Social Entrepreneurship: A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale and acts as a change agent for society.
I find it interesting that social entrepreneurs are similar to business entrepreneurs in that they act as change agents for society while business entrepreneurs create and change whole industries. My question about social entrepreneurship is what do social entrepreneurs actually do to help society?
Social Entrepreneurs today:
John Wood: Founder of the Room to Read organization that has established thousands of libraries with English and local language books in ten different countries, including Vietnam and India. It also has a focus of helping girls finish basic education by giving financial assistance and tutors. Room to Read started in Nepal where they donated books to children in rural communities. The programs of this organization have benefited over 7.8 million children so far. I could help this entrepreneur and their cause by donating or adopting a project of my own.
Scott Harrison: He is the founder of charity:water, an organization that provides clean drinking water to many different countries by raising money and using it on projects to construct wells to provide the water. They have funded 11,621 water projects in 22 different countries. A way someone could help this cause is to donate to fund water projects or go and help the project get started.
Wendy Kopp: She is the founder of Teach For America, which trains graduating seniors from the most selective colleges to become teachers and puts them into some of the nations worst classrooms. TFA has helped millions of kids in over 34 states and now is going to be made into a global project, Teach for All. Some ways to help this cause are to join the Corps and become a teacher for them, or to donate money.
To become a social entrepreneur, I would create an organization that helps a cause that I am passionate about. First I would research and become an expert on the cause, then I would start fundraising and find a source of money to support my cause. Next I would find other people who also care about this cause and have them join my organization. Finally I would start to work towards ending whatever issue my organization is trying to help.
"The Forbes Impact 30." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
"What Is Social Entrepreneurship?" PBS. PBS, 2005. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.
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