I was reading through the comments of an interesting post over on the Let There Be Light blog, titled Do Social Entrepreneurs exist? Nothing like a provocative title to get the comments flowing.

An interesting comment by Jim Fruchtmann who, I think, runs Benetech, who says there are two reasons to call yourself a social entrepreneur (in his opinion):

"1.  You get to meet people who are much more like you than typical nonprofit or for-profit leaders, and
2.  It’s a fund raising hook."

Is it really that simple? Certainly the amount of hype/buzz around social entrepreneurs and social enterprise at the moment (check Cameron’s recent speeches) gives it a cachet of some sort I guess…but ultimately, I find this fairly reductive. I recently met someone setting up a new initiative that was fairly entrepreneurial and clearly charitable/social in mission….she just wanted to get on with it, but everyone kept mentioning ‘social enterprise’ to her. My advice was to ensure that she had a USP, could make her case, evaluate her work, prove it in a pilot and promote it effectively + have a robust strategic plan. And that legal structure/titles would follow from whatever work/governance/funding she chose to pursue.

There are no great funding pots that become available as a social enterprise / social entrepreneur-led organisation (although some funders might be attracted by applications that are, to use Gilligan-speak, ‘sexed up’ by such words)….the former point though is valid: meeting other people of similar mindset, attitude, drive and commitment. That really IS what it is all about….