Two Keys to Sustainable Social Enterprise

Social ventures have emerged as a means to bringing about positive change to economically challenged segments of society that are not able to create commercial or political opportunities needed for improvement. Social ventures have to be financially sustainable so that benefits are not dependent on outside funds such as taxes or charitable donations. Successful social ventures change two components of socioeconomic systems: the enabling technologies and the actors involved. Enabling technologies are the processes that make situations suboptimal or unjust; the actors are those involved in an imbalance of power. Enabling technologies can be replaced with less expensive and more accessible methods. Actors can be influenced via education or through laws.