Social Enterprise

GitHub repository ↗ synced 2026/8/9

📗Resources to dive into the world of social enterprises 🌼

A social enterprise is an organization that is primarily focused on social impact and is at least partially self-funded.

When I was at Eckerd College I repeatedly bumped into the concept of social enterprises. First, in a course called Technology, Society, and The Environment, then through meeting the CTO of a social enterprise, and finally by taking a course called Social Entrepreneurship. Each step along the way I fell more in love with the concept of social enterprises. However, I never felt like there was an easy way to connect to the world of social enterprises.

Eventually, I set a Google Alert for weekly digests of anything related to "social entrepreneurs." That worked okay but I still felt like I was missing out on something. Fast-forward a few years and I find myself heavily involved in a nonprofit called hackNY, working at The New York Times, and having a stronger urge than ever to learn about social enterprises. As such, I've started compiling this list of resources to make it easy for people to connect with the world of social enterprises. See the FAQs at the bottom for some common questions.

What to Read

Wikipedia Links 🔗

Wikipedia is a great place to explore and find related topics.

News 📰

Finding Articles

Pioneers Post - The Social Enterprise Magazine.
Impact Boom - Social impact blog and podcast.
Harvard Business Review - Articles tagged "social enterprise" are infrequent but high quality.
Stanford Social Innovation Review - Great publication with many articles tagged social enterprise.
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship - Content about the foundation's activities and opportunities.
Medium - Content from all around about social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.
Galileo Impact Stories | YouTube | Kickstarter | Website
- A small but growing organization dedicated to covering impact investing. Content is often Russia oriented and not always directly about social enterprises but much of the content is relative. Here is a video summarizing their work in 2019.
Journal of Social Entrepreneurship - The academic journal for the topic.
The Straits Times - Singapore based newspaper with articles about social enterprise.

Articles

State of Social Entrepreneurship 2020 - Overview of SE in 2020 by Echoing Green.
- Echoing Green 2020 Fellows
90+ Inspiring Books For Impact-Driven Doers and Entrepreneurs

Papers 📃

(1998) The Meaning of "Social Entrepreneurship" by J. Gregory Dees
- A short history of social entrepreneurship (and why the definition isn't agreed upon).
(2004) The Legitimacy of Social Enterprise Raymond Dart
- A pragmatic discussion on why social enterprises, in relation to nonprofits, exist.
(2008) Evolution of the social enterprise industry by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurs
- Less academic but a detailed history of events related to social enterprises.
(2010) Conceptions of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship by Jacques Defourny
- Parallels between US and European Social Enterprises.
(2014) Social Enterprise – A New Phenomenon in the Field of Economic and Social Welfare? by Leandro Sepulveda
- A history of social enterprises from a UK perspective.

Books 📚

Title	Author	Year	Notes
Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs To Know	David Bornstein	2010	Great introduction to social entrepreneurship. Short and sweet with lots of great answers to common questions.
Ladderworks books	various	2022	Diverse picture books for empowering over a million kids to become social entrepreneurs.
Becoming a Social Entrepreneur: Starting Out, Scaling Up and Staying True	Michael Gordon	2019
Paying It Forward: How to Be A Social Entrepreneur	Josh Littlejohn MBE	2023

Podcasts 🎧

The Tech Matters Podcast - Talking about social enterprise structure and interviewing folks running them. Hosted by social entreprenur and engineer Jim Fruchterman.

Courses 🎓

Future Learn

Social Enterprise Program
- By Middlesex University Business School & Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship program.
- Free, three courses, nine weeks total.
- According to this paper, the courses were quite impactful and helped start many social enterprises.

Philanthropy University | Interview with CEO | Origins

Several free courses such as: Introduction to Fundraising, Fundraising Strategies, and Setting Up a Nonprofit Board.

edX

Business and Impact Planning for Social Enterprises - By MIT.
Disciplined Approach to Social Entrepreneurship - By Curtin University.

Coursera

Social Entrepreneurship - By Wharton Business School. One course, approximately nine hours of work.
Social Entrepreneurship Specialization - By Copenhagen Business School. Three courses to complete over four months.
Becoming a Social Entrepreneur: Getting Started - By University Of Michigan.

Acumen Academy

Offers free and paid courses to help individuals create social change.

Fellowships

Year Here - One year social enterprise fellowship to build an organization based in London.
Acumen Academy Fellowship - One year fellowship with the goal of equipping individuals with the tools to tackle issues in their communities.
Echoing Green Fellowship - 18 month fellowship including possible funding.
Miller Center Accelerator - Six month program, 4-6 hours a week. Geard towards senior leaders.
MIT Solve's Global Challenges Program - Nine month program with funding available. Geared toward specific themes.
Fast Forward Accelerator - Startup accelerator for nonprofit tech companies.
100x Impact Accelerator - 12 week program with 150k for social enterprises.
Fashion for Good Accelerator - Nine month program to solve fashion sustainability problems.
Social Enterprise Academy Accelerator - 20 week program to foster social enterprises. Up to 30k in funding available.
Radical Partners - Miami-based social impact accelerator.
Seaworthy Collective - Miami-based BlueTech entrepreneur support organization.

Institutions 🏫

Academic institutions researching social enterprise:

Tools 🔨

GuideStar - Reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies.
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer - Easily access any U.S. nonprofit's tax documents.
Social Bearing - Useful to determine how popular/active any Twitter account is.

What to Watch

Videos 📽

Social Entrepreneurs: Pioneering Social Change - Skoll Foundation video about social entrepreneurs.
Muhammad Yunus's Nobel Prize Speech - Yunus built Grameen Bank, the poster child for social enterprises.
Social Enterprise 101 - Quick and easy overview oof social enterprise.
How social entrepreneurship will change the world - Inspiring TEDx talk by Erica Wenger about social enterprises.

Movies 🎥

Title	Year	Notes
The Social Shift	2018	Four young adults travel across Canada interviewing social entrepreneurs.
The New Breed	2020	Follows three change-makers as they build social enterprises.

Communities 🤝

Online

Facebook
- Social Entrepreneurs - 2k members many posts each day.
Quora
- Social Entrepreneurship - 375k followers, great for asking questions.
United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE).
- Social Entrepreneurship - Focused on social entrepreneurship education.

Conferences

Skoll World Forum - Large annual conference for Skull Foundation.
Harvard Social Enterprise Conference - Student run annual social enterprise conference.
Indiana University Social Entrepreneurship Conference - Two day conference focused on social entrepreneurship research.
Social Enterprise Summit - Annual social enterprise conference based in Hong Kong.

Finding Local Communities

SEA Chapters - Groups all over US focused on social enterprises.
Meetup - Popular group meeting site.
Eventbrite - Easy site for discovering events near you.

Networks

senco (social enterprise network of central ontario) - Canada group promoting social enterprises.
Social Enterprise Alliance - US social enterprise advocates.
enactus - Worldwide organization fostering student social entrepreneurs.
Buy Good. Feel Good. - North American expo dedicated to brands that are changing the world.
SocialVentures - Ohio nonprofit to advocate for, develop, and fund businesses that solve social problems.

Foundations

Skoll Foundation - Large foundation investing in social entrepreneurs.
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship - Advocates for social entrepreneurss on a global level.
The Audacious Project - A TED project funding social entrepreneurs and nonprofits.
CA RISE - A $25M California initiative providing capital ($100k-$500k grants) and technical assistance to employment social enterprises.

Consultants

CSED - Canada based nonprofit helping develop, launch, and grow social enterprises.
Common Good Solutions - Canada based B-corp helping governments, community organizations and entrepreneurs.

People 🧑

Authors

Susan Davis - Co-authored books on on social enterprise and highly active in community.
David Bornstein - Wrote several popular books on social entrepreneurship.

Muhammad Yunus - Nobel Prize winner, founder of Grameen Bank, considered father of social enterprise.

Twitter Accounts 🐦

See a feed of all these accounts by following my "Social Enterprise News" Twitter list here.

Ken Banks - Founder of Kiwanja.
Tech Jobs for Good - Posts about tech jobs with social impact.
Centre for Social Innovation Toronto - A coworking space, community, and launchpad for people who are changing the world.
Ashoka
Echoing Green
Social Good News
HBS SocialEnterprise
Social Enterprise Alliance
senco
Pioneers Post
Year Here
The Audacious Project
enactus
Impact Boom
Acumen

Miscellaneous

WorldShapers - An abundance of resources related to social entrepreneurship education.
Benefit Corporation - A type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 35 U.S. states.
B Corp Certification - Certificate issued for existing for profit organizations demonstrating social responsibility.

FAQs ❓

Q: What is the goal of this repo?
A: To provide resources for people to dive into the world of social enterprises. To get people excited about social enterprises. To spread the word of social enterprises.

Q: What do you like about social enterprises?
A: I love the idea of bringing the goodness of nonprofits and the efficiency of business together. Not all nonprofits are inefficient and not all businesses are bad. However, the potential of unleashing the notoriously efficient business practices to maximize social impact is what I want to encourage people to explore.

Q: Why social enterprise instead of social entrepreneurship?
A: I want to focus on the organizational structure rather than the individuals within an organization. Social entrepreneurship can mean anything from a large organization championing for social causes to a lone person doing community development. While both of those are important and valuable this is a resource geared towards people interested in the organizational side of things.

Q: How is a social enterprise different from a nonprofit?
A: A social enterprise may be a nonprofit. While nonprofits are usually focused on social impact they may not be generating any revenue to fund themselves.

Q: Why not just add this information to Wikipedia?
A: Wikipedia is meant to contain information that's encyclopedic in nature. Meaning, it should contain the most important and verified information in a well summarized form. This document is much more like a phone book trying to link out to relative resources that are useful.