Social Entrepreneurs on the Hybrid Spectrum
Organisations are located on a spectrum with traditional non-profits on the left hand side and traditional for-profits on the right hand side. In between there are also non-profits with commercial activities that generate economic value to fund social programs, but whose main motive is to generate social impact, as well as for-profit entities that create social value but whose main motives are profit-making and distribution of profit to shareholders.
Looking at the hybrid spectrum, a social enterprise is any business venture created for a social purpose – mitigating/reducing a social problem or a market failure – and to generate social value while operating with the financial discipline, innovation and determination of a private sector business.
All hybrid organisations generate both social and economic value, and are organised by the degree of orientation, goal and destination of profit.
Non-Profit | Hybrid | For-Profit | |
Orientation | Mission driven | Mission and market driven | Market driven |
Goal | Social value creation | Social and Economic value creation | Economic value creation |
Destination of profit | Directed toward mission activities of non-profit organisations (required by law or organisational policy) | Reinvested in mission activities and/or retained for business growth and development, limited distribution to shareholders | Distributed to shareholders |
We found some videos that might interest you:
TEDxYouth@Toronto
How to start a social enterprise. Six steps. Greg Overholt is confident that Social Enterprises can tackle many of the challenges of today’s world by leveraging commercial principles to maximise social impacts. In his talk, he presents 6 tangible steps on how to start and grow your social enterprise by sharing his story of starting his organisation:
TEDxBarcelonaChange
Five Keys to Success for Social Healthcare Entrepreneurs by Lluis Pareras: From this approximately 8-minute long TEDtalk, we especially remember the quote: “We investors don’t invest in ideas, we invest in the execution of ideas”:
TED
‘Why business can be good at solving social problems’: Get a for-profit entrepreneur’s view as Michael Porter wonders why we turn to non-profits, NGO’s and governments to solve society’s biggest problems. He admits to being biased as a business school professor, but he wants you to hear his case for letting businesses try to solve massive problems like climate change and access to water. Because, when business solves a problem, it makes profit – which permits the solution to grow. Don’t get us wrong, we are not in favour of privatisation of common goods! But if you want a full understanding of what’s going on in the world of social challenges, you have to learn about as many different perspectives as possible: