It’s tempting to reserve the term ‘social entrepreneur’ for that rare breed that builds a significant company organized around the idea of changing the culture for the better.
The problem with this term is that lets everyone else off the hook. The prefix social implies that regular entrepreneurs have nothing to worry about and that the goal of every un-prefixed organization and project (the ‘regular kind’) is to only make as much money as possible, as fast as possible.
But that’s not how the world works.
Every project causes a change to happen, and the change we make is social. The jobs we take on, the things we make, the side effects we cause—they’re not side effects, they’re merely effects. When we make the change, we are responsible for the change we choose to make.
All of us, whichever job or project we choose to take on, do something to change the culture. That social impact, positive or negative is our choice.
It turns out that all of us are social entrepreneurs. It’s just that some people are choosing to make a bigger (and better) impact than others.
It’s a spectrum, not a label.
Originally written by Seth Godin as We are all social entrepreneurs
