SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
-By Sristhi Dey
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ;
The word ‘entrepreneurship’ is quite famous over the decades and even more than that. When we spell the word ‘entrepreneurship’, our power to imagine makes us comprehend that it means setting up a business in the hope of earning monetary gains and profit as well. It has the ability not only to give us monetary stability but also psychological peace. But here in this article, we will solely focus on ‘Social Entrepreneurship.’ It is apart from the other types of entrepreneurship. It addresses societal issues in particular. It focuses on creating social capital. Let us take an example to make the topic more clear: Assume that ‘A’a person visits an area. He eventually observers that, the area lags in educational facilities. Now, with whatever resource he posses, he will organize, create and manage a social venture to his goal to bring a social change in that area. Here, ‘A’ is the social entrepreneur as he recognizes a particular social issue and tries to dodge it with an innovative solution. Hence, a social entrepreneur not only device some innovative ideas but also mobilize the resources to tackle the problem. He/ She works as a changing agent who brings about a positive mindset in the people surrounding them.
TRACING SOCIAL ENTERPRISES THROUGH THE PAST AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND AN NGO:
Though the term ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ is quite famous for the past few years recently, its usage can be found in the past as well. When we will try to sneak into our past, we can recognize several social entrepreneurs who established different social enterprises as a response to different social problems. People like Vinobha Bhave were the founder of India’s Land Gift Movement, Ela Bhatt, a woman cooperative organizer who founded the Self-Employed Woman’s Association of India, for the women to be self-sufficient. While we discuss a whole bunch of details about ‘Social Entrepreneurship’, we still take for this granted that a ‘Social Enterprise’ and an ‘NGO( Non- Governmental Organization) are synonymous. For an amateur to understand the difference in a more suitable way, we shall look into how they attain money. An NGO basically runs on funding while a social entrepreneur finances his work through his earnings or savings. Also, a social entrepreneur might be involved in a non-profit organization, but profits play a vital role here. He may not use it for his cause but uses it to expand the developmental activity.
‘SOCIAL ENTERPRISE’ IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT:
When we dwell upon the question that ‘why is there a huge urge for social enterprise in India’, the answer to this is quite simple. When we look into the statistics, we can tell that 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas with limited or no access to education, health facilities, electricity facilities, etc. To take charge of all these anomalies, social enterprises came into the scene. While we turn into the statistics, Intellecap’s report on impact investing in India found that there are 230 agricultural social enterprises with a majority in south India, 108 clean energy social enterprises, 55 educational social enterprises, 60 healthcare social enterprises, and so on are established so far to eliminate all these fallacies.
SUGGESTIVE APPROACHES TO PROMOTE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
We have already come across that a social entrepreneur invests through his finances to carry on the developmental activity. But what else can be done to promote social entrepreneurs is still a relevant topic to discuss upon. Some suggestions that are often cited to make the position of social entrepreneurs a little better are like – i) The first and foremost initiative will be government funding. Since most of the business cooperatives are interested only to fund profit-making enterprises, it is highly expected that the government should provide them with some monetary help. ii) To ease the Foreign Contribution (Regulation ) Act (FCRA) so that the social entrepreneurs can get donations from the boundaries beyond India. Though the government keeps a tough eye on this because of international mischief and terror funding but international donation could be a great help in times of worst situations. iii) CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility) funding, is through which big profit-making entrepreneurs share their 2% of profit with the social enterprises. iv)To ease the bidding process. Often social enterprises which work at the grassroots level are unable to participate in the bidding process for government-sponsored schemes and programs. Though many other initiatives can be taken, increasing focus upon these few suggestions will do half of the work.
CONCLUSION: Social Entrepreneurship is the need of the hour. It is the program through which we can engage to rescue numerous amount of people from the galloping hands of various social and environmental problems. Though, for the time being, the COVID-19 situation has made it hard for the social entrepreneurs especially for those working at the grass-root level to work at the same or even more pace than before the COVID situation. Thus, the government should devise more such initiatives to help the social enterprises to move smoothly and help India to recover from its injuries and move forward to achieve its developmental growth.
REFERENCES-
1.Ajay Khanna ( 2021) For the empowerment of social entrepreneurs, a five-point agenda, Retrieved from:
https://www.hindustantimes.com
2.Prachi Juneja (2015) What is social entrepreneurship, Retrieved from:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com
3.Prachi Juneja (2015) History of social entrepreneurship, Retrieved from:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com
4.Usha Ganesh, Vineeth Menon, Anuja Kaushal, Karan Kumar (2018) The Indian Social Enterprise Landscape, Retrieved from:
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de
5.Tanvi Gandhi, Rishav Raina, (2018) Social entrepreneurship: the need, relevance, facets and constrains, Retrieved from:
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-018-0094-6