She said this following her presentation at the April 28 Sheth Distinguished Lecture, during which she described a lifetime dedicated to promoting positive, societal change in Taiwan.
“People are people,” she said at the close of her presentation. “As long as you engage in conversations, things will change...make small, successful examples, make friends with (everyone), let people have sights on you and let your story be told in different areas (and in time) the tide will come.”
A Career Dedicated to Change
Feng is undeniably and unintentionally extraordinary because she never stops trying — she never stops helping.
After earning her master’s degree from the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1981, and her Ph.D. in 1988, she went on to become a visionary figure in social welfare and innovation in Taiwan.
From 2013 to 2016 she served as a minister without portfolio in the Executive Yuan and utilized her expertise in social work to oversee social welfare policy and eventually transformed traditional, residual social welfare thinking into sustainable social innovation.
“In those three years, I mobilized all my potential, knowledge, and networks...to try to transform the social welfare system in Taiwan,” she said during the lecture. “And I think I did a little bit of good work in those three years.”
Saying she did “a little bit of good work,” is an understatement. After all, she is widely honored as the “Mother of Social Enterprise” in Taiwan. She led initiatives to find missing children and expand services for vulnerable families as the founding CEO and former chair of the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF).
These two initiatives promoted social enterprises and established a robust care system that set aging adults and people with disabilities at the forefront, allowing Taiwan to make significant progress in expanding services and resources to those requiring long-term care, including their caregivers.
“My favorite policy is regarding child welfare, especially the domestication of the CRC (the UN Convention on the Rights of Children) in Taiwan and the long-term care system for elderly,” Feng said, reflecting on her work.
Before her role in the executive government, Feng was involved in the social service industry. For example, she co-founded United Way Taiwan in 1992 and the Taiwan NPO Self-Regulation Alliance in 2005 to promote accountability and transparency in the nonprofit sector.
That’s not all she did. She was also an educator and was deeply committed to her academic life. Feng started teaching at NTU in 1983, and until her retirement in 2022 she dedicated herself to academic research, publishing five specialized books, and over 300 academic papers. She was the founding chair of the Department of Social Work in 2002 and served two terms as the dean of student affairs from 2005 to 2012.
Even now, in her retirement, she continues her life’s work by sitting on 15 professional or philanthropic non-governmental organization (NGO) boards and several government advisory committees.
“That’s why I’ve been so busy even though I’m retired,” Feng smiled, joking with the audience as she wrapped up her lecture. “I was telling my student (who asked), “Why are you so busy (when) you’re retired?’ And I said, ‘I have to pay back my debt.’ But I’m fortunate that I have those debts.”
What exactly is a social enterprise?
Feng described what she called the “Taiwan Case” during the Sheth Lecture. The Taiwan Case is the government’s experience with using a social enterprise development model to retain the relationship between economic growth and social justice.
But what exactly is a social enterprise? Well, Feng said it’s an organization that operates like a business by making profits. However, making a profit isn’t the sole purpose of a social enterprise.
“(A social enterprise) sits right in between. It’s not quite a company, not quite a nonprofit,” Feng said.
These types of organizations are on a mission to solve problems like poverty or aging by reinvesting profits to advance their social mission rather than to maximize returns for shareholders (stakeholders). The important thing to remember about a social enterprise, however, is that it relies on business models to sustain itself. It doesn’t rely on donations.
“Entrepreneurship and civic responsibility are also combined (in social enterprise),” Feng said. “So, in the end, the structures and models of social enterprise also depend on people and talent.”
She added that in Taiwan they often broaden the idea of social enterprise by calling it social innovation, and she said what makes Taiwan interesting in the social enterprise landscape is the path it followed to implement it in government policy and institutions.
“(Social enterprise) did not emerge from the market. It was shaped by policy, institutions, and gradually became an ecosystem,” Feng explained.
(Briefly) Explaining the Taiwan Case
Feng said Taiwan developed social enterprise policy in four phases that span over the last few decades. These phases are marked by different plans or policies for social enterprise but throughout the years Taiwan saw a shift in how they approached social enterprise. In other words, the government shifted from simply supporting social enterprise to now focusing on building an ecosystem for it to exist and thrive.
The first stage really started in the 90s. That’s when NPOs and NGOs tried to use business models to create self-supporting revenue streams and thus improve social welfare and community development. These commercial activities took shape as restaurants, bakeries, or other community-based enterprises, Feng highlighted.
At the same in those early years, the government offered policies or programs for things like employment issues or post-disaster reconstruction. As time progressed, interactions between NGOs, governments, and academia became more prevalent, Feng noted, which played a crucial role in further exploring social enterprise. Feng called the second phase the policy-driven phase, which started in 2014 with the Social Enterprise Action Plan. She said that was when social enterprise was recognized as a sector within the government.
“The first policy (the Social Enterprise Action Plan) lasted for two years, 2014-2016, because the government transitioned between two different parties (during that time),” Feng said.
A new government took charge in 2016, and Feng explained that fortunately, social enterprise survived even though most of the original policy wasn’t consistent.
“The only change was in the broader idea of social innovation, and the new government started a new policy called the Social Innovation Action Plan from 2016 to 2018,” Feng said.
The third phase started in 2018 with another new policy called the Social Innovation Action Plan 2.0. It was a four-year, fully sized plan that made building the social enterprise ecosystem the government’s responsibility. That phase ended in 2022, and Feng said from 2022 to now Taiwan has been in the fourth phase where social enterprise policy is shifting from government-led to multi-sector governance.
What Drives Social Innovation? People.
The current phase, or the current social enterprise ecosystem, is made up of six actors. Sitting at the center of this ecosystem are the social enterprises, which are now referred to as Social Innovation Organizations.
The government is the second actor followed by intermediaries (such as incubators or hubs) at number three, corporations at number four, impact investors at number five, and consumers at number six.
“These actors are connected, but what activates them is talent or human capital,” Feng said.
Social innovation exists and it thrives because talented people make it happen. This is what Feng refers to as human capital, which she divided into three categories.
The first category is comprised of young entrepreneurs in mission-driven startups that bring new ideas into the sector. The second category consists of second-generation family lines, particularly in agricultural areas of small family business, that are reinventing the social enterprise sector. The third category is the professionals who bring expertise to social innovation.
Together, these individuals drive social innovation in Taiwan.
Learning from the Taiwan Case
Feng emphasized that there is no single model to use when implementing a social enterprise approach.
“But Taiwan shows us a different starting point,” Feng said.
At the end of her presentation, Feng said that there are five things that can be learned from the Taiwan Case:
“The ecosystem depends on people, not just policy,” Feng explained. “Ultimately, policies and ecosystems matter but they only work when there is talent to drive them.”
After answering questions from audience members and encouraging folks to practice their civic duties and participate in government work locally or even nationally, Feng joked and said that she is an optimist.
Her optimism was especially clear in the advice she gave when she said, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” when referring to encouraging change in government. Jokes aside, maybe there’s a point to be made about being an optimist.
Feng, a two-time graduate from the School of Social Work at Illinois, did just that. She dedicated her entire career to helping people. She found success doing that because she initiated change and because she took the steps to influence change, she created a ripple effect that impacted people around her, people like School of Social Work Professor Chi-Fang Wu.
Wu is one of Feng’s former students from NTU.
“You keep amazing me, from day one in 1991 when I was a student studying at NTU,” Wu told Feng at the end of the lecture. “Now you inspire me with your amazing presentation.”
Feng said change happens gradually, not overnight.
“But you have to do it,” she added. “You have to start it.”
So, maybe it does pay to be an optimist because if being an optimist means being like Feng, then it’s certainly something worth trying.
About the Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement
The Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement is made possible by the generous support of longtime university benefactors Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth. Established in 2000, the award recognizes international alumni who are highly distinguished in their profession, have made outstanding contributions to government, humanity, science, art, or human welfare, and exemplify the strength of their education at Illinois.
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Analicia Haynes is the storytelling coordinator at Illinois International. She can be reached at ahayn2@illinois.edu.