Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to a wide range of organizations, which vary in size, aims, and beliefs. For-profit entrepreneurs typically measure performance using business metrics like profit, revenues and increases in stock prices. Social entrepreneurs, however, are either non-profits, or they blend for-profit goals with generating a positive "return to society". Therefore, they use different metrics. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care and community development.
Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010 that aimed to encourage people to reduce waste and live in a more environmentally conscious way.
Grameen Bank founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (left) with two young social entrepreneurs (right)
A panel discusses social entrepreneurship in the health care sector in 2015.
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk, and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton
In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C.
Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010.
Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City