What is a Social Entrepreneur?

Have you ever thought ‘someone needs to do something about that’? I mean something that would actually make people’s lives better or make our world safer… like minimising food waste, providing great places for people to enjoy the outdoors, housing homeless people, enabling work opportunities for disadvantaged groups or reducing traffic congestion outside the school gates.

Many people will say ‘that’s not my responsibility’. Well okay maybe it isn’t. But that doesn’t stop some people.

Some people will start to really think… maybe even a bit obsessively! They will come up with creative ways of making that change. This probably needs money… even if it doesn’t they still need to earn an income themselves somehow (they’re not bothered about being millionaires but they need to eat!)… so they keep thinking.

And then they find a business solution to the problem they want to solve.

And that is what social entrepreneurs are: People who have ideas of how to make things better for others and then figure out a way of using the problem to earn an income for the organisation and themselves… which makes the solution permanent. It’s not for the ‘get rich quick’ brigade, in fact it’s not about getting rich as social enterprises don’t have shareholders taking the profit – instead it goes back in to help the social enterprise grow or achieve its aims.

But being a social entrepreneur is a great way of really making a difference about something you care about and putting your time and passion into being the one who is ‘doing something about that’.