Social entrepreneurship combines business principles and rigorous analysis with a passion for achieving real impact in social problem solving. Social-entrepreneurial initiatives can take the form of for-profits, non-profits, or government programs, and exhibit three core characteristics:

• Social Innovation – finding, testing, and honing new and potentially transformative ways of approaching social problems;
• Accountability – measuring results, continuously making improvements based on those results, and sharing performance and outcome data with stakeholders;
• Sustainability – identifying reliable financial and other types of support by utilizing markets, forming partnerships across sectors, and responding to stakeholder needs to ensure that the solution will be enduring.

Click on any of the links below to learn more about social entrepreneurship and its connection to government, or click here for our full report on the subject that was published by the Small Business Administration, entitled: “Social Entrepreneurship and Government: A New Breed of Entrepreneurs Developing Solutions to Social Problems.

• What is social entrepreneurship?

• How does social entrepreneurship help government benefit society?

• How can government strategically support social entrepreneurship?