We know what nonprofits are. We know that nonprofits depend on a good vision and service model and fundraising to continue their work. But what is a social enterpreneur?
What is social entrepreneurship?
It’s the radical idea that you can found your business on doing good and making a profit, straight from the start.
If you want to make your impact last, and think about applying social entrepreneur models to your nonprofit organization (or disorganization, as the case may be) here is a short guide on how to maximize your personal and organizational impact. Thanks to UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, for providing this free resource with some free tools and worksheets to you get started. (FYI, the document is 152 pages, so read your favorite section first, then print responsibly.)
Here’s more on how the social entrepreneurship model works, AKA Building Business Models Beyond Profit. This presentation is by Alexander Osterwalder, and I like it because it tackles the idea of wanting to do good but wanting to make money at the same time. It tosses out the old model of corporations being all about profit, and nonprofits being all about their mission and not profit. It says, essentially, that everyone is interested in profit and in doing good, and why can’t we do both?
I don’t necessarily agree with everything this video says, (they seem to think fundraising = begging, for instance) but I do think that they have well made points about how more people are interested in buying products with a social benefit, and more and more people are interested in making a difference and making money at the same time. Social entrepreneurs may be doing what hybrid nonprofits do. What do you think?
Thanks to Montero for his links on social entrepreneurship. His excellent blog links many more resources if you want to read further on this topic.