Will the downturn hurt social enterprise?

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2008-10-22 10:15:00 UTC
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Philanthropy.com's Give and Take blog gets into the question we've been exploring for the past few days about whether or not the economic downturn will impact social enterprise startups. They link to a post on Pace University Jeff Trexler's Uncivilsociety blog that suggests that there could be a backlash to social enterprises who use the language of profit motif now that the business well has been poisoned, so to speak.

It's an important point for us to wrestle with. For my part, I think that impact is less likely to hurt social enterprise in general, but has the potential to kill the dogmatism that there are business solutions to all nonprofit problems. There aren't.

But it seems to me that most social entrepreneurs get their start when they reject the singular orthodoxy of both the nonprofit and the business world and instead say "which solutions are best for the problems I'm trying to solve."

What do others think?

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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