ARTICLE FROM FORBES - Social Entrepreneurship

More and more, entrepreneurs are not satisfied with creating a business that delivers a great product, generates a profit and creates value (read wealth), but instead want their enterprise to directly impact a social problem from poverty to global warming.

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Some social entrepreneurs are running for-profit businesses with a clear and specific social mission integrated into the business model while others are launching traditional not-for-profit businesses.
Blake Mycoskie, founder and “Chief Shoe Giver” at Toms epitomizes the movement, launching his “buy one, give one” shoe company in 2006 and quickly growing it to a $100 million annual run rate—and donating over 1 million pairs of shoes along the way.
In either case, planning for success mimics the requirements for success in any new venture: a plan, customer focus, and execution.
The Plan
The greatest fallacy in business planning is that there is a good template or software that will help you create a winning business plan.  The very opposite is true.  While there are some standard topics that must be covered in a business plan, borrowing language from a template or software is simply self-defeating.

The CICFO Orphanage in Cambodia - Devin Thorpe is in the back

The primary purpose for a business plan is not so that an entrepreneur can tell someone else about the plan to raise money, find customers or recruit talent it is so that the entrepreneur can figure out what the heck she’s doing.  The greatest insight I ever found in business plan writing is that if you can’t write down how you’ll do something you really don’t know how you’ll do it.  Therein lies the real value of the business plan: it is the exercise an entrepreneur completes with her team to help figure out exactly what to do.
A great business plan doesn’t have to be long; in fact, the shorter the better.  It just needs to be complete.  I’ve seen a one-page plan that was more complete than fifty-page plans.  The plan needs to articulate the problem the business proposes to solve, a vision for how that will be accomplished, and what uniquely qualifies the enterprise to do that.  The plan should also include an introduction to the management team, a marketing plan, a product development schedule, and financial forecasts, including cash requirements.   Good business plan outlines are plentiful on the web.
Customer Focus





Customer Focus

Mark Rippel is a volunteer of UBELONG in Cambodia. A true social entrepreneur.

For a traditional business, customer focus is relatively straightforward.  The customer is the person who trades her money for the product you sell.  For a social venture, there could easily be three customers: 1)  a donor or sponsor who derives little or no personal benefit from the exchange, motivated by altruism, 2) a traditional customer who buys a product or service from the business, and 3) a beneficiary of the organization’s mission.   All three customer types require focus and attention.