Social entrepreneurship is the process applied by individuals, enterprises, groups, and organisations to create solutions to social, environmental, and cultural problems. Profit-making enterprises come up with strategies that improve social impact in society—for instance, building schools or health centres in rural areas.
Characteristics
Creativity entails setting the goal and analysing the current problem-solving skills needed. Social entrepreneurs must create a vision and ways of accomplishing it.
Secondly, entrepreneurs need to remain focused and realistic on the vision. Therefore, they should not quit until society benefits from the project. The social impact evaluates if the project will remain sustainable after the sponsors are gone.
Ethical fibre remains important because leaders hoping to change the world need to be trustworthy. A good leader aims at solving the problem rather than making a profit.
Examples
Drilling and construction of freshwater wells in remote and drought-stricken regions is a classic example of social entrepreneurship. In this case, the entrepreneur or organisation identifies vulnerable communities and embarks on the project.
A modern example is providing computers and Internet connections to ensure that young people can access information and learning resources.
Eligibility
Any individual, business, organisation, or governmental authority can participate in social entrepreneurship. This is done by creating solutions to community-specific problems.
You can learn more about social entrepreneurship by attending virtual forums such as ChangeNow and the GSG Impact Summit.
