81–90 of 265 posts
We teach young people in sub-Saharan Africa how to build off-grid renewable electricity supplies.
600 million people in SSA don't have access to electricity and one of the main barriers to expanding access is a lack of local technical skills.
We are supporting people to build those technical skills and drive access to electricity across the continent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A ‘not-for-profit’ does not mean it doesn’t make a profit. It means that profits generated are used to further the purpose of the organisation and not, for example, for shareholder enrichment. A loss-making organisation could only be sustainable if it was receiving grants or donations, in which case it is more likely to be a charity than NFP.
OP said “social entrepreneur” placing “social impact over profit”. That’s not a charity it’s a weak business.
Many, if not most, businesses aim to make profit regardless of their social impacts — they’ve probably never even thought about what they are. It’s easy to say that employing people and giving them a salary is the most useful social impact a business can (or should) have, but when you factor in negative externalities that may not be true.
A social entrepreneur actively aims to make a positive social impact. It’s not about it being a weak business or a charity.
I run a company that collects and delivers used furniture for charities in the UK ( https://boxmove.com ) It’s a social enterprise in the sense that we save charities a fortune on the way they currently operate, and we employ our staff on better salaries than they receive working in-house. The flip side is we expect a decent day’s work from our teams. We are profitable, sustainable and no reliant on grants, funding,…
Perhaps the best you can do is to be one of the good ones, and put making a difference over making a load of cash.
We started Mullvad VPN in 2009 for political reasons. My cofounder Daniel and I viewed it as direct political action through entrepreneurship. In particular we wanted to protest Swedish surveillance legislation (FRA), which is partly why we chose a Swedish name for the service. So far we have refused at least five serious offers of investment and acquisition, because we would rather retain control, even if that meant…
I also appreciate the support and visibility you provide for WireGuard.
Thanks for running the service, it’s great!
He's now on a mission to transform the landscape of the city and turn often neglected patches of grass into thriving microecosystems.
[link redacted]
Been an incredibly positive response so far, if anyone is interested in starting something similar we've discussed open sourcing it so others can do in their own city.
I just feel the premise of the question begs a little bit of helpful correction. Social entrepreneurs don't necessarily place social impact above profit. (Rather the social impact is extraordinarily hard to quantify). But true that S-E's do weigh the value of social-impact vis-a-vis profit. I would argue though they do so mostly in their intentionality compared with the alternatives they could have otherwise embarked on when they decided to form a social impact venture in the first place.
I began writing on some of the philosophy speaking to the impact-profit distinction which is very often framed as a dichotomy. If there's interest I'll finish and post it.
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…
A lot of the motivation for building it came from my own desire to use it, so I've tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. For example, there are no attempts to add friction to the process of stopping donations to a charity. I can do it in seconds.
I've let development stagnate because I started a new job last year, but it requires very little maintenance to keep going, and I plan on getting back into it soon to build out new features.
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…
Quick clarifying question: are you saying this earnestly, or as satire?