The Rat Race Short Cut: Social Entrepreneurship

By Eric Ochoa, Chairman of the Board

From traveling across the country talking to young people, I have noticed that the predominant viewpoint of young people is that this financial crisis has hurt us the most.  This makes sense—statistically at least.  Young people have been perpetually at about 20% unemployment throughout this recession and recovery.  However, I would like to offer a different point of view; I believe that this downturn is an opportunity for young people.  It is an opportunity for young people to start their own businesses and work for themselves.  It is an opportunity for young people to look at their career as something more than just a source of those dirty pieces of paper we call money.  It is an opportunity for us to control our own destinies and to give back as we give to ourselves and our families.  It is an opportunity to become social entrepreneurs.

You’re probably thinking: “Social entrepreneur?! Dude, I’m just trying to pay my rent and keep my car right now.”  And I don’t discount the validity of making sure you take care of the essentials, but there are ways to take care of your financial needs while also helping to contribute to society.  The most important thing to remember is that this does not mean that you need to change professions either.  Social entrepreneurship can be integrated into what we already do.

I’ll give you my example of how this has worked for me.  My background is in psychology, marketing, and strategy consulting.  Prior to my interest in social entrepreneurship, I was a strategy consultant working for a small firm in San Francisco where they had me working on Microsoft engagements.  This included Windows 7 before it came out, Windows Mobile, and Microsoft’s $44 billion attempt to buy Yahoo that you may remember hearing about in the news.  I went on to work for another international software firm in Barcelona for a few months before my visa ran out.

When I came back to the States, I ran into an old friend from college (Jamie Borromeo).  We knew each other as casual acquaintances from our time at UC Santa Cruz, but had never really talked much one on one.  When we met up we were marveling over how many of our friends (including the most brilliant and accomplished) were being laid off or couldn’t find work.  We decided on the spot during our first in-depth conversation one-on-one that we were going to start GenerationDrive—our non-profit organization that dedicates itself to helping young people learn how to start and run their own businesses and find other likeminded young people to work with.  I now use my understanding of the human mind and marketing to educate fellow young people on how they can employ themselves and their friends.  I now market opportunity to young people instead of helping a huge corporation get even richer, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

The old model of working for some Fortune 500 firm, for some boss that is two to three times your age that doesn’t understand you and pays you half of what you are worth, are over.  We cannot rely on the older generations that created this problem to get us out of it.  It is time for us to look for our answers in the mirror and in our friends.  We understand better than anyone else what is going to be the next phase of business.  We understand technology better than anyone. We understand the green movement better than anyone. We understand how to relate to other cultures in an increasingly global economy better than anyone. And it is time that we realize that we know how to manage ourselves better than anyone.  

GenerationDrive Gears Up To Represent Nearly 70 Million Young Adults in America

GenerationDrive is one of the newest yet one of the most ambitious organizations in the country, with an important mission to represent the 67 million young people all across America. Founded this year, GenerationDrive promotes the next generation of leaders to help America get back on its feet through teaching financial literacy and creating a generation of fiscally responsible individuals.

Co-founders Eric Ochoa (Chairman) and Jamie Borromeo (National President & CEO) saw there was a real need to represent the nearly 70 million young people in the United States who needed some direction through the economic collapse. Known as the “Facebook” Generation, as well as the generation that helped elect President Obama into office in 2008, both Ochoa and Borromeo knew there was a power that had yet to be unleashed. When they discovered over 20% of young people were unemployed in 2009, they knew they had to do something.

“It’s not like Eric or I had the most stable careers at the time,” Jamie, National President & CEO of GenerationDrive said. “But we couldn’t take hearing phone call after phone call, email after email from friends saying they were either unemployed or underemployed. That’s when we rallied the ten brightest people we knew who were just as passionate about the issue. I personally called each of them and said, ‘Look, I’m broke, you’re broke, but Eric and I know there are others going through the same challenges. We have this burning desire to reach out to them. We can’t just sit here anymore. Young people need a voice and we’re creating one now.’”

“And so we started. Right then and there. And that drive we both felt to act gave us the name--GenerationDrive.”

Only two months after, GenerationDrive set up a board of directors retreat, a photo shoot with students from the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and a national group of passionate young adults between the ages of 18-29 to do a high-level marketing campaign. With a group of volunteer models, photographers, graphic designers, hairstylists, makeup artists and wardrobe stylists, GenerationDrive’s team of 20 spent a weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area working on leadership formation, marketing and strategy.

GenerationDrive, currently headquartered in Washington D.C. and rapidly growing with seven regional chapters,  is focused on educating young people on fiscal responsibility by using mediums like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get their message out. They offer tools to help individuals build a healthy relationship with money, and they are planning their first annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, tentatively scheduled for Summer 2012. Each of their workshops will focus on promoting higher education, philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. Whether a start-up company or non-profit, GenerationDrive is on a mission to develop the next generation of business professionals, leaders and entrepreneurs who are changing the world and redefining a generation.

GenerationDrive Models at happy hour during photo shoot and board retreat, October 18, 2010.