Social Entrepreneurship

New Models of Sustainable Social Change

Edited by Alex Nicholls

Hardcover, 474 pages, November 2006, Oxford University Press

Themed around the emerging agendas for developing new, sustainable models of social sector excellence and systemic impact, Social Entrepreneurship offers, for the first time, a wide-ranging, internationally-focused selection of cutting-edge work from leading academics, policy makers, and practitioners. Together they seek to clarify some of the ambiguity around this term, describe a range of social entrepreneurship projects, and establish a clear set of frameworks with which to understand it.

Included in the volume are contributions from Muhammad Yunus, the father of microfinance, Geoff Mulgan, former head of the British prime minister's policy unit, and Bill Drayton, founder of the Ashoka network of social entrepreneurs. Jeff Skoll, founder of the Skoll Foundation, and first president of eBay, provides a preface.

Description of chapter 10, Social Enterprise Models and Their Mission and Money Relationships, by Kim Alter

In Chapter 10, Sutia Kim Alter sets out an extensive typology of social enterprise organizational forms. Alter reminds us that the social enterprise model combines both social impact and financial value creation by adopting various business elements within the context of achieving a social mission. The objective is to diversify funding in order to support sustainability and longer-term impact. However, she also acknowledges that this model will not be appropriate for every social entrepreneur.

Drawing on her extensive experience of consulting with social sector groups across Latin America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and elsewhere, Alter distinguishes three forms of social enterprise: mission-centric, mission-related, and unrelated to mission. Building on this analysis, the chapter then goes on to identify three operational types of social enterprise: embedded, integrated, and external. Alter then explores seven specific prototypes of organizational forms across these three types. Each prototype is set out with a detailed case study example.

The next section of the chapter considers combined models that bring together two or more of the seven prototypes as either ‘complex’, ‘mixed’, or ‘enhancing’ organizational forms. Alter concludes by reminding us of the limitations of the social enterprise approach and warns against assuming it is the ‘holy grail’ of social entrepreneurship.

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Table of Contents:

Preface (Jeff Skoll)

Introduction (Alex Nicholls)

Part I: New Perspectives

1. Social Business Entrepreneurs are the Solution (Muhammad Yunus)

2. The Citizen Sector Transformed (William Drayton)

3. For What It's Worth: Social Value and the Future of Social Entrepreneurship (Rowena Young)

4. Cultivating the Other Invisible Hand of Social Entrepreneurship: Comparative Advantage, Public Policy, and Future Research Priorities (Geoff Mulgan)

Part II: New Theories

5. Social Entrepreneurship: The Structuration of a Field (Alex Nicholls and Albert Cho)

6. Social Entrepreneurship: Agency in a Globalising World (Paola Grenier)

7. Rhetoric, Reality, and Research: Building a Solid Foundation for the Practice of Social Entrepreneurship (Beth Battle Anderson and J. Gregory Dees)

8. Social Entrepreneurship: It's For Corporations, Too (James E. Austin, Herman B. Leonard, Ezequiel Reficco, and Jane Wei-Skillern)

9. Social Entrepreneurship: Exploring a Cultural Mode Amidst Others in the Church of England (Doug Foster)

Part III: New Models

10. Social Enterprise Models and Their Mission and Money Relationships (Sutia Kim Alter)

11. The Socially Entrepreneurial City (Charles Leadbeater)

12. Helping People is Difficult: Growth and Performance in Social Enterprises Working for International Relief and Development (Alex Jacobs)

13. The Social Entrepreneurship Collaboratory (SE Lab): A University Incubator for a Rising Generation of Social Entrepreneurs (Gordon M. Bloom)

Part IV: New Directions

14. Wayfinding without a Compass: Philanthropy's Changing Landscape and its Implications for Social Entrepreneurs (Sally Osberg)

15. Delivering on the Promise of Social Entrepreneurship: Challenges Faced in Launching a Global Social Capital Market (Pamela Hartigan)

16. Social Entrepreneurship: The Promise and the Perils (Jerr Boschee)

17. Moving Ahead Together: Implications of a Blended Value Framework for the Future of Social Entrepreneurship (Jed Emerson)

Endnote (Alex Nicholls)