Social Entrepreneurship

[dawgball]

This is something that I have personally seen growing and being talked about among business owners. In this respect, "social" is not being used in the social marketing aspect, but the socially conscious nature of a business where the cause behind your business is nearly as important as the bottom line.

Obviously, the bottom line has to be healthy for the social aspect to continue. But many new, small companies are really focused on their negative or positive impact on the world instead of focusing on profit at all cost.

http://forum.belmont.edu/cornwall/archives/009718.html

MyBusiness magazine (from NFIB) has a feature written by Emily McMackin on a for profit social venture called Giving Tree.

Clayton "Nick" Nicholas knows what it's like to worry about profit margins, but in his business, Nashville, Tenn.-based Giving Tree, money isn't the only bottom line and his stakeholders extend beyond his board of investors....Shortly after launching the online business, which sells the GiveCard---a prepaid Visa or MasterCard that allows recipients to donate 10 percent of their gift to the charity of their choice---Nicholas and cofounder Jeff Jacobs discovered that consumers were eager to give back.
McMackin interview me for the story and was curious about the growing trend of more for profit social ventures.

Young entrepreneurs today are taking this tradition a step further by forming businesses to tackle specific problems in society, says Jeff Cornwall, director of the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship in Nashville, Tenn.
Without the IRS constraints that nonprofits have or the need to beg donors for money, these social entrepreneurs are finding more freedom to bring about change.

Rather than trusting in these large institutions they don't think are effective, they're going out and solving problems at a grassroots level, Cornwall says.


Given the interest we are seeing in students wanting to learn about social entrepreneurship, this is a trend that is likely to continue.

Link to original article: Mission Possible