Social Entrepreneurs

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Social entrepreneurs operate within a variety of organizational contexts. Some are creators of their own hybrid organizations, others are intrapreneurs driving change within established organizations, while still others are “infrapreneurs”—-people who are building the infrastructure that supports and sustains Fourth Sector organizations.

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While all stakeholder groups have an important role to play, social entrepreneurs are at the epicenter of the change process. They can accelerate the Fourth Sector’s evolution in many ways:

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• By evolving their organization in the direction of the For-Benefit archetype.

• By advocating for policy changes that allow more Fourth Sector-friendly investment resourcecs and support.

• By sharing information about best practices and lessons learned with other social entrepreneurs.

• By helping to train “hybrid” employees who want to make their career in a blended-value environment.

 

A fully-realized Fourth Sector would be an enormous boon to social entrepreneurs because it would enable them to achieve their objectives directly rather than having to waste resources or compromise their mission to work around the constraints of the current system. It would facilitate access to the requisite technical expertise and, more importantly still, capital.