As discussed in the recent Comm101 Social Entrepreneurship class, social entrepreneurship encompasses three basic things: a social entrepreneur, a social mission, and a social purpose venture. Social enterprises differ from charities by being sustainable in the long run.
A good example of a strong social enterprise is Right To Play, an international non-profit humanitarian organization. Essentially, Right to Play allows children in poverty in developing countries to develop essential life skills and thereby driving future societal change through playing. They have a wide span of reach, including over 1.15 million children in 2010 and 18 500 volunteers.
The social entrepreneur behind the enterprise is Johann Koss, a former Olympian, who firmly believed that playing could be used to positively change children’s and their family’s lives. His mission was to ” improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world by using the power of sport and play for development, health and peace”. His social purpose venture was to have athletes use their skills to volunteer and help disadvantaged children.
The Right to Play social enterprise is sustainable, because the children that they teach often become leaders in their communities, who in turn become ambassadors of Right to Play and expand the reach of the social enterprise. In fact, one of the enterprise’s guiding principles is sustainability: to have a lasting impact and build the capacity of individuals and their communities to independently deliver learning objectives through play.
Right to Play is a social enterprise, because it teaches skills rather than giving away money like a charity.
