Eight Trends for Social Entrepreneurship in 2011

Here are the 8 trends in social innovation Scheitzer identifies:

1. More Creative Funding Solutions for Social Entrepreneurs
2. Improvement of Metrics and Increased Adoption Rates
3. The Formation of an International Community of Social Entrepreneurs
4. Closing the Gap between For-profit and Nonprofit
5. The Democratization of the Movement
6. The Evolution of a Meta Profession
7. Growth of the Youth Constituency
8. More Product-Driven Ideas

I think the most interesting one for future social entrepreneurs is the rise of the meta-profession, because it suggests that one not need major in social enterprise to be a social enterpreneur (or to those who do major in social entreprenership, it might suggest that you develop a range of specialties):

With a broader definition of social entrepreneurship comes room for multiple change-making roles. A social entrepreneur no longer encompasses just the person with an innovative idea for addressing a social problem. There are also those that play a role in building the infrastructure needed to implement these solutions – whether that be the lawyers, engineers, or biologists without which actual social change could not be realized. There are also those that approach social change through the arts – via journalism, documentary filmmaking and even performance. The definition of a social entrepreneur says Brodbar, is expanding now to encompass all these roles.

Tamara Schweitzer has an excellent article at Dowser about trends in social entrepreneurship for 2011. Read the full article for a full explanation of the expansion of the field.

Additionally, I suggest looking back at my earlier post on trends in the social enterprise space which seems to still be relevant and vital.

I think moving forward, more emphasis will be place on lean social enterprise, which means the work on lean start ups will increasingly be relevant to social innovators (the main difference is that lean start up is focused on high technology vs. service firms). The role of consumer development & getting in your consumers head is still very relevant.

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