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Social Entrepreneurship Books Everyone Needs to Read

social entrepreneurship books
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Are you looking for social entrepreneurship books?

Would you like to create a social entrepreneurship curriculum?

Here are four social entrepreneurship books that Social Sector Network highly recommends:

Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know

David Bornstein and Susan Davis comprehensively explain the social entrepreneurship landscape. They do a wonderful job explaining the challenges faced by social entrepreneurs. Major issues in the sector include cultivating talent, acquiring resources, and measuring impact. This book provides an excellent introduction to the field.

The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back The Wrong Ideas- And What to Do About It

“The idea that entrepreneurship is a meritocracy is a myth.” Ross Baird bases The Innovation Blind Spot, on the premise that capital fails to flow to the most innovative and useful new ideas. Instead, he argues, “money flows to the ideas that are the most convenient to find or the most familiar.” Baird identifies three major blind spots hindering our innovation process. How we pick new ideas, where we find new ideas, and who we invest in all present problems in the innovation economy. Baird is the President of Village Capital (Village Capital), an impact investing firm.

Failure and Hope: Fighting for the Rights of the Forcibly Displaced

Failure and Hope, written by Christine Mahoney, examines refugee issues through the lens of modern-day advocacy efforts. If design thinking intrigues you, this book provides an excellent model for researching and defining problems. Merging high-level insights with her ground-level research, Mahoney takes you on a journey through the plights of refugees and develops a persuasive explanation for past failures in refugee advocacy. Mahoney proposes solutions, rooted in the concept of financial leverage, to empower refugees. Her current efforts with the Alight Fund (Alight Fund) brilliantly exemplify implementation of the solutions that she puts forth in Failure and Hope.

Social Impact Finance: Achieving Profitable Solutions to Society’s Problems

This is a short e-book that our founder, Conor Flynn, wrote as a how-to guide for social entrepreneurs. It is great for students who are serious about starting social enterprises. The book covers six areas of finance that are highly applicable to social entrepreneurs:

  1. Revenue Streams and Asset Monetization- covers how social enterprises generate revenue through their business models.
  2. Capital Sources- explains the different types of funders and their unique capabilities.
  3. Mitigating Risk- details strategies that impact investors use to mitigate various risks.
  4. Emerging Funding Structures-provides an overview of new, complex financial instruments and deal structures.
  5. Approaching Funders- offers a step-by-step process, as well as valuable tips, for raising capital.
  6. Resource Flows- describes a new framework for modeling multi-stakeholder relationships in impact investing. The framework was designed by Social Sector Network and is still under development.

We hope that you find these recommendations useful! Please contact us if you need more social entrepreneurship books.

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