Editor's Notebook

any of our readers joined the government for reasons at least partly altruistic. Government's potential for improving the lot of people is a fundamental attraction of public service. Once inside the beast, many have found its lethargic bureaucracies and unresponsive legislative partners stifling to initiative and hostile to change.

They may be inspired by the story of a former colleague, a one-time reformer at the Environmental Protection Agency, who has spread the idea of altruistic public service far beyond government in countries around the world. The genius of William Drayton Jr. has been to recognize that governments cannot or will not find and fund ideas promising rapid social change, and to see the need to create and support a network of social entrepreneurs to blaze trails of progress. To that end, Drayton in 1980 founded the Ashoka Society, named after the ancient India emperor considered to be one of history's greatest social innovators. Over the years, the Society has carefully chosen about 800 fellows whose work promises to make a big difference in education, rural development, health care, environmental protection, human rights, care for the disabled and for children at risk, and alleviation of poverty. Sometimes, governments have been inspired to follow their lead.

The other day I heard one of these public entrepreneurs describe his work in Bangladesh. The problem Mostafa Shiblee has been attacking has its roots in the inadequacies of public education systems in cities like Dhaka. Students, bored and restless, are easy marks for drug dealers and radical political activists given to organizing violent protests. Mostafa, who saw classmates murdered in such clashes on campus, believed such violence could be defused if students could be taught to argue about issues rationally in a traditional debating format. Already, the idea has engaged students and lessened violence on campuses in Dhaka. Mostafa now is expanding his program with help from Ashoka.

Ashoka invests in ideas like these and the individuals behind them. The investment is tiny by American standards: A four-year living stipend in Bombay amounts only to $10,000. Ashoka now puts about $5 million a year in "social venture capital," as Drayton calls it, behind public entrepreneurs in 32 countries. The money is raised from individual contributors and from foundations. The idea of "venture capital" and "entrepreneurs" in social reform might offend traditional capitalists, but Drayton argues persuasively that "Florence Nightingale left every bit as important a mark as Andrew Carnegie."

Drayton developed his idea with the help of a five-year "genius" grant given to him by the MacArthur Foundation in 1984. In 1995, he won the prestigious National Public Service Award from the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Society for Public Administration. In January, The Atlantic Monthly published a profile of his Ashoka Society. In a world where the limits of government are ever more apparent, Drayton and Ashoka have shown the way toward social progress that depends not on committees or legislatures or agencies but on the power of new ideas and the entrepreneurs behind them. Their stories are told in a book called Leading Public Entrepreneurs, available from Ashoka, and also on the Society's Web site.