Social Entrepreneur

"While a business entrepreneur may thrive on competition and profit, a social entrepreneur has a different motivation: a commitment to leading through inclusiveness of all actors in society and a dedication to changing the systems and patterns of society."

See also the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship

Definition

"A social entrepreneur is someone who works in an entrepreneurial manner, but for public or social benefit, rather than to make money. Social entrepreneurs may work in ethical businesses, governmental or public bodies, quangos, or the voluntary and community sector.

While entrepreneurs in the business sector identify untapped commercial markets, and gather together the resources to break into those markets for profit, social entrepreneurs use the same skills to different effect. For social entrepreneurs, untapped markets are people or communities in need, who haven't been reached by other initiatives.

But while they may read from a different bottom line, social and business entrepreneurs have a lot in common. They build something out of nothing. They are ambitious to achieve. They marshal resources - sometimes from the unlikeliest places - to meet their needs. They are constantly creative. And they are not afraid to make mistakes.

Social entrepreneurs are particularly skilled at finding new uses for derelict spaces, second-hand materials, and under-used people; as well as squeezing money out of the commercial and public sectors. The most successful embody a curious mixture of idealism and pragmatism - high-mindedness wedded to hard-headedness." (http://www.sse.org.uk/about.php?sub=WIASE)

More Information

What is a social entrepreneur?, at http://www.ashoka.org/fellows/social_entrepreneur.cfm

List of social entrepreneurs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_entrepreneurs

Delicious tag on Social entrepreneurship at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Social-Entrepreneurs

Key Books to Read

David Bornstein. How to Change the World: social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas.

URL = http://www.howtochangetheworld.org/

Charles Leadbeater, The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur' Demos, 1996, available free of charge from www.demos.co.uk

Joanna Mair, Jeffrey Robinson, and Kai Hockerts, Social Entrepreneurship, Palgrave, 2006. ISBN 1403996644