Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start Your New Social Enterprise

Starting a new social enterprise can be one of the most challenging tasks despite the amount of passion you have the project as someone who has an innovative solution for a social issue. Let us tell you a few questions that you need to ask yourself before you start your new social enterprise in order to make sure you will be successful.

What exactly is the social problem that you intend to solve?

It is extremely important that you are thoroughly certain of the social issue that will be solved through your venture. Create a succinct vision that explains what exactly you intend to achieve through your social enterprise, and builds short term and long term missions to achieve that goal.

What is your business model?

Despite the focus being mostly achieving a positive social change, your social enterprise should be treated similarly to a business that has a strategic business model. Find the balance between serving a purpose and making the profits to keep the enterprise aloft and work together with your team just as if not harder than a profit-oriented company would.

What is the impact that you are trying to achieve?

Measuring impact can be done in a several ways. It is important that you are clear about what the impact you are trying to achieve from your venture is, and also how you will be measuring it. This will help you to stay motivated and eventually expand the scope of your impact as you grow.

 

Source – https://www.fastcompany.com/3043153/6-questions-to-ask-before-you-start-a-social-enterprise

Ways to Make Sure your Social Entrepreneurship Venture Has Great Impact

The world has become more active and more connected than ever, hence making it difficult for any venture to stand out from the crowd and make a lasting impact. Most of the social enterprises are based on a passion to do good, rather than a monetary foundation that helps them get their word out to many people. With all things considered, however, there are a few ways to make sure that your social entrepreneurship venture has a significant impact on the communities that it focuses on.
First of all, it is important that you laser focus your target, and specify the problem that you are willing to solve as detailed as possible. The more direct and specific you are with what you offer, the greater your impact will be. For an example, if you are willing to tackle the universal issue of youth unemployment, be specific about the exact portion of the said community that you are capable of helping successfully.
The second important this is that you collaborate and network as much as possible with the influencers and the front runners of the field you are focusing on. Go beyond the walls of your organizations and work alongside the important stakeholders of the solution that you are willing to give in order to have the best impact on your target community.

Source –
https://hbr.org/2014/05/how-social-entrepreneurs-can-have-the-most-impact
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244418

Disability is not Inability

 

An Edinburgh charity in Scotland has recently been presenting their commitment to assist people living with disability into work. St Jude’s Laundry was fortunate enough to host guests this week for a tour of the only laundry industry in the city. The enterprise works in association with the charity organization to offer employment opportunities to people with disability. Currently, the laundry has employed several individuals with learning, mental and physical disabilities.
In 1963 Capability Scotland founded the city only laundry industry which is now under Forth Sector and also work in collaboration with major disability employment charity in the UK (Shaw Trust). The laundry serves clients such as Edinburgh University, Spire health Care limited, Lush Spa and Scottish Youth Hostel Association.
Currently, St Jude’s Laundry has employed 24 local disabled people who play a significant role in the running of the business. The chief operating officer Mr. Iain Grieve recently applauded the efforts of Shaw trust, Forth Sector, public, private and third sectors for working together with them to create more and equal opportunities for people living with disabilities. He also said that the objectives enterprise is to reducing Scotland’s disability employment gap. Furthermore, he encourages all stakeholders including government agency to assist them to reach out to more people living with disability and enroll them in their program. Other countries should emulate such program that will reduce biases in the society.

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/laundry-aims-to-continue-helping-disabled-into-work

Reasons Women Social Entrepreneurs Generally Don’t Prefer to have Commercial Models

The growing numbers of women entrepreneurs is encouraging female social entrepreneurs to pursue hybrid ventures. Natalia Oberti Noguera discovered that when women social entrepreneurs express their ideas with the world and have some support of them, people who were initially interested in donating to the projects, generally lost the enthusiasm after knowing that the ventures were for profit. Oberti Noguera witnessed a double standard prevailing in the society. She mentioned, “If a woman is saying she’s going to change the world, the assumption is she’s launching a non-profit. People don’t assume the same for a man.”
Researchers have proved that such social norms lay a platform where women are left at a disadvantage. From a woman, the society has high expectations to be kind, caring and soft – the qualities that often lack successful business entrepreneurs. However, that is not all. This attitude is not from the males in the society but also from that of the females. These behaviors not only impact our evaluation of entrepreneurs but also how these gender norms influence a woman entrepreneur’s decision of the business model.
In a hybrid business mod, in order to support their social mission, ventures engage in commercial activities leading to major benefits. Such business can eventually turn into growing “impact investment” market. The data, however, reflected that women based social entrepreneurship mostly rely on donations. This gender-based stereotype impacted the decision of how the women social entrepreneurs decide to go with a hybrid model in comparison to their male counterparts. The presence of women leaders in other sectors had no such spillover effect. Girls brought up in cities where investments are encouraged, tend to turn out to be good investors themselves. An effective entrepreneurship also depends upon the access to resources, relationships and various other factors.

Reference URL: https://knowledge.insead.edu/entrepreneurship/why-many-women-social-entrepreneurs-avoid-commercial-models-7876

Empowering Women Through “Emancipatory” Social Entrepreneurship

Emancipatory social entrepreneurship focuses on empowering women through social missions. This empowerment ensures that they are able to earn an income, provide for themselves and for their households. Any constraints and limiting social beliefs that inhibit these women from exploiting their highest potential are changed. In developing countries, women often have limited access to resources. When they work hard, the earnings are mostly channeled to a male member of the household. Apart from resources, control over their earnings and decision-making is crucial. When women have control over their own finances, they become independent and are able to ensure that girls and other women in the community are also empowered and put through school.
Existing entrepreneurship programs aim at harnessing the skills that women learn while growing up. On average, most women in developing countries can sew, cook and bake. With these, they can start their own business, accrue some income and put themselves through extra training. Examples of social enterprises working to ensure that this happens include Campaign for Female Education (Camfed), Oxfam and the Cherie Blair Foundation. As they work to ensure that the female future is bright, new challenges emerge. In conjunction with the efforts made, ideas should also be built around solving migration problems and how to empower women in transitioning economies. This will ensure that none of them is left out in market-based systems.
Research source link:
https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/emancipatory-social-entrepreneurship/