Raúl Gorrín The Entrepreneur-humanist: Raúl Gorrín: What is social entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship refers to the practice of combining innovation, resourcefulness and opportunity to address critical social and environmental challenges.

Social entrepreneurs focus on transforming systems and practices that are the root causes of poverty, marginalization, environmental deterioration and accompanying loss of human dignity. In so doing, they may set up for-profit or not-for-profit organizations, and in either case, their primary objective is to create sustainable systems change.

The key concepts of social entrepreneurship are innovation, market orientation and systems change.

Social entrepreneurs are drivers of change. Together with institutions, networks, and communities, social entrepreneurs create solutions that are efficient, sustainable, transparent, and have measurable impact.

Social entrepreneurs are united by their ability to:

Adopt a mission to create and sustain social value (not just commercial value)
Recognise and relentlessly pursue new opportunities to serve that mission
Engage in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning
Act boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
Exhibit a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.