Social And Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. 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 move in different directions. ust as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss to improve systems, invent new approaches, and create solutions to change society for the better. While a business entrepreneur might create entirely new industries, a social entrepreneur develops innovative solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale.
Social entrepreneurs drive social innovation and transformation in various fields including education, health, environment and enterprise development. They pursue poverty alleviation goals with entrepreneurial zeal, business methods and the courage to innovate and overcome traditional practices. A social entrepreneur, similar to a business entrepreneur, builds strong and sustainable organizations, which are either set up as not-for-profits or companies.
A social entrepreneur is a leader or pragmatic visionary who:
• Achieves large scale, systemic and sustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these.
• Focuses first and foremost on the social and/or ecological value creation and tries to optimize the financial value creation.
• Innovates by finding a new product, a new service, or a new approach to a social problem.
• Continuously refines and adapt...

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...s final report in June 2010. The project was led by Associate Professor Jo Barraket, Australia's leading social enterprise academic.
One of the key features of this Australian research is its intention to define social enterprise in a way that was informed by and made sense to those working in or with social enterprises.
The research design therefore included workshops to explore and test what social enterprise managers, researchers, and relevant policy makers meant by the term 'social enterprise'. This was the resulting definition:
Social enterprises are organisations that:
• Are led by an economic, social, cultural, or environmental mission consistent with a public or community benefit;
• Trade to fulfil their mission;
• Derive a substantial portion of their income from trade; and
• Reinvest the majority of their profit/surplus in the fulfilment of their mission.