FAQ: What is a social entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is an individual who owns and operates their own business, assuming the responsibility, risks and rewards therein. A social entrepreneur meanwhile is someone who works in an entrepreneurial manner, but for public or social benefit, rather than to make money. Social entrepreneurs may work in ethical businesses, governmental or public bodies, quangos, or the voluntary and community sector.
While entrepreneurs in the business sector identify untapped commercial markets, and gather together the resources to break into those markets for profit, social entrepreneurs use the same skills to different effect. For social entrepreneurs, untapped markets are people or communities in need, who haven't been reached by other initiatives.
But while they may read from a different bottom line, social and business entrepreneurs have a lot in common. They build something out of nothing. They are ambitious to achieve. They marshal resources - sometimes from the unlikeliest places - to meet their needs. They are constantly creative. And they are not afraid to make mistakes.
Social entrepreneurs are particularly skilled at finding new uses for derelict spaces, second-hand materials, and under-used people; as well as squeezing money out of the commercial and public sectors. The most successful embody a curious mixture of idealism and pragmatism - high-mindedness wedded to hard-headedness.
Social entrepreneurs never say "it can't be done."