Social enterprise is not going anywhere.

A few weeks ago, Pace University Professor of Social Entrepreneurship Jeff Trexler wrote

"The movement [social enterprise] has yet to grasp the extent to which it is as much a product of the bubble as subprime loans and credit-default swaps--it's not just a coincidence that do-gooders started talking business when business was good. At the peak of the bubble this gave the movement a rhetorical advantage, but as the economy tanks, this same language can make the social entrepreneur seem untrustworthy, defined by profit, self-interest and the very business practices that created the problems charity now has to solve."

An interesting question that's come up in the wake of the economic downturn (or, what are we calling it now? Collapse?) is whether people will start to reject the language of business in the social sector. With their be a backlash against social entrepreneurship? I just don't think so.

I have a hard time with the idea that people won't be able to parse through "business" as more than a singular, monolithic entity - once responsible for your livelihood but now a demon attacking your 401(k). The crash was caused by a lot of things: a decades-long fetish with deregulation, a socially-blind approach to short-term profit maximization, predatory lending and finally incredibly cheap credit which enabled just about all of us to live beyond our means.

What the crash wasn't caused by was the small business entrepreneurship that's at the core of the American mythology, and which is the driving rhetorical force behind much of the social enterprise movement. The crash also wasn't caused by microcredit banks, fair trade, organic, or clean technology, where a significant chunk of social enterprise is happening.

What attracts people (particularly young people) to social enterprise is not ideology or a particular love affair with business. Its pragmatism. My generation has schlepped through hold-over culture wars and inherited both a 60s idealism and an 80s skepticism, and I think, come out better for it. In general, we're interested in impact and meaning, and open to new ideas about where it comes from. We might be liberals and conservatives but we're open to redefining what those words mean. Anyone who has talked to the interventionist core of the lefty anti-Darfur movement knows exactly what I mean.

One of the things that's been under-appreciated about Barack Obama's appeal to the Millennials is his eminent pragmatism. Think about the Iraq speech at the center of his early candidacy. "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." Forget all the hope and change, that simple statement resonates deep and far with this chort.

The point, as it relates to social enterprise, is that the real idea behind the movement is not that business has the best answers for nonprofits. Its that we believe deeply and passionately that we should be able to use our consumer power to make things a little better. Its that the world is full enough of problems that we are unwilling to be constrained in our approaches to making it betteer. Its that we care more about impact than ideology. Its that small action with big ideas behind it can transform the world.

The world of business doesn't matters to us because of an exiting new rhetoric. It matters because it offers a new lens to see the world of social change, and a new set of tools. It ceases to become relevant when those tools or that lens no longer allow us to improve our ability to make a difference, not because Wall Street's greed and Washington's complicity have punked the market.

If anything, the social enterprise movement seems to me to be drawing emotional strength from the collapse. If this is business as usual, why don't we try a more mission-driven business2.0 that recognize the inherent power of business to impact (for good or ill) social problems? And why not?

From where I sit, at the cusp of a new generation of nonprofit and social benefit leaders, social enterprise is not going anywhere.

Update: I forgot to include the link to Jeff Trexler's longer thought piece on Social Enterprise. It, along with his "Uncivilsociety" blog are absolute must reads.