Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs

by Marc Lane

an excerpt from Social Enterprise: Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs

"The deepest recession in modern times has left one in seven working-age Americans in poverty. Yet the nation's charities have cut their services to the disadvantaged. Their operating costs have skyrocketed; grants and subsidiaries, more competitive than ever, have been cut back; and charitable giving is down by 3.6 percent in 2009, the steepest decline in current dollar terms since Giving USA first published its annual report in 1956. Worse still, federal and state governments, faced with staggering budget deficits, have had no choice but to pull back on their support of the social sector.

Nonprofits have prudently implemented austerity measures, inevitably leaving their beneficiaries without the basic services they require. But nonprofits have also been innovative. And, more and more, they've become entrepreneurial, on their own and in collaboration with other nonprofits and even for-profit businesses.

They see earned revenue strategies, ideally those directly tied to their missions, as a reasonable contributor to sustainability. Some, discounting the reliability of government subsidy and philanthropy, pursue self-sufficiency reliance on earned revenue alone.

The results have been extraordinary. Nonprofits have launched customer-focused substance abuse recovery centers, literacy initiatives, supportive housing developments, adult day-care facilities, hospices, and supplemental educational services. They have also created employee-focused social enterprises that offer disadvantaged and disabled people job training, mentoring, and a path to permanent employment.

Increasingly, for-profit social-purpose businesses are also addressing social needs. They see merit in defining success in terms of both financial and social returns. And new business models and even entity forms are emerging to encourage the social entrepreneur to drive positive social change.

Many social enterprises, both for-profit and nonprofit, have already tapped into market efficiencies and achieved scale. They are affecting the lives of thousands of people. But so much more can and will be done."

As social enterprises continue to adopt emerging business forms, employ new strategies and tactics to drive positive social change, and spearhead alliances with complementary stakeholders they also face some of the knottiest challenging legal, tax and governance challenges.

Join Marc Lane for a live webinar on Wednesday March 9th as he tackles Legal Issues Unique to Social Enterprise. 


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