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Venture
Philanthropy
Guide.org

Natasha van Bentum, CFRE

Introduction

What

Why

VP Organizations
&

Social Entrepreneurs

Gift Planning

Articles

Critics

Other Resources

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

By Tim Draimin, Executive Director, Tides Canada Foundation

In a constantly changing world, one dynamic trend is the growth of "social entrepreneurship". Social entrepreneurship is an evolving phenomenon, which includes practitioners in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors (and also, but less visibly, the public sector). For example, it embraces:

Non-for-profit sector people with a strong problem solving and results orientation who are doing one or more of the following:

Judiciously exploring how to diversify their not-for-profit’s income using market means to generate "surplus" that can be applied to their mission and address financial sustainability, or produce collateral benefits like employment

Linking community well-being challenges with community economic development

Creatively seeking opportunities to fulfill their organization’s mission in non-traditional ways, sensibly balancing risk/reward

Selectively borrowing and experimenting with ideas and tools from the for-profit sector

Seeking problem solving and supportive partnerships with the private sector;
For-profit sector people who are thoughtfully examining how business fulfills community and social responsibilities, and who are doing one or more of the following:

Exploring how to responsibly integrate social and environmental values into business and investment practices in ways that complement private values and produce measurable returns

Building philanthropic and community investment practices into their business

Exploring partnerships with not-for-profits organizations through cause related marketing, social marketing, joint ventures, etc.

We are excited by the opportunity for "social entrepreneurship" to be an important vector for positive change within both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.

With so many new forms of social entrepreneurial engagement underway (for a comprehensive listing visit http://www.VenturePhilanthropyGuide.org), there obviously exist new opportunities to be learning from one another, identifying best practices, and furthering our knowledge about how positive social and environmental change can be enabled inside and outside our institutions.

We live in an era when we are increasingly aware of major societal challenges, ranging from family violence, child poverty, through to climate change and the degradation of vital eco-systems.

Therefore it is so important and encouraging that there is an emerging movement of social entrepreneurs applying their talents in creating new forms of problem-solving social innovation.

Recently one astute observer noted that if the nineteenth century was characterized by industrial innovation, and the twentieth century by technological innovation, the challenge of the twenty-first century is social innovation. Social entrepreneurship is an important key to meeting that challenge.

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