Social Entrepreneurs – Characteristics and Objectives

While a business entrepreneur might create entirely new industries, a social entrepreneur comes up with new solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale. Social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better.

Social Entrepreneurship
The essence of entrepreneurship is the burning desire to create an organization that focuses in helping humanity by solving societal problems, providing needs, and in the process, the entrepreneur can make money. Social entrepreneurship is about applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit society in general, with an emphasis on those who are marginalized and poor.

Characteristics of Social Entrepreneurs
1.Social entrepreneurs don’t do well in bureaucracies. They cannot sit back and wait for change to happen – they are the drivers of change.

2.A social entrepreneur is a pragmatic visionary who achieves large scale, systemic and sustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these.

3.A social entrepreneur has a practical but innovative stance to a social problem, often using market principles and forces, coupled with dogged determination, that allows them to break away from constraints imposed by ideology or field of discipline, and pushes them to take risks that others wouldn’t dare.

4.Social entrepreneurs are innovative, resourceful, and results oriented. They draw upon the best thinking in both the business and nonprofit worlds to develop strategies that maximize their social impact. These entrepreneurial leaders operate in all kinds of organizations: large and small; new and old; religious and secular; nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid.

5.What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up, and remake the world for the better.

Key To Success
For every entrepreneur or hopefuls, the key to success is to first think of the social benefits of your venture, even if yours in for profit, then go ahead to satisfy those needs, and the money will sure come. If the goal is money, one may sure make the money, but may lack in fulfillment. Entrepreneurs must have eyes that are more than profits to be fulfilled and retire happily.

Social Objective
Earned income ventures are socially entrepreneurial only when they have a social purpose beyond simply making money. If social entrepreneurship is to be distinctive in any way, it must be because social objectives matter in how the venture is organized and managed. If the only way a venture serves your mission is by generating funds, it may be business entrepreneurship, but it is not social entrepreneurship.

Benefits
Running a socially responsible business can be good for the bottom line.Businesses cannot exist in isolation with the community, hence every business, whether non-profits or for profits must be socially conscious of its environment.

In the developed worlds, citizens start or increase their business with a company that is dedicated to the social good. According to a survey by Golin/Harris International, researchers found that about 70% of Americans would start or increase their business with a company that is dedicated to the social good. There’s some value one can place on good will and the relationship with the community.

Improving Society
Any form of social entrepreneurship that is worth promoting broadly must be about establishing new and better ways to improve a society. Social entrepreneurs implement innovative programs, organizational structures, or resource strategies that increase their chances of achieving deep, broad, lasting, and cost-effective social impact.

New Social Enterprises
A new breed of social enterprises which crosses all boundaries and cultural divide has now emerged. Young and innovative Internet companies such as Early Planet, Trade Planets, Paul Hata and World Christian Pages which has banded together to provide online jobs for anyone on the planet with a broadband access.Job opportunities available includes affiliate marketers,article writers,editors, designers and programmers.