What is a Social Entrepreneur? A Definition.

#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Social entrepreneurship is mindset that can be applied to any sector.

A More Detailed Exploration:
Are you as fascinated with the rise of the concept called “social entrepreneurs” as I am? It seems like in the past few years, more people have begun to identify themselves and others with this label – almost like a new fashion brand.  Just as you may have noticed being a startup or entrepreneur is quite the thing these days, you’ll notice being a “social entrepreneur” will turn even more heads.

[If you happen to be someone who views her/himself as a social entrepreneur, I would highly recommend you read Brian Reich's advice to you. It's timely and very appropriate.]

Because of my work in the cause marketing world and founding the WeCanEndThis.com initiative,  Dr. Jeff Davis from NASA asked me to speak on social entrepreneurs as the Space and Life Science Directorate’s Innovation Lecture Series featured keynote. Up until that point, I viewed myself as an entrepreneur focused on social issues, but hadn’t taken on the social entrepreneur moniker. I took it upon myself to crowd-source the definition with help from those who did consider themselves one. Great comments here.

Since then, NASA has created the NASA Human Health and Performance Center (NHHPC) to convene organizations from the private, nonprofit, academic, and government sectors to foster new collaborative initiatives. CauseShift joined the NHHPC as a founding member and during this month’s semi-annual gathering, I was asked to co-lead a workshop session for social entrepreneurs with the goal of spawning a collaborative initiative focused on helping the 1 billion without access to safe water.

To achieve our goal, I challenged the workshop participants, who included Opportunity International, Engineers Without Borders, NASA OpenGov, Manna Energy Ltd., Wyle, and The Zoological Society of San Diego, to help me define “social entrepreneurship” so that we could use the same mental framework. Frankly, I hadn’t found a solid definition that was differentiated from “entrepreneur”.  After a very thorough, introspective hour, we crafted this definition, which I submit to the public domain for comment and critique:

Social entrepreneurship

• is a mindset, not a role, and is not exclusive to any one industry
• has a system-level awareness capable of identifying widely shared needs
• develops local solutions these needs that can be scaled thru replication or adoption
• creates intentional postive side effects and by-products
• requires a two-way value exchange (no handouts)
• assumes an equitable balance between private and community wealth

What are your thoughts? Got something to add, take away, or change?