Social Enterprise Typology

by Kim Alter

This typology breaks down the traditional boundaries between the nonprofit and private sectors and draws definition to this new institutional animal--part business-part social--the social enterprise. In doing so, the typology explores how institutions have combined a mix of social values and goals with commercial business practices and how they have come up with ownership models, income and capitalization strategies, and unique management and service systems designed to maximize social value. The illustrative typology classifies different models of social enterprise in order to navigate readers through the currently ill-defined, diverse and dynamic landscape of this emerging field.

The typology is available in three different formats:

• As a website for online viewing;
• As a MS-Windows help file (with interactive features similar to online version) for offline viewing;
• As a PDF file for printing.

This typology is an outgrowth of a paper commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank in 2003 entitled: "Social Enterprise: A Typology of the Field Contextualized in Latin America."

>> Go to the website

>> Download (Ms-Windows Help File Format)

>> Download (PDF Format)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

“By presenting us with a host of social enterprise models, this typology lets us see how our own approach to enterprise can be consistently defined and compared with that of others. By focusing upon developing country examples, Kim has reminded us that the drive to enterprise is not a U.S., European or First World phenomenon, but rather one that speaks to the essence of human experience and ambition regardless of border, language, or level of literacy.”

Jed Emerson,
Senior Fellow, Generation Foundation