Social entrepreneurship is an altruistic act of individuals and organizations to benefit the society on social, cultural or environmental issues. They deal with contemporary social problems and aim to mobilize the available funds and resources towards the same. In present times, a substantial degree of social entrepreneurship activities are channelized through social media. Income is also significantly dependent on contributions through the Internet made primarily via social media and social networking websites. Through such initiatives, individuals succeed in extending help to large section of public and connecting with like-minded people. Income generation is important but plays a secondary role; the primary role of a social entrepreneur has always been to implement innovative and creative ideas to solve relevant social problems.
There is no clear definition of social entrepreneurship; and hence diverse types of organizations are linked with it, such as non-profit charities, voluntary sector organizations, profit making organization which has integrated charitable work with their business model or non-governmental organizations. Job type may vary from social work to community development, to entrepreneurship and environmental science.
People have even started to turn profit making enterprises into social enterprises. Being from the heritage city Jaipur we have come across prominent faces active in this field. One of the individual associated with social entrepreneurship is Ms. Gagandeep Kaur, founder of Superhuman Race. Pvt Ltd., who has developed a way to channel big corporate’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds resolving current social issues while maintaining total transparency with regard to allocation of funds to all stakeholders. Other prominent individuals associated with social entrepreneurship are Akhtar Hameed Khan and Mohamaed Yunus who won a Nobel peace prize for coming up with the idea and implementation of the Grameen Bank.
Things are always seem easy and pleasant until one attempt to do them. Crowd funding and raising donations may looks easy but there are some unique problems which come with the territory. Difficulties for every social entrepreneur stem from the fact that raising investment is not easy. People are sceptical of organizations working as non-profits or for-profits, which forces the entrepreneur to tap on their personal assets and grants from government to continue their work. Another major challenge is low profit margins which many a time leads to slow progress and eventually a change in the character of the organization to a for-profit entity. This shift almost always comes with resultant loss of their goal of benefiting the society.
Despite all these problems social entrepreneurship is the future of the world. It plays a crucial role in addressing and solving social issues. The best thing about it is that it is for the people and by the people in a most selfless manner. Social Entrepreneurs have made it evident that success is not defined by financial gains but by positive impact and positive approach towards the social issues.