"The Long Tail of Social Entrepreneurship"

We've been having a great debate around the question of whether social entrepreneurs are too obsessed with this notion of scale. Some of the interesting and important points that have come include remembering that different types of social enterprises (nonprofit vs. for-profit, fair trade vs. a different industry) have different needs and constraints and that scale is not a monolithic term.

Some of my favorite comments were those of Nick Temple of the School for Social Entrepreneurs. His basic message was that when we talk about social entrepreneurship, we shouldn't just be talking about the stars of the movement but should recognize the local and regional social entrepreneurs. Nick actual has a great presentation on "the Long Tail of Social Entrepreneurship" that's specifically about just that:

Slides 6 and 7 are the most important in my book. In them he lays out the Benefits and Risks/Critiques of focusing on the head (the stars of the movement with the opportunity to scale and use resources more efficiently, avoid repetition etc) and the tail (the local and regional programs and models that don't have the intention or capacity to scale). These specific bullet points are a far better place from which to start the conversation.