Social Entrepreneurship
Lecture 5


Social Entrepreneurship
•Social entrepreneurship is the activity of establishing new business ventures to achieve social
change.  The business utilises creativity and innovation to bring social, financial, service,
educational or other community benefits.
–(Talbot, Tregilgas & Harrison, 2002)
–
•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….rather than bringing a
concept to market to address a consumer problem, social entrepreneurs attempt to bring a concept to
market to address a public problem.
•     (Alex Nicholls, Oxford University’s Skoll Centre)
–
–

Challenge:  Access to Clean Water
•1.2 billion people are drinking unsafe water
•Problem: transport (retrieval to consumption)
•Seeding innovation in the water sector
•What do you think?
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•Social entrepreneurship takes many forms, but at it’s core is characterized by a leaders’ sense of
social consciousness and a desire to make a positive impact on society
•
•Social enterprises are not charities or welfare agencies.  They are private businesses established
by entrepreneurs with an emphasis on human values rather than just profit.
•These businesses focus on working with and enhancing the social capital within the community by
encouraging participation, inclusion and utilising a bottom-up approach to achieve social change
•Spectrum of social entrepreneurship
• Not for profit                            For profit
•

Functions of Social Entrepreneurship
•To address social problems inadequately addressed by government •To provide urgent but sustainable
solutions to the most difficult problems •To create long term systems for NGOs, CSR, Philanthropy
•Bring professionalism and innovation in social sector

Deference between
Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship
•Entrepreneurship                Social Entrepreneurship
• Economic value social value
• Customer society
• Wealth maximization social value
• indirect link to social Direct link to social
• -issues -issues

The concept adapted from an ancient Chinese proverb
•Philanthropy/Charity
•
–“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day…”
•
•The NGO/Government Model
• “…teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”
•
•Social Entrepreneurship
–
–“Provide him access to capital to create a sustainable fishing business at a fair rate of return
and change the world”

A Model for Social Entrepreneurs
Source:  Alex Nichols, Oxford University,
Skoll Centre

Where do you find social enterprises?
•Social entrepreneurs find opportunity in most economic sectors.  The growth areas for social
enterprises are identified as:
–Environmental
–Housing
–Health and care
–Information services
–Public services
–Financial services
–Training and business development
–Manufacturing
–Food and agriculture
–

The Process of Social Entrepreneurship
1.Find an opportunity
2.Develop a business concept
3.Figure out what success means and how to measure it
4.Acquire the right resources
5.Launch and grow
6.Attain goals

The Main Difficulty: Measurement
•What is profit?
•How do we count it?
•What is “social return on investment” for venture philanthropists?
•Can we compare investments?
•The Bill Drayton interview: The story behind how the Ashoka Fellowship was created after a
roadtrip- Edexlive

These are the most important questions to answer for researchers in social entrepreneurship