Monday, April 15, 2019

What It Means To Be A Social Entrepreneur

By James Watson


The sphere of social enterprise is one that has continued to grow by leaps and bounds in recent times. A social entrepreneur comes up with brilliant ideas and works through seemingly impossible situations but still manages to succeed in creating new products and the kind of services that improve the lives of people. They are people who take on social problems and meet them with innovative or path breaking solutions.

The presence of such people in society is of essence, because they act as the agents of change in many spheres of life. They get to identify and seize the opportunities that other people do not see or are afraid to explore, they improve systems and even invent new approaches of doing things. The end point of all this is creation of solutions to change society in better ways.

Many people who decide to get into entrepreneurship often venture into new areas with the intention of making profits. However, those who chose the path of social enterprises are socially responsible, and are obliged to contribute to the well-being of the society in which they operate. They usually make it a primary goal to ensure they impact the society positively and the profit making part is always secondary.

There are a number of other ways in which the benefits of these ventures can be passed to the community. For instance, the entrepreneurs may choose to give a donation of their profits in order to fund some specific programs in society. They are also known to make partnerships with the government, existing charities or target communities in order all of which are ways in which the society can benefit from them.

Every investor in this area has the ultimate aim of addressing a certain specific need in the society. Such needs may include provision of education, improvement of crop yields, poverty level reduction, improvement of water quality, creation of adequate health facilities, elimination of environmental threats, and addressing societal inequalities based on gender, race and age among others. They can start from their own society or region, but with a more global coverage in mind.

For the ventures that are to be involved in production of goods, locating the right manufacturers is more often than not, quite difficult. Faced by the entrepreneurs as they bargain their hunt to find the most affordable one in accordance to their financial capabilities. However coming up with the cash to meet the minimum order is usually a problem to the entrepreneurs.

Despite the fact that this form of entrepreneurship is meant to address social needs, the entrepreneur should not ignore the factor of funding or profits. They should put in mind that they need a clear vision, a plan and enough funding, to see to it that the kind of vision they have can be seen through.

The entrepreneurs also have the role of promoting the development of entrepreneurial skills among the societal members. It can therefore be seen that they have roles of very significant influence to the economy and also the society well-being. It is always of vital importance, as seen above that efforts made by the entrepreneurs be supported to see to their success.




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