Social Entrepreneurs
Cited from the Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship
Description
"Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society and often work through nonprofits and citizen groups.
The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship, first coined by Bill Drayton, have become increasingly popular over the past quarter century, but social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship can be found throughout history. A list of a few historically noteworthy people whose work exemplifies classic "social entrepreneurship" might include Florence Nightingale, founder of the first nursing school and developer of modern nursing practices, Vinoba Bhave (founder of India's Land Gift Movement), and Shri Hedgewar (founder of Rashtriya Swaymsevaka Sangh).
Another good contemporary example of a social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank and its growing family of social venture businesses, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. The work of Yunus and Grameen echos a theme among modern day social entrepreneurs that emphasizes the enormous synergies and benefits when business principles are unified with social ventures.
In this context we can also mention Vikram Akula founder CEO of SKS Microfinance , the McKinsey alumni started a microlending venture in villages of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.Though this venture is For - Profit but already initiated a sharp social change amongst poor women from villages.
Today, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals promote, fund, and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship)
Definition of Social Entreprise
From the Wikipedia article at
"Social enterprises are organizations which trade in goods or services, and link that trade to a social mission. The need to deliver on financial, social and environmental performance targets is often referred to as having a triple bottom line.
It could be that the profit (or surplus) from the business is used to support related or unrelated social aims (as in a charity shop), or that the business itself accomplishes the social aim through its operation, say through the employment of people from a disadvantaged community including individuals and existing business who have difficulty in securing investment from banks and mainstream lenders.
Social enterprise is a relatively new term for a type of business that has existed for at least a century. The term social enterprise relates to social entrepreneur, the name originally given to 19th century philanthropic businessmen and industrialists, who had genuine concern for the welfare of their employees. Today, its use varies in different regions.
Social enterprises are generally held to comprise the more businesslike end of the spectrum of organisations that make up the third sector or social economy). A commonly-cited rule of thumb is that at least half their income is derived from trading rather than from subsidy or donations." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_enterprise)
Examples
Organizations such as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, Echoing Green, the Manhattan Institute, the Draper Richards Foundation and Civic Ventures among others, focus on highlighting these hidden change-makers who are scattered across the country and globe. Even so, there remains a vast social terrain that continues to go largely unreported in most news. While the growth in social entrepreneurship today is huge, it is one of the least understood, yet most important forces in the world today." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship)