Problems Encountered By A Social Entrepreneur

By James Watson


Starting a social venture is one of the most fulfilling undertakings. These start-ups, however, have been known to face many challenges as they get off the ground. As is the case with many other start-ups, a great majority of them fail to make it past their first birthday. We will look at some of the main challenge of a social entrepreneur in this article.

Starting these enterprises is more than just popularity and obsession with people. Rather, it is rooted upon the desire to bring about societal change. This potential payoff, in combination with the likelihood of making a profit in the process sets them apart from other forms of investment.

Another major problem is that a good proportion of the enterprises fail to remain loyal to their mission. Establishment of a good strategy for the enterprise helps a great deal in dealing with this challenge. One of the major reasons for this is unexpected changes in the initial mission resulting in confusion and dilution of the impact of the organization.

These types enterprises are often faced with the problem of identification of a long term strategy. Many of them may opt for multiple goals in the hope of bringing about multiple societal benefits. In many instances, however, it is these multiple goals that are a source of confusion for the organization.

Every investor in this area has the ultimate aim of addressing a certain specific need in the society. Such needs may include provision of education, improvement of crop yields, poverty level reduction, improvement of water quality, creation of adequate health facilities, elimination of environmental threats, and addressing societal inequalities based on gender, race and age among others. They can start from their own society or region, but with a more global coverage in mind.

Entrepreneurs in this category are always looking for opportunities to advance their mission, whether social or environmental. Through this, they are able to better the lives of their target beneficiaries. It is not unusual for the investors to collaborate with governments and nongovernmental organizations who share their vision of improving service delivery.

The structure of these kind of ventures is such that it does not promote innovation and risk taking. More specifically, this form of investment is likely to suffer from financial constraints thus many prospective investors find themselves with limited room for risk taking. As is the case for every other sector, there is a need to encourage experimentation and risk taking without which the likelihood of failure is increased many times over.

Therefore, the entrepreneur puts together commerce and social issues, in such a way that this combination has the capability of improving the lives of the people that are connected to the venture. Their success is not only measured in terms of the profits they have made, but it is hugely based on the ability to improve the lives of people. It involves the identification and attempts to solve a variety of societal problems.




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