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Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#41

The way that you know that you're making a social impact or benefiting society then you're making money. Social benefit and making profits are the same thing. There are exceptions of course, like if you made money by cheating via violence or because you got the government to grant you special privileges. Otherwise, if you're playing by the rules then your profit is the only objective, rational way to reason about you…

This is an interesting perspective, that I sometimes have as well.

But you did miss the important nuance of the externalities as another post also comments.

And you did list subsidies, but some subsidies are hard to notice.

Cars, for example, are heavily subsidised (think of road maintenance+the rent of all that space) and cause negative externalities (noise, pollution and congestion).

So it is more than possible to make a profit and not be socially beneficial (I think that cars are a good example, but we can disagree on that, they stand mostly as an example of subsidies and externalities, the balance of good and harm is harder to access).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#42
One of the great joys of making a profit has been giving to causes and needs that tug on my heart strings. Please help me understand the logic of how operating a business at a loss (eschewing profits) has a greater impact than having money to put towards said impact.

Ex. Bill Gates

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#43

I’ve been working for, running and volunteering for social enterprises for 12 years now. I find that “social enterprise” as a term isn’t really known by anyone outside of the social enterprise bubble, e.g. those running, funding or volunteering for a social enterprise. The funding structures available to social enterprises seems to be an issue - you can be anything from a private limited company through to a register…

Hey Ben! I took a look around GoodHere, and to be honest with you, this is similar to a product idea I had in mind (at its core but different in vision + implementation).

How are you looking to monetize the platform? Would you mind talking things over with a potential competitor?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#44

I’m one. Through SEAL, we fund academic research and take on impact campaigns on specific environmental initiatives. We just called on financial institutions to create an environmental charity rewards card (a portion of your credit card rewards go to charity, not airline miles): https://sealawards.com/eco-rewards/ The potential here is huge - could raise even more funding than Jeff Bezos $10 billion climate fund. And…

Hi Matt, any chance we could talk? I run a business which helps developing country communities set up and manage green community “banks”. This is in communities which are conventionally unbankable but can manage simple community funds. We build ecosystem restoration requirements into loan terms and it’s looking like a successful approach to environmental management. We need to provide seed capital to community banks…

Matt AT sealawards dot com

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#45

I’ve been working for, running and volunteering for social enterprises for 12 years now. I find that “social enterprise” as a term isn’t really known by anyone outside of the social enterprise bubble, e.g. those running, funding or volunteering for a social enterprise. The funding structures available to social enterprises seems to be an issue - you can be anything from a private limited company through to a register…

Hey Ben! I took a look around GoodHere, and to be honest with you, this is similar to a product idea I had in mind (at its core but different in vision + implementation). How are you looking to monetize the platform? Would you mind talking things over with a potential competitor?

Would be happy to chat, feel free to email (see bio).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#49
Yep, and loving every minute of it. I left a SWE career and am focused on growing ImpactUpgrade.com, where we solely serve nonprofits with all things digital and operations. We're primarily working with some larger organizations that tackle child sex trafficking. Hiring like hotcakes -- would love to chat with anyone interested in working with us.

Happy to dive into detail on the specifics, for profit for good vs nonprofit, the downsides of tech volunteering, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#50
my friend started this initiative to help give back knowledge to community on specific categories like gardening, hiking etc He brings experts to give hour long interactive webinars, he has slapped together a quick wordpress site https://enlightenedsapiens.com/
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