WHAT
“A social enterprise is a type of business where the bottom line and success metrics are measured in more than just profits. Instead, social enterprises typically measure success based on a triple bottom line:
- People: The social impact of your business, and your ability to change lives and develop a community in a sustainable way.
- Planet: Your environmental impact; how you contribute to a sustainable planet or reduce the carbon footprint (CO2 emissions) of your business and customers.
- Profit: Like traditional businesses, they need to make make money in order to sustain themselves, pay workers and grow as an enterprise.”
– Social Entrepreneurship: How to Harness Business to Make the World a Better Place
WHY
“During the next 50 years, the greatest wealth creation on earth will be driven by leaders who develop solutions for humanity and/or the planet”.
– Stuart M. Williams, Founder of In Place Impact
- Why Social Enterprise Matters: An Examination Into the Role of Social Enterprise to Solve Social Problems
- Why Social #Entrepreneurs Matter: A Case For #SocialImpact & #SocialResponsibility
- A Mid-Career Transition to Social Entrepreneurship
HOW
ESSENTIAL RESOURCES:
- In Place Impact – Charleston’s Only Free Start Up Boot Camp for Impact Entrepreneurs designed to help you build for profit businesses that are purposed to solve social, economic, and or environmental problems.
- School for Social Entrepreneurs Resource Hub – an invaluable free tool that walks you through the starting, sustaining and scaling of your social enterprise idea.
- Changemaking 101 – a student guide to social entrepreneurship
- Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Hub
LEARNING RESOURCES
- seToolbelt – is an open content resource hub that helps social entrepreneurs plan, launch, manage, and grow successful social enterprises
- 7 Steps for Starting a Social Enterprise
- A Toolkit for Developing a Social Purpose Business Plan
- SBA: Business Guide
- What are Bcorps?
- 5 Mistakes Social Impact Start-Ups Make (and How to Avoid Them)
SUPPORT NETWORKS & RESOURCES
- Social Enterprise Alliance
- Ashoka – Ashoka Fellows receive a living stipend, allowing them to work full time on their social enterprise.
- Echoing Green – provides fellowships and other innovative leadership initiatives
- Skoll Foundation – the Skoll Foundation drives large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems.