Business & Social Impactintermediatev1.0
Social Entrepreneurship: Building Ventures for Impact
Design, launch, and scale ventures that create sustainable social and environmental change. You’ll learn the real craft: problem selection, Theory of Change, business models, financing, impact measurement, operations, and scale—plus the ethical trade-offs no one wants to talk about.
25 hours8 modules16 lessonsOpen Learning Community
What you will learn
- Distinguish social entrepreneurship from traditional entrepreneurship, CSR, and charity
- Design and stress-test a Theory of Change (ToC) with explicit assumptions and indicators
- Build a sustainable model using the Social Business Model Canvas + unit economics
- Run ethical customer discovery and experiments (not vanity pilots)
- Measure and communicate impact using SROI + IMP Five Dimensions + IRIS+ style metrics
- Understand grants, impact investing, blended finance, and the capital spectrum
- Build partnerships, governance, and operations to scale without mission drift
- Ship a credible funder-ready pitch + impact plan + 90-day execution roadmap
Prerequisites
- Basic understanding of business concepts (revenue, costs, customers)
- Interest in social and environmental issues
- Willingness to challenge assumptions about capitalism, philanthropy, and “doing good”
Syllabus
1.11.2
Defining Social Entrepreneurship
Explain what distinguishes a social entrepreneur from a traditional entrepreneur, charity, or CSR program—and why the difference matters strategically.
70 min
Pioneers and Case Studies: Grameen, Kiva, Patagonia
Compare three archetypes of social entrepreneurship and extract design principles you can reuse.
80 min