>Every week at ID we scan the web for articles that relate to what we do and what we like. This week we read a lot about social entrepreneurship.
This week a very interesting debate is brewing on the idea of “doing well in a bad economy.” This article in The New York Times highlighted two college graduates starting their careers during the height of the financial crisis, and ended up working in nonprofits rather than the corporate world. Echoing Green disagrees that they are now “doing good because the economy did them wrong,” and argues that divide between for-profits and non-profits is blurring. Lara, the author of this blog post, makes several good arguments that working for social impact is not a consequence of the economy doing you wrong. Read the Echoing Green post and the NYT article for both sides of this debate. A must read for anyone working in social entrepreneurship.
“seToolbelt Equips Social Entrepreneurs with Knowledge, Research, Support” by Tristan Pollock
This week in NextBillion’s blog, Pollock wrote about the database called seToolbelt.org, which is literally a tool belt for social entrepreneurs created by Virtue Ventures. A free tool, it is a gold mine of information for social entrepreneurs, offering “consulting solutions, research papers, social impact metricts, business plans, marketing templates, [and] financial forecasts.” Future plans for the database include a greater emphasis on resources with a local context in emerging markets.
“The Egyptian Revolution & Social Entrepreneurship” by Inji El Abd
We’ve all been watching citizens in the Middle East fighting for political reform. Lately, there has been a lot of buzz that these Middle Eastern countries are going to need reform on more than just the political level. Beyond Profit’s article claims that social entrepreneurship came before the Revolution of 2011 in Egypt, and will most definitely follow. “…The recipe for a social entrepreneur is: social entrepreneur = social conscience + entrepreneurial spirit + creative thinking + persistence + obsession with a cause.” All of these “ingredients” are present in Egypt, and a recipe for social progress is brewing.
“2 Benefits of Impact Investing for Social Entrepreneurs,” by Matthew Alberto
This blog posts says that there are two undeniable benefits of impacting investing: 1) “Passive Income and Passive Social Impact”, and 2) “Impact Investing & the Power of Compound Interest.” Overall, impact investors have the power to increase the impact that a social enterprise aims to have. It’s a win for the investor, a win for the entrepreneur, and a win for society. Win-win-win.
