SE101: Social Enterprise (SocEnt)


Everyone is talking about social entrepreneurship, but what does it mean?

Social Enterprise is an emerging sector of business that focuses on social impact rather than merely profit maximization.  

Social enterprises include a spectrum of business structures from non-profit organizations that have a sustainable revenue model to for-profit enterprises that have a social mission and hybrids in between.

 

One definition among many...

Professor Yunus's 7 Principles of Social Business provide a flavor of business in the 21st Century:
  • Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization
  • Financial and economic sustainability
  • Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money
  • When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement
  • Environmentally conscious
  • Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions
  • ...do it with joy

Learn more about Ashoka's take on social entrepreneurship

And the Social Enterprise Alliance view on the missing middle

part of Kate's Mural

idea incubator & prototype lab 
 . . . architecting hope . . .  


Learn more... 

Cool Projects  (a featured list of social enterprises to get a feel for what it's all about)

Changemakers  (a short list of some of the key funders in this emerging sector & resources for staying up to date)

Interested in Social Enterprise and not sure how to engage? 

1. Check out what people are already doing

2. Find people who are doing similar things to what you want to do

3. Get involved....
  • informational conversations
  • volunteer for a project
  • leverage your expertise

4.  Get a job.... (here is a start list...)
5. If you don't see anything in your area of interest, send some tweets out on Twitter - someone is working on it, you just need to get connected to them!

6. If you don't have a thriving community in your geographic region, here are some ideas for how to create a thriving SE community:
  • Hive model: See the Hive, a monthly meet-up for entrepreneurs.  Held at a bar on a Tuesday evening, the management only requires lining up a speaker who talks for 20 min and facilitating a Q&A for 20 minutes, mostly people come to meet others also interested in this area.  
  • HUB model: See the Impact Hub, a globally expanding network of social entrepreneurs who are sharing office space/resources to bootstrap ventures for social change.


Updated: January 1, 2014 Thanks social impact catalyst Amy Chou for assistance in updating this resource.

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