiva.org model of online investment and apply it to social entrepreneurs with for-purpose ventures. We are creating a central website where Unreasonable Fellows can post their ideas, pitches & business plans, and where social investors can provide loans, grants, and investment to fund Unreasonable ventures. Once up and running, social ventures developed at the Institute generate their own revenue without depending on external assistance. We just give them wings. To quote President Bill Clinton, “this is not charity,” this is social investment.
"Business is the only mechanism on the planet today powerful enough to produce the changes necessary to reverse global environments and social degradation." -Paul Hawken
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