In a world on the brink of an economic recession, where people have had to reinvent themselves overnight, the concept of Social Entrepreneur grows stronger every day. To learn more about this new concept, it is important to start by stating that a Social Entrepreneurship it does not respond to the traditional logic of doing business, where you seek to invest little and profit a lot. In fact, unlike a traditional company that focuses primarily on increase the value of your product, a social enterprise seeks to increase the value of the community where the product comes from. In other words, a business model that puts the beneficiary of entrepreneurship and then to potential users.
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This type of entrepreneurship has grown strongly in recent years because it represents a concrete alternative to the Neoliberal economic system characterized by delivering benefits only for a minority with the respective cost to the workers of these companies, the high concentration in the productive sectors, environmental problems resulting from the indiscriminate use of natural resources and growing inequality, which between 1980 and 2016, tells us that
Faced with this panorama, Social Entrepreneurship arises and raises a new development paradigm, human scale; in a relationship sustainable with the environment; respectful of the cultural identity of each community and aware that no model is sustainable if in the production chain it destroys more than it builds.
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These are the 5 main characteristics of a social entrepreneur
- Empathy
A Social Entrepreneur necessarily You must practice empathy. When approaching entrepreneurship, it is necessary to know who will be part of this adventure. It is not enough just to know their names and some other biographical details. Is essential identify emotionally with the community in question. An appropriate strategy to achieve empathy with the community is to visit the place where you want to carry out Social Entrepreneurship in order to to know first-hand the needs, expectations and desires of the workers since they are the ones who best know the place they inhabit.
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- Consciousness
Consciousness and conscience they are two different things despite having a common origin. While the first is related to the knowledge of good and evil that allows a person to morally judge reality and acts [2], the second is related to the ability of the human being to recognize the surrounding reality and relate to it [3]. Social entrepreneurship seeks a reflective knowledge of things and a thorough understanding of the place it occupies in the world already that what it seeks is to transform it from the community in which it develops by adding value to each component of the draft.
- Sustainability
Despite being a concept usually associated with nature and the environment, a Social Entrepreneurship needs to be sustainable in the time. This element is related to the variable economic project. According to Alberto de la Fuente, president of Pymela, 8 out of 10 ventures do not spend the first year in Chile [4]. This is not a peculiarity of the southern cone country, but a reality that transcends the entire Latin American scene. The elaboration of a solid profile of possible clients / users is one of the keys in the economic sustainability of a Social Entrepreneurship since it allows us to elaborate plans of businesses based on people's needs while empowering and empowering the communities that produce the goods and services provided by our entrepreneurship.
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- Sustainability
A basic element in any Social Entrepreneurship is the relationship with the environment. However, it is important to broaden our environmental awareness and include people as part of the solution and not as an isolated element of it. The transformation of our environment is essential for every social entrepreneur and that must include people. One source of inspiration for these changes even comes from the United Nations. The UN in its 2030 agenda established 17 Sustainable Development Goals [5]. The goal of the SDGs (established in 2015) is to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. What is relevant for any Social Entrepreneur is the call made by the Secretary of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to the "Action by people" and rebalancing the relationship between people and nature by showing us that an undertaking is something that goes far beyond the commercial transactions we are used to.
- Justice
The balance that a Social Entrepreneur seeks between people, the environment and economic returns is another way to make the world a fairer place. It is not possible to contribute to the community if despite creating new products, the community does not leave the process empowered; It is also not possible to contribute to the community if the ecosystem is destroyed along the way and it is much less possible to change the current state of things if with the work of many enrich a few.
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Regardless of the nature of the venture, the simple idea of transforming the community and creating a more empowered and conscious civil society that lives in communion with the environment and at the same time being able to create a business model that is respectful of all its components shows us the way to carry out the Necessary transformations in a world in crisis that, through initiatives such as Social Entrepreneurship, allows us to see a new paradigm for companies in the XXI century.
[1] https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-summary-spanish.pdf
[2] https://dle.rae.es/conciencia
[3] https://dle.rae.es/consciencia
[4] https://www.emol.com/noticias/Economia/2018/04/22/903519/Asesor-de-emprendedores-Hoy-toda-venta-tiene-que-centrarse-en-hacerle-la-vida-mas-facil-al-cliente.html#:~:text=cl%20Autos%2D%20Casas-,Ocho%20de%20cada%2010%20emprendimientos%20fracasan%20en%20Chile, delivery% 20keys% 20to% 20avoid% 20errors
[5] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/objetivos-de-desarrollo-sostenible/
