What does it mean to be a social entrepreneur, and how can you engage – whether you consider yourself one or you’d like to support others? While most private sector businesses measure performance goals in revenue, market share and stock prices, social entrepreneurs focus on goals that generate a positive return for society.
Leaders Plus Helps Parents Become Leaders
One of our Daily Points of Light Award honorees, Verena Hefti, successfully established her organization, Leaders Plus, to enable parents to grow their leadership skills. She is determined to demonstrate that new parents do not have to choose between their career and parenthood, but can do both. In 2017, she launched a nine-month fellowship program that focused on building confidence and career skills with guidance from a senior leader mentor, including a focus on career acceleration and parental support. Fellows were allowed bring their babies to all sessions. The pilot saw enthusiastic interest, with 58 applications for just 15 spaces, highlighting the need for this kind of thinking. Leaders Plus ahs since expanded its program into multiple cohorts.
FEED Provides More Than 100 Million Meals
Another example of a successful social entrepreneur, special to the Points of Light family, is Lauren Bush Lauren and her organization FEED. FEED is an impact–driven lifestyle brand and social enterprise that was founded in 2007.
After seeing the reality of childhood hunger firsthand while traveling with the World Food Programme, Lauren decided that she wanted to find a way for herself and her peers to get involved. What started with the design of a single handbag has grown into a catalog of beautifully curated products that have provided more than100 million meals to hungry children around the globe.
Use Your Civic Power to Support Social Entrepreneurship
As the dynamic field of social entrepreneurship continues to expand, offering creative solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges, you can support these innovators by:
- Use your voice! Being an advocate and sharing their efforts with your friends and family. Not everyone knows this type of organization and business model exists.
- Start a buycott. Supporting social entrepreneurs and their businesses by purchasing their products and services.
- Become a social entrepreneur. Today, social entrepreneurs exist in almost every sector from clothing and retail to system design. Answer a need in your community by launching your own business that gives back.
At Points of Light, we know that doing good comes in many forms, and we are excited about uplifting the stories of social entrepreneurs and shining a light on their impactful work.