Fundamentals

Social entrepreneurship uses business to offer new ideas for wide-scale social and environmental impact.

Social entrepreneurship unites the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination. Many social entrepreneurs launch whole new ventures applying innovative and often risk-taking approaches to create scalable solutions, which includes inventing new products and services. Others join existing social enterprises aligned with their interests and passions.

Entrepreneurs create sustainable organizations, which can be set up as nonprofit or traditional companies, with the overall goal to achieve large scale, sustainable and systematic change through new ventures.

Nonprofit models that rely on an earned income stream generate income from their own activities to sustain the organization. While these nonprofits might also receive supplemental funding from grants and donations, they tend to be less dependent on these sources.

For-profit companies have a social and/or environmental mission embedded into their business model. These companies measure themselves by a double (financial and social) or triple (financial, social, and environmental) bottom line. Some go as far as to write these missions into their legal structure via emerging models like the B Corporation.

Venture capital- provide equity capital to ventures. Many traditional VC firms have a social or environmental branch with funds dedicated solely to social and/or environmental causes. Venture philanthropy firms- apply business and venture capital strategies to sustainable social causes. An example of a venture philanthropy firm is Acumen Fund. Incubators- help social entrepreneurs develop their business ideas and provide training, mentors and seed funding. Global Social Benefit Incubator (GBSI) is an example. Crowdfunding- crowdsource funding for organizations directly from individuals. There are many different platforms available for crowdfunding including Causes.com. Government agencies- support social entrepreneurship by providing information around social problems, enabling innovation with resources and rewarding successes.

• Empathy and a passion to make a difference
• Leadership skills
• Willing to take risks- social entrepreneurs often tackle intractable problems in ways never before tried, therefore they must be willing to accept failure frequently and have the resilience to bounce back
• Creativity to innovate new ideas and businesses
• Flexibility to an unpredictable career path
• Hard-working attitude to turn an inspiring idea into a viable venture

While undergraduate and graduate degrees in social entrepreneurship are offered, they are not required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Current opportunities

There is currently a surge of enthusiasm for new social ventures and social entrepreneurs are continually creating new projects poised for growth and impact. A growing number of influencers from the public and private sectors view investing in social entrepreneurs as a credible avenue for driving systems change through innovation. Social entrepreneurs are needed to develop new models for a new century.

According to Forbes:

“Young entrepreneurs looking to launch the next hot startup have a lot of factors to consider, and which city will provide the friendliest backdrop for their endeavors should be at the top of the list.”

The 10 best cities for young social entrepreneurs:

1. Austin-Round Rock, TX
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
3. Salt Lake City, UT
4. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO
5. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN & WI
6. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
7. Madison, WI
8. Midland, TX
9. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA & NH
10. Fargo, ND

Source Forbes; The 10 Best Cities For Young Entrepreneurs Right Now

The San Francisco Professional Net Impact Chapter hosted a talk entitled Impact Finance for Millennials.