What is social entrepreneurship, anyways?
Posted on by September 24, 2009 by anders.abrahamsson
In times when a concept gets popular and gains traction, it is important to take a deep look at its meaning. Turning to the driving forces and original sources of the conceptual development of ‘social entrepreneurship’ gives a frame that is quite vague in its outline.
A key source to get what it is, is Ashoka Foundation, founded by Bill Drayton, pioneering with the work of social innovation;
“[I]ndividuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.”
Skoll Foundation, another strong advocacy with Jeff Skoll as institutional entrepreneur, puts it this way;
“Social entrepreneurs share a commitment to pioneering innovations that reshape society and benefit of humanity. Whether they are working on a local or international scale, they are solution-minded pragmatists who are not afraid to tackle – and successfully resolve – some of the world’s biggest problems.”
No one of these descriptions mention explicitly business formation, but when set up, they “prioritize social return on investment”. As it is put in Wikipedia;
“A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society.”
The descriptions above does not state what institutional form the organizing is done. Many imply cause-oriented “not for profit” organisations (charities, NGO’s, Foundations, Associations, Cooperatives), where the mainland for social ventures is in the voluntary sector.
The broadened business sense in social entrepreneuring, though, is suggested to have socially oriented businesses fulfilling unmet social needs, or having innovation to make profit in order to reach social goals, or as an explicit tool for social change.
Put in an anthology by Kai Hockerts;
“[Social Entrepreneurship is] in practice, recognized as encompassing a wide range of activities: enterprising individuals devoted to making a difference; social purpose business ventures dedicated to adding for profit motivations to the nonprofit sector, new types of philanthropists supporting venture capital-like ‘investment’ portfolios; and nonprofit organizations that are reinventing themselves by drawing on lessons learned from the business world.”
As believed to be a part of the response of this conceptual vagueness as all of these expressions generate all together, and an emphasis towards creating a self-sustaining organization and institution, two conceptual responses has been created – Muhammad Yunus’ “Social Business” (see separate category and introductory blog post here on Ideas For Change) and my contribution of the development of the concept of “Sustainopreneurship” – or “Business with a Cause”.
/Anders Abrahamsson
Anders is a serial sustainopreneur and has been the driving force in the conceptual development of Sustainopreneurship, and published its Wikipedia article in 2008. He has published a number of publications on this topic, and is currently authoring a popular book on subject, one blog post at a time. Founder of SLICE Services and Publishing.
