Social Entrepreneruship
UCC Single Module Certificate Course
Social entrepreneurship covers new ventures created for revenue generation that seeks to assist with alleviating social problems such as poverty and inequality, lack of access to healthcare and education, and climate change.
It is attractive and of considerable interest to individuals and organizations as a way of creating lasting and positive social impact. The concept of this approach, is that many complex social problems can be viewed through an entrepreneurial perspective, and create opportunities to launch new ventures that address these problems in a profitable, sustainable, and scalable way.
Solving complex challenges through social entrepreneurship involves deeply understanding how to balance an organization’s social mission with its profitability, analyzing and engaging with multiple stakeholders, including international organizations, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), sourcing capital from donors and investors, measuring impact, and scaling operations.
This course draws on case studies of organizations that have effectively navigated these challenges and enables students to gain hands-on experience with developing venture plans within teams.
On successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:
- State the definition of social entrepreneurship and the variety of approaches taken by organizations to create positive social impact,
- Articulate a social problem they would like to work on solving and the proposed solution,
- Outline the role of an advisory board and begin thinking about the types of individuals and organizations that would need to have represented on the advisory board.
- Outline the performance criteria they would like to measure and use in planning a social venture, and the unit of social impact by which they intend to measure and monitor social performance progress.
- Define the specific pain points or needs they can address, the requisite beneficiary experience for a solution, and the associated activities including generating a Beneficiary Experience table,
- Identify and compare the advantages and disadvantages of their solution versus the most competitive alternative (MCA) for the target beneficiary segment(s),
- Identify all the capabilities the enterprise will need to execute the solution and plan how you will develop or secure needed capabilities,
- Determine who benefits from your business and who is at risk of negative impact,.
- Develop a concept statement, articulate the problem and proposed solution, summarize the business proposition including the unit of social impact and unit of revenue, scope the market and competition in relation to your target beneficiaries’ most competitive alternative (MCA) and state how your solution is better than the MCA, and, map the social-political landscape, including key stakeholders, allies, and opponents.
- Identify cost drivers of the deliverables required and estimate the operating costs for the venture, establish a projected income statement allowing you to compare projected revenue with projected costs of running the venture, outline the costs of maintaining and renewing assets that will require up-front investment, and identify potential sources of funding for your operations and the acquisition and maintenance of assets.
- Develop a definition of the failure and a disengagement plan, celebrate early, even if modest, successes and recognize those on the team who are responsible for them, consult with your advisory board to identify and put in place warning signals of both negative and positive second-order effects,
UPCOMING CERTIFICATE COURSES