Thursday, May 22, 2008

Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial ship principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.

The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were first used in the literature on social change in the 1960s and 1970s. It came into widespread use in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton the founder of Ashoka, and others such as Charles Lead beater. From the 1950s to the 1990s Michael Young was a leading promoter of social enterprise and in the 1980s was described by Professor Daniel Bell at Harvard as 'the world's most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises' because of his role in creating over 60 new organizations worldwide
Youth social entrepreneurship
Youth social entrepreneurship is an increasingly common approach to engaging youth voice in solving social problems. Youth organizations and programs promote these efforts through a variety of incentives to young people. Fast Company Magazine annually publishes a list of the 25 best social entrepreneurs, which the magazine defines as organizations "using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems."

The International Business Leaders Forum, an NGO that promotes responsible business practices, has shown how multinational companies can support social entrepreneurship - either through in their businesses, engaging in public policy debate or creating better internal climates within their organizations.

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