Report describes benefits of social entrepreneurship

A new report, launched last month at the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship, explores how business partnerships with “social entrepreneurs” offer benefits to both companies and society. Entitled Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems, the report examines the current state of social entrepreneurship by presenting the findings of a quantitative survey of 100 social entrepreneurs around the world.

The report found that social entrepreneurship is building momentum and that businesses can be an integral part of solutions to many of the world’s socioeconomic, environmental, and governance challenges. As the field of social entrepreneurship continues to develop, the potential for finding breakthrough solutions to many of the world’s problems is considerable and growing.

PATH president Christopher Elias, MD, MPH, one of the social entrepreneurs surveyed, attended the Skoll World Forum where the report was announced. “Social entrepreneurs enjoy networks and access to places and potential markets where established corporations may lack experience or knowledge,” Dr. Elias said. “To increase our programs’ scope and scale, however, requires skill sets and finances that many entrepreneurs don’t have, but businesses do. At PATH we count on government, foundation, corporate, and individual donations and partnerships to make a greater impact.”

Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems is the first in an annual series of surveys conducted by SustainAbility in partnership with The Skoll Foundation.

Learn more about PATH as a social entrepreneur.

Posted April 20, 2007.