An interesting way to define social entrepreneurship.

After learning that a social entrepreneur is someone who uses business skills to create and manage a business with the objective to solve a social problem, I began to wonder about the inner workings of a social enterprise. Nicola Brookes in her blog “What Defines a Social Entrepreneur?” talks about Jamie Oliver who created a social enterprise called Fifteen, a chain of restaurants that trains young people to become qualified chefs through an Apprentice Program.

Brookes mentions that the profits of the restaurants goes back into the community. However, this makes me wonder if social entrepreneurs take any profits for him or herself and if they do, do they advertise it? Its probable that social entrepreneurs use the objective of societal change as a point of difference that attracts sympathetic consumers to their product or service, thus being the driving force of profits. Similarly, should people of non-profit organizations, such as charities, be paid out of the pockets of generous donators? I find it interesting to think about this and relate it to different social enterprises and non-profit organizations. I think people often do not ask these questions because they feel wrongful to doubt the intentions of a person who is working to make a change.