Recently some of my readers have sent along links to their friends or their own websites regarding young leaders being social entrepreneurs. Starting today, I am going to try and highlight individuals doing fantastically in the world of social entrpreneurship.

Today, I would like to introduce you to a women on the “quest to make a luxury brand of handbags to empower the indigenous women who make them and the special women who will buy them.”

Her friend sent me a link to her blog, saying she was on a great mission and she would be a perfect example of a social entrepreneur doing great things.

Her blog is a chronicle of the fullfilment of her dream and her excitement over starting something.

In her most recent blog she stated,

And just as I seemed to hit rock bottom in desperation, I got a lightning flash realization: in creating something new, I can’t look for it among things that already exist.

I can’t say that I found this symbol -it found me. It is powerful. It is feminine. It is natural. It looks beautiful on the bags.

when talking about the creation of a logo for her bags. Besides the fact she can write well you can tell through her blogs that she is on the quest to fulfill her dreams and she will not stop with out doing it correctly.

In her short list of blogs she has shared both challenges and successes.

Her journey should be an example to all emerging leaders/Millennials that you can start something new too!

Check out her blog at http://www.bagsmakeadifference.com/.

Do you have a friend that is doing something great through social entrepreneurship? Or are you yourself starting something new? Share your stories.

I read a post a while back, where a blogger said the founder of Walmart is a social entrepreneur???? And I haven’t written a ranting post in a while so I thought I’d post this one.

This blogger justified Sam Walton as a social entrepreneur:

Sam Walton started with a very basic idea of offering the community what they needed and wanted straight after the Second World War - stores that offer goods at the lowest possible prices and that stayed open later during key holidays. He passed on the saving he made from buying from lowest priced suppliers to his customers. A basic social need of the time developed into a business model social entrepreneurs have duplicated ever since - give people what the need at a price they can afford. If it works, give it to more people.

Alright, so maybe Mr. Walton started out with the idea of giving the community something they needed, low cost goods, but what happened?

I would not consider anyone who creates a business such as this to be a social entrepreneur just because they see a need in the community. I would call Mr. Walton and others like him “smart profiteers”, who have taken their idea too far, and have now destroyed the community’s they originally wanted to “help” (as the blogger stated).

To the bloggers credit, he/she does say later in the article:

The challenge for most companies is to remember why they started in the first place and ask themselves - are we still serving a social need? And for our future growth - what social need can we serve to continue to grow as a company, still be socially relevant and needed by society.

I am hoping through this statement the blogger was trying to say, Mr. Walton may have once been a social entrepreneur, but he forgot about his roots.

There are two lessons to learn from this article, one about corporate social entrepreneurship, and the other about selling goods in nonprofit organizations.

1. Many corporations are taking on social enterprise efforts, giving back to communities in a new way, by returning profits to their mission, to do more good. I am just cautioning these organizations to look at Walmart. If it’s true that Mr. Walton created Walmart because he truly wanted people to get what they needed, even if they couldn’t afford it; then it is up to these corporations to keep themselves socially responsible. It’s alright to expand your efforts, as long as it’s not at the expense of small nonprofits, who tend to be closer to the people, and as long as it doesn’t mean destroying communities in the long run.

2. The second lesson is for nonprofits taking on fee for service efforts or selling items to offset the costs of their services. These ideas are fantastic, as social entrepreneurs, it is important to take these types of risks and to be innovative in gaining revenue, but you can’t be so innovative you start to forget about your mission. Ask Peter Brinckerhoff about this one. I get scared sometimes seeing all the pink groceries and tools you can buy related to Breast Cancer Awareness. I am a supporter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and I hope they are not so worried about their next product they are not actually raising awareness about the disease of breast cancer or the research taking place.

I am a strong supporter of social entrepreneurship (I think you already know that), I just hope the idea of being one doesn’t just become something “everyone’s doing”. It’s important for social entrepreneurs to weigh the affects of everything they do on their mission.

Have you seen any other organizations/corporations getting out of hand with their new social enterprise, fee for service, or next brilliant idea?

To help me keep my thoughts in order and to keep my readers up to date, I have started this post to bring together the important links on social entrepreneurship over the last couple weeks. There is going to be a great mix of articles and blogs from all over the internet, social entrepreneurship is in many forms. Every other Thursday I will post a few links from the web I have come across during the week.

There’s only a short list this week.

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurship: New Approaches to Changing the World | Tactical Philanthropy
- A fantastic summary of a social entrepreneurship panel at the Council on Foundations Conference this week. The panel featured some heavy hitters in the social entrepreneurship role.

HeraldNet: Social entrepreneurs think outside the box
- An article defining social entrepreneurship.

Social Enterprise

Social enterprise is the future of non-profit organizations : Fifth Quarter
- According to this article, social enterprise is the funding source of the future for nonprofits. I agree! Read this article for helpful hints on starting your own social enterprise.

ISC | Social Entrepreneurship
- Creating social enterprise in transitional countries.

Others

Have Fun • Do Good: Interviews with 30 Social Changemakers: Big Vision Podcast 2nd Anniversary
- 30 podcast interviews of social changemakers.

Tristram Hunt: The business of giving
- An article about corporate giving.