10 Ways To Incorporate Social Entrepreneurship Into Your Business

To help your business with incorporating social entrepreneurship, we asked business experts and HR professionals this question for their best social entrepreneurism tips. From making your industry more inclusive to creating a “pay it forward” model, there are several different tips that may help you in your mission to incorporate social entrepreneurship into your business.

Here are nine pieces of advice for incorporating social entrepreneurship into your business: 

• Promote Clean Energy 
• Be an Advocate for Remote Work
• Responsible Sourcing
• Interview Social Entrepreneurs 
• Fight For Future Generations
• Interact Online With Intention
• Think of it as a Social Impact Scale
• Pay it Forward Model
• Donate Returned Products
• Sustainability
• A Trusted Process

Promote Clean Energy 

Social entrepreneurship is important to us at AVANA Capital. Our goal is to provide fast, flexible, and reliable financing for players in the renewable energy sector. Clean energy initiatives are a focus, especially in 2021, because we believe in creating a safer environment for our communities and future generations!

Thanks to Kimberly Kriewald, AVANA Capital 

Be an Advocate for Remote Work

We believe tomorrow’s companies will be remote by default. They would still have an office but they will default to letting people from anywhere. We launched a new brand to support remote work called Remote Creative Work. At its current state, it’s a job board for remote work including design, engineering, writing, and art. But we’re also using it as a platform to train and educate tomorrow’s creative professionals. We’re building a community of remote creatives and companies where we can share insights around remote work. This includes the skills you need for remote work, what a great remote workplace looks like, how to develop asynchronous communication and collaboration skills, and more. We aim to be the single resource for all things remote. And to give back to the community by creating a space where we can learn and grow together.

Thanks to Husam Machlovi, With Pulp

Responsible Sourcing 

Tic Watches is a family run business that has been selling designer watches online and via a brick and mortar retail store since 2007. By focusing on known brands we are careful to make sure that a sale of a watch benefits the customer, our brands, and our business, we only import watches from trusted distributors or are official stockists of the brands we carry. By ensuring that our process can be trusted, we create a triple bottom line win for all stakeholders. 

Thanks to Daniel Richmond, Tic Watches

Interview Social Entrepreneurs 

To incorporate social entrepreneurism into your business, you have to understand how others have accomplished the same thing. I enjoy interviewing or interacting with other social entrepreneurs and asked them how they consciously prioritize social entrepreneurship. How do they structure their business operations to be a win for all stakeholders? How do you learn more about social entrepreneurship? How do they give back to the community? There’s a ton of answers that can be derived from a good conversation or informational interview. You can start the journey of being a social entrepreneur by learning from others. 

Thanks to Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Fight For Future Generations

Social entrepreneurship can be the primary focus of one’s business. I started the Canadian Youth Alliance for Climate Action, Canada’s first non-profit and youth-led climate lobbying company. We differ from our other peers in the lobbying field in that we focus entirely on the betterment of our society through drafting, proposing, and advocating for the environmental legislation that will guarantee a livable future for my generation and beyond. In that sense, social entrepreneurship is all we do!

Thanks to Calvin Yang, Canadian Youth Alliance for Climate Action

Interact Online With Intention

As a corporate social responsibility practitioner and consultant, I recognize the importance of integrating principles of social entrepreneurship into my business. Looking for potential positivity through intentional attempts to further broad social, cultural, and environmental goals is important to my discipline and to my business. So, I look to social media and leverage these tools to educate and intentionally interact with my audience online. I believe by educating people about the many campaigns, companies, and causes that are joining forces to make positive change possible that they will become greater advocates for positive change. The bonus is that by sharing these stories and tagging the relevant stakeholders I find my business gaining valuable followers who are like-minded while sharing more about myself with my audience and helping cool cause campaigns.

Thanks to Tyler Butler, 11Eleven Consulting

Think of it as a Social Impact Scale

At one end is the traditional entrepreneur who primarily values financial growth and shareholder return as their core mission. At the other end is the nonprofit that considers doing good as their sole mission. Creating a new product line, or marketing products to underserved markets is a perfect way to get involved in social entrepreneurship, but don’t be afraid to look outside the box. Once you’ve become more familiar and more attached to an issue, forge new paths to achieve unforeseen success within that cause and your company. As an entrepreneur, you’ve proven yourself to be an innovator and problem-solver. As a social entrepreneur, you’ll tap into a caring and nurturing side of yourself. Don’t miss the opportunity to incorporate all of those traits into one great new idea that can change the world for the better.

Thanks to Sylvia Kang, Mira

Pay it Forward Model

We offer a “pay what you can model” for our initial deep dive marketing assessment. Both my business partner and I come from many years of working with nonprofits and small businesses, and we have seen firsthand the challenges that come with having a limited marketing budget. We offer this model for our first tier of services because we don't want to keep amazing ideas and products from getting the extra marketing support that they deserve simply because there is a limited budget. Our “pay what you can model” allows for those that can afford the services to support others that aren't able to at this time. Our dream is for the “pay what you can model” to bleed into a “pay it forward model”.

Thanks to Audrey Hutnick, Smallwave Marketing

Donate Returned Products

We’re donating items that customers return from our 120-day trial to chosen organizations and establishments. This set-up ensures our customers get new products while giving the returned items a chance to be enjoyed by other people. We make sure that the items pass sanitary parameters for the safety of the recipients. Not only does this initiative help the less fortunate, but it also helps make our risk-free guarantee more meaningful and encourages more customers to try us out.

Thanks to Stephen Light, Nolah Mattress

Sustainability

Social entrepreneurship is a huge part of our company; from sustainability to social justice to political advocacy, 365 Cannabis is dedicated to breaking down barriers for a more inclusive industry.  For example, we recently became a founding member of the Sustainable Cannabis Coalition, a group of like-minded companies working together to improve data-driven sustainability throughout the entire supply chain.

Thanks to Megan Chiamos, 365 Cannabis

A Trusted Process

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