Hybrid Organization

In summary, week 10 talks about Hybrid organizations which are, by nature, hard to define. Hybrids organizations often exhibit qualities of both nonprofit and for-profit activities. The core of any hybrid organization lies a commitment of creating positive social or environmental impacts. Hybrids pursue a social mission whiles they engage in commercial activities in order to generate revenue to sustain their operations. The Broken “Buy-One, Give-One” Model which talks about 3 Ways to Save Toms Shoes are better understand the problem, create a solution, not a band-aid and innovate business models, not marketing campaigns.

What did spark interest to me of hybrid organizations is their quest for legal recognition and access to capital, markets, and labor. The challenges they face are Legal Structure, Financing and Customers and Beneficiaries. This entails the establishment of two separate legal entities, one a for-profit and the other a nonprofit for legal structure. With financing the approach is the funding strategy they adopt that accesses profit-seeking investors for commercial activities and nonprofit fundraising and public subsidies for social activities and last but not the least the breaking of traditional customer-beneficiary activities by providing products and services that, when consumed, produce social value.

What makes hybrids successful is their approach in addressing social issues of environment, economic development, governance, and housing. They are also finding homes in sectors like retail, information technology etc.