When we were ready to launch this site, the question came up about what will go on the front page. It would seem almost natural to put here an introduction to the social entrepreneurship. But apparently, it seems that this is the hardest part. Surrownded by bestselling books on social entrepreneurship and sites of Skoll Foundation and of Shwab Foundation I still have hard time summarizing social entrepreneurship, as there doesn’t seem to be a unified definition of what it is.

The term social entrepreneurship was introduced by the founder of Ashoka – Bill Drayton. The definition has been evolving over the time, but still it is quite hard to clearly define the term and what is even more harder is to be able to declare who is a social entrepreneur and who is not. Skoll Foundation, founded by E-Bay’s first president Jeff Skoll defines social entrepreneurship as society’s change agent: “pioneer of innovation that One thing that seems for certain is that what matters in social entrepreneurship is the timing. Victor Hugo once said: “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”benefit humanity”. Ashoka defines the social entrepreneurs as “individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.” One thing that is clear is that social entrepreneurship is about people building sustainable businesses to solve social challenges.

The more I think about defining this term, the less important the definition seems to be. And truly, why should it matter how to call the people who are committed to change. You have came to the site, not because you want to know how to call yourself, but because you want to understand how to turn the ideas of changing the world into reality. Well so do we.

One thing that seems for certain is that what matters in social entrepreneurship is the timing. Victor Hugo once said: “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” Well it seems the time of social entrepreneurship has come. Obviously, Mohammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank and the recipient of the Noble Prize made it clear that the time has come. This doesn’t mean that before there were no successful initiatives that attacked the social challenges. However before they were considered humanitarians and not successful business owners, now this is being turned around with the help of large social foundations that support businesses and people that are willing to fight for change. Under our resources, you will be able to find lists of major organizations and foundations that offer their support.

So what does social entrepreneurship entail? The book The Power of Unreasonable People by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan makes a case that social entrepreneurs are unreasonable and perhaps even slightly crazy, in a good way of course. The book also lists some of the causes of the unreasonable behavior. We highly recommend this book, as one of the finest in the field. But why are we, social entrepreneurs, unreasonable? It is simple, who else is brave enough to attack the challenges of the global importance? Social entrepreneurs do not want to be like everybody else, they want to create the change, the global change, they are driven not just by the financial motives but by emotions and feelings, they focus on possibilities instead of problems, outcomes instead of challenges, they want to create financially successful enterprises in the fields that used to be considered non-profit, they are unstoppable and driven to create the future that is better than the past. We are honored to be connected to people like you.

Social entrepreneurs tend to go in two directions: they either launch their own ventures or tend to go into consulting helping large corporations find alternatives to make their businesses more responsive. Before, it was assumed that all the organizations that fight social challenges are non-profits. Well, this is not the case anymore. Although some of the organizations are non-profit a lot of businesses in the field are for-profit. This however, is not all. A lot of businesses that are for profit make a case of donating a share of their revenue back to the community and other companies set a limit on how much money they will make and everything beyond that number goes back to the community. This being said, a fair amount of social enterprises make profit simply by finding new solutions to the time pressing global issues. Whichever enterprise you run or will choose to run doesn’t really matter, as long as you stay committed to change.

Where should you start? Do not underestimate the power of idea, as this is obviously the first step. Once there is an idea try to identify which social challenge it addresses. Each social field on this site has a number of resources that will help you. We also have items that are called editor’s pick; hence we recommend you pay particular attention to them.

Well and lastly, we want to thank you for being a part of this exciting new time, where people become accountable for the future of this world. We are proud to help.