Throughout the last few years, social entrepreneurship has steadily curated a name for itself in the business world, cementing its own brand of how to conduct businesses as a new paradigm that almost all the companies active today are now trying to follow and align themselves with.
But what is it really? And does it really work?
Combining business smarts with awareness
A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a certain or specific social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize and create a business venture that can change it, or do so something positive about it. Simply put, social entrepreneurs are ordinary people who use business smarts and traditional entrepreneurial models to find innovative solutions to society’s societal and environmental problems, using new solutions to combat old problems. Whereas a normal business entrepreneur typically measures its performance in both profit and return, a social one focuses on creating social capital, that is, a lasting positive impact in society. And in recent years, it’s being touted by many as the means of bringing about real and long-lasting change to a hurting world.
In fact, finding new and innovative solutions to the world’s biggest problems is slowly becoming the world’s most powerful business model in the 21st century. You already have the capital and resources to make a change, so why not utilize it to create something positive for the community?
It’s become a giant all on its own, and the pure magnitude of what it can for the world have convinced policymakers that social entrepreneurship will be the most reliable and long-lasting business model of our time.
And why wouldn’t it be? Currently, the world’s largest working demographic are made up of millennials, which is a generation reared in times of economic crisis and uncertainty. Born in such a time when the job market is slowly collapsing upon itself and environmental issues are becoming more evident, these millennials then decided that the old system needs to be taken down, and that a change is sorely needed.
The core
Today, the core of social entrepreneurship focuses on the damage done the world, and what can be done about it. From microfinance institutions to educational programs and wildlife conservation efforts, the model exists in many sectors, and all are constructed to create change. It’s no longer merely just a trend to bandwagon yourself into, seeing as it’s here to stay. In fact, it’s even influenced long-standing traditional big-name businesses to start being more socially responsible with their decisions.
By using traditional capitalism to fuel a cause, social entrepreneurship provides a business model that is both sustainable and long-lasting, guaranteeing long life while also making much-needed change in a world filled with socio-economic imbalances.
(Featured image by Julie Lindsay via Flickr. CC BY 2.0.)