Building Social Business summary

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding social businesses, and discussions about them are likely to feature terms like social entrepreneurship, NGO, social enterprise and foundation. However, these ventures are all different from social businesses.

For starters, a social business is not the same as social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is all about one person – the entrepreneur – and his or her idea. So, while such initiatives can have a social impact, they can be driven by non-economic, charitable or business intentions.

Think of a standard, profit-maximizing business. When founding such a company, entrepreneurs generally seek out a gap or niche in the market that they can fill. Their main intention in doing so is to earn as much money as possible.

However, when launching a social business, it’s essential to start by identifying a social issue that you want to solve and are uniquely suited to tackling. As a social business, you’ll by definition be serving a social function, which makes turning a profit a requirement, not a goal, for your enterprise.

Now that you’ve got an idea, the next step is to secure funding. But how exactly?

Well, it’s important to come up with a reasonable business plan to attract potential investors. This plan should include a detailed five-year budget and forecast for operationalizing the business, complete with both cost and revenue structures.

As World War II was finally coming to a close, global prospects appeared bleak. Poverty and hardship were widespread across the globe.

As the years passed, capitalism advanced, resulting in positive changes for many – but not for everyone at once. In the decades since the Second World War, many economies have done extremely well, particularly those of Europe and North America, significantly increasing the wealth and quality of life of hundreds of millions of people. But still more people were left impoverished in the wake of this boon.