January 30, 2009
A Few Good Books on Social Entrepreneurship
Jeff Trexler, a professor of social entrepreneurship at Pace University, writes on the blog JustMeans that there aren’t enough books that can provide students with a good introduction to the subject. Much of the literature on social entrepreneurship tends to be too uncritical, he says.
But Mr. Trexler notes two new books that are exceptions. First is Arthur C. Brooks’s Social Entrepreneurship: A Modern Approach to Social Value, which Mr. Trexler says “blends solid strategic advice from entrepreneurial practice with real-world examples from charitable businesses.”
The second book is the Urban Institute’s new collection on Nonprofits and Business. Mr. Trexler’s says the collection of essays looks at new trends, laws, and best practices.
Are there other books on social entrepreneurship that would suggest?
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I would first have to say that I’m not convinced there is such a thing as “objective” writing…
In any event, while perhaps falling into the realm of what Trexler considers “uncritical”, Greg Dees and I edited two books that have been successfully used in a variety of courses, The Enterprising Nonprofit set. The profits from these books go to support social entrepreneurship, btw.
— Jed Emerson Jan 30, 02:34 PM #
There are at least two volumes that are perfectly introductory for students:
Generating and Sustaining Nonprofit Earned Income by Sharon Oster (Yale Univ) & Cynthia Massarsky and Samanth Beinhacker who all worked on the Goldman Sachs-Yale School of Management Business Plan Competition.
The other book: Selling Social Change Without Selling Out by Andy Robinson and,
yet a third, Venutre Forth, The Essential Guide to Starting a Moneymaking Business in Your Nonprofit Organization by Rolfe Larson.
I am pretty confident that there’s lots of reference material on the Social Enterprise Alliance website (se-alliance.org.
— Mike Burns Jan 30, 04:42 PM #
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein is about Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and its founder, Bill Drayton. It’s a great introduction through example to a variety of models of social entrepreneurship, globally. Good luck!
— Amy Potthast Jan 30, 09:02 PM #
Paul Light recently published a book called The Search for Social Entrepreneurship. It is notable for trying to discover empirically (rather than anecdotally) what might distinguish entrepreneurial nonprofits. While the findings are not the last word, the conclusions may be surprising to many.
— Leslie Lenkowsky Jan 31, 11:00 AM #