Answer: Of course not. But it might be the best answer in many more cases than we think.
*********** Take any given activity deemed socially worthy -- an educational radio boradcast, for example. If it is socially worthy, then by definition it **should** happen. How, then, shall the costs of making it happen be afforded? There are likely many possibilities, each likely to succeed to some extent. Sustainability is presumably part of the definition of success. Of course profitability is not essential for sustainability. Kassides at the Bank is an economist who argues essentially that there will always be some services ripe for public-sector management. That's perhaps another way of saying that some population broader than the immediate consumers of a good should pay for its production, if only because the benefits of the good flow beyond the immediate consumers to that broader population. So, if profitability is not essential for sustainability, there are of course successes out there that do not rely on profitability. Nonetheless, I do think that in some circumstances a solution based on profitability can be the optimal one. In those circumstances, the challenge seems to be finding an innovative business model that targets the poor as consumers. The emphasis is on **innovative**. While I do not know what form that kind of "profitability" answer would take, in the case of the program Michael Bosse describes (below) in Nepal, which has to do with education carried out by broadcast radio for a large number of very poor people, I have heard (through Digital Dividend and elsewhere) that there are interesting ideas worth exploring. Many of these move beyond the conventional advertising models perfected in the West for wealthier audiences. The innovators will essentially ask, "If the traditional advertisers see no market through our radio programs sufficient for them to pay a lot of money for 30-second spots, then is there some other group out there willing to buy time on our show in order to meet some other market demand for their products?" Or perhaps more cleverly they might ask, "Is there some entirely new way of using broadcast radio that can generate revenues sufficient to cover costs in a way we've never even thought of before?" In Mali, I hear birth, death, and wedding announcements generate the big bucks. In the USA I see we get the consumers themselves to pay for some programming. I'm sure none of these are the right answer for Nepal, the point merely being that the key can be finding the right business model. Or stepping out into the bold new frontiers of innovative questioning, "Is there some way to tap the collective wealth of the very poor in order to provide our educational product while covering costs, whether with broadcast radio or without?" And then there's the "supply-side" question: "Are we truly selling a worthwhile product? Was our determination of "social worthiness" for our educational program properly done at the outset?" That's all part of the business model, yes? Thus the crux of the matter for me boils down to this: How do we set about the task of first unearthing, and then exploring, those innovative business models that can make profitability work for the poor, not necessarily in every case, but at least in more cases than we're seeing now? My personal sense is that standard approaches to program development cannot cope. Cheers! Jeff ---- Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade Office for Energy and Information Technology RRB 4.06-066 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20523-3800 Tel +1 (202) 712-1956, Cell +1 (301) 728-2160 Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.usaid.gov Keyword:InfoTech On Tuesday, November 16, 2004, Michael Bosse wrote: > I'd like to share a wonderful story about the concept of sustainability > and profitability in the area my organization <www.equalaccess.org> > works, providing information and education to rural and under-served > communities by broadcast technologies. It's also an idea and short-cut > for measuring sustainability where there is large reach. Equal Access > uses audio programs (radio) but the central challenge presented applies > to anyone who measures impact and profit beyond the direct price paid > for services delivered (as Lee Thorn and others have suggested, profit > can be much more than monetary). ..snip... ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
