What is Social Enterprise?
Social enterprise is a term used to describe a way of doing business, one that is aiming to maximise the positive impacts in the world rather than maximising shareholder return. That doesn’t mean that social enterprises don’t care about profit, quite the opposite in fact.
In many parts of the western world we have a dominant mindset that ‘doing good’ and ‘making a profit’ are mutually exclusive things. When trying to think of ways of ‘doing good’ the easiest things for us to think of are volunteering or giving to charity. Social enterprise comes from a worldview that the ways that we do business are both the source of and solution to many of the challenges facing the world today. By making money through the act of doing good, a more human and sustainable version of our world steps to the front of the stage. Charity has a role, business has a role, philanthropy has a role, government has a role and none of these parts can do it on their own.
I have taught social enterprise development courses and built them with and for several clients. I have (part)owned and operate three, sold one, and supported dozens more.
