Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise organizations have really taken flight over the
past decade! Though the idea of social enterprise has really been around for several decades, people
are taking an increasing interest in this business model now particularly for its baked-in ability
to generate sustainable revenue while also making a positive social impact. But how exactly social
enterprise works is still a mystery to a lot of people, so in this video I'm going to share 7
examples of social enterprise organizations out there making a big impact in the world,
and I hope that it inspires you and sparks some ideas! Welcome to my channel! I'm Amber
Melanie Smith. I am a non-profit founder and executive director. I love making these videos
here on YouTube to help folks who are just out there trying to make an impact in a variety of
ways - whether it's through starting a non-profit or social enterprise or trying to make an impact
in other ways too. So be sure to check out the rest of the videos on my channel for more content
all about that topic, and don't forget to hit the like symbol on this video and subscribe to my
channel too. And if you're thinking of starting a non-profit, be sure to check out my website,
FounderToFullTime.com. I've got some trainings and resources up there for folks who are on
that social change journey. So before we get into these seven examples of social enterprise
organizations out there making an impact I want to just pause and take a moment to define what social
enterprise is for those of you who might just be learning about this concept for the first time.
Essentially, a social enterprise is when you are applying a market-based or business-based
strategy or approach to addressing an unmet community need or tackling a social problem.
It's kind of like combining the social impact mission of the non-profit world with the revenue
generating model of the business world. And to clarify, social enterprise just refers to
the approach you take - the business model of your organization - not its tax or legal structure. So
a non-profit can be a social enterprise or a for-profit business can be a social enterprise.
You can do the social enterprise model with either type of organization. So now I'm going to get
into these seven examples of social enterprise organizations to illustrate my point that you
can be either type of tax structure business or non-profit and be making an impact in the world
and also generating sustainable revenue so for each of the seven examples I'm about to share
I will say what structure it is whether it's a non-profit organization or a for-profit business
I will share how it makes an impact in the world and then I will share how it generates revenue
to remain financially sustainable all right let's jump in example number one that I'm gonna share
is Tala. This is a for-profit business social enterprise and it makes an impact by helping
those folks around the whole world who don't have a credit history build a credit history through
their smartphone and the reason they're focusing on this particular topic is because they learned
that 30 percent of the global adult population does not have a credit history this is important
to them because credit history allows you to take out loans and build economic mobility, etc.
so in this way tala is helping combat global poverty so how does it generate revenue well
tala generates revenue by offering low interest loans to its users and this revenue generated
supports the rest of the programming that they offer. Social enterprise example number two is
Carroll's Kitchen and this is a non-profit organization. Carroll's Kitchen makes an impact by
helping women emerging from some kind of crisis gain employment so they offer job training and
they also often hire them to work for Carroll's Kitchen the organization now here's how they
generate their sustainable revenue the women that they hire after the job training programs
work in the Carroll's Kitchen restaurant and the restaurant of course sells food and beverages in
order to cover the cost of its other programs. Social enterprise example number three is called
PastureMap. PastureMap is a for-profit business and they are making an impact by helping cattle
ranchers reduce their carbon footprint while generating and increasing their profits as cattle
ranchers. And how it does this is it collects and analyzes data all about grazing soil quality
rainfall and other things that might impact a cattle rancher's ability to successfully ranch
cattle basically they're equipping these ranchers with better data so how pasture map
generates revenue is that the cattle ranchers will pay a reasonable annual membership fee in
order to access this live data in their area. The fourth social enterprise example i'm going
to share is called Textbooks for Change. now Textbooks for Change is a for-profit business
they're actually also a registered b corporation which i know i talked about in a recent video too.
Textbooks for Change is making an impact in the world by donating about half of its
college textbooks to partnering campus libraries in east africa and how textbooks for change
generates revenue is it sells the other half of its textbooks at an affordable price to college
students and partnering campuses around the world and textbooks that are too damaged to be sold or
used are recycled. The fifth social enterprise example that i'm gonna share is called With
Love L.A. and I thought that this example was really interesting because they're
actually a non-profit and for-profit hybrid or partnership. With Love L.A. is a grocery
store cafe and community program combination so with love la employs locals in their community
to work it's for-profit arms so that grocery store in that cafe that i mentioned and then
the leadership also runs these community programs like educational and health classes
a community garden and they also have some youth internships too so and i failed to mention this
before but whenever a social enterprise model is being used through a non-profit organization they
can also be collecting donations like any typical non-profit would so in this case for example with
love la is collecting just community donations through its non-profit side and then is generating
revenue through its grocery store and its cafe also. The sixth example i'm going to share is
called the Asian Health Alliance. And by the way I will leave the links to these organizations
if you're just curious you want to check out more about them in the description below the video also
so this is a for-profit business they provide um high quality medical diagnostic services to low
income and rural areas in india at a below average affordable price so that is how this company
as a social enterprise it's making its social impact they're able to reach people who might
not have access to these services at least not affordably so providing them at a price that
is affordable to them is making a big impact in their lives and of course i already kind of
said this but that's also how they generate revenue by offering these services at a low
price but those low fees are still helping cover some of the costs of the rest of the programming.
And the seventh example i want to share today um this organization is super cool it's a non-profit
and it's called Develop for Good. so Develop for Good makes an impact by working with non-profits
who might have a web design or a web development project to get those projects completed by
university students who have some coding and programming experience and just might want to
practice a little bit more to volunteer to complete those projects and if you've ever tried
to hire someone or do a web designer development project you know that they can get pretty costly
so this organization developed for good is helping non-profits get these projects taken care of
at a very very affordable price below market value for sure and the university students hopefully
are getting some great experience too and are generously offering up their time and talents as
volunteers as for how develop for good generates revenue i kind of just alluded to this but
the non-profits do pay a low fee for the services just to cover the cost of the organization's work
and then of course the university students are volunteering their time so they're able to apply
the revenue that they bring in to covering the cost of their programs technology etc.
okay there are hundreds and thousands of other super cool examples of the social enterprise model
at work out there in the world but i just wanted to share these seven that i thought were really
interesting and showed a good variety of the types of approaches that people are taking so at this
time i'd love to hear your thoughts i find social enterprise organizations and efforts to be just
super fascinating and creative and innovative are you thinking of starting a social enterprise have
you tried this model before with your non-profit or your business do you think it is a model that
could work for you why or why not share in the comments below and let's see if we get a fun
conversation going and as i mentioned before if you are starting a non-profit organization and
you're looking for some extra support and training check out my website FounderToFullTime.com for
some trainings and opportunities about that i also do a newsletter for non-profit leaders and change
makers of all types i typically leave the link for where you can subscribe to that if you'd like to
in the comments and the description below so definitely check that out if you're interested
in joining it of course you can opt out at any time finally if you are on Facebook don't forget
to check out my group change the world or bust we have over 2,000 people in there from around
the world all wanting to make an impact in their own ways and it's great community so come on by
join our community and i hope to see you there next time i'll see you later, bye!