It has been about a month and a half since that dreaded day in February. No it is not what you are thinking: I am not talking about that singles-hated holiday where candy, flower and stuffed animal sales sky rocket. Neither am I talking about that third week in February where America gets a three-day weekend to honor its founding fathers. I'm talking about that day where two furry animals came into my life.
When my housemates jokingly told me in passing that they were going to adopt two ferrets, I thought they were full of it. Who would want to have a smelly, rodent-esque mammal for a pet? And who had ever heard of such a thing as "adopting" ferrets? I thought nothing of it until things started to get serious. They were researching ferret Web sites, buying "Ferret for Dummies" books, and making prospective ferret name lists. "Maybe they are serious about this ferret thing," I thought.
On that fateful day in February, the house dynamics changed at 42 Bromfield Road. We were no longer a house of five. We became a house of seven - four juniors, one senior, and two furry friends.
To be honest, I never wanted the ferrets. They smell, they pee and they poop. But don't we all? You are probably asking yourselves right now, "Why is this guy writing about ferrets and what does this have to do with social entrepreneurship?"
I am writing about the ferrets because my opinion of them has changed. No, I do not love them, but they are tolerable now. I no longer abhor their presence, and now I can even be in the same room as them. They do not smell that bad and mostly stay out of the way.
The more important question of what this ferret column has to do with social entrepreneurship relates to how my housemates got the ferrets. No, they didn't take the ferrets off of the Medford and Somerville streets. They adopted my two new housemates from an organization called the Massachusetts Association of Ferret Friends (MAFF).
MAFF is a non-profit organization dedicated to the welfare of the domestic ferret whose mission is education, shelter and outreach. I am not a member, but my housemates are clients. They adopted the ferrets during MAFF's annual Massachusetts Ferret Adoption Day.
I am not sure if having ferrets as pets is the best thing for a college student with classes, extracurricular activities and friends, but I applaud my housemates for finding something they wanted and achieving their ends through socially beneficial means. The ferret example is perfect evidence of social entrepreneurship: my friends wanted ferrets without paying hundreds at a pet store so they adopted them for much less from a non-profit organization.
There are many organizations out there that have socially beneficial causes at the core of their missions. For example, your local Goodwill store provides reduced price clothing and your local community organization provides free or reduced-price tutoring for residents. There are even socially responsible for-profit companies like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury, Vermont, which pays its Latin American suppliers Fair Trade prices. Green Mountain pays its suppliers two to three times the market rate for coffee beans to account for poor living conditions in countries where its coffee beans are grown.
Many factors go into making a purchase of goods and services including price, looks and
quality of the product. I think purchasers should also include social benefit in their decision making. If buyers do that extra work to find organizations that are socially beneficial, the buyer, the seller and society will be better off. My housemates - through a little research and thriftiness - found an organization that gave them a big discount on their purchase and also helped to further a non-profit organization's mission.
Although I am still not the biggest fan of the ferrets, I have come to appreciate the social benefits of ferret adoption. I have come to learn that there can be some good in pets even if they look like rats and smell, pee and poop. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we should all go out and adopt ferrets. What I am doing is urging readers to take a second thought when making purchases and to think about meshing personal interests with societal interests.
