Chapter 12: The Holistic Motivation of Social Entrepreneurs

For some, the motivation for a career is to confront problems with the hope of bringing about positive social change. Often this leads toward working for nonprofit organizations. Others are motivated by the challenge of creating economic gain and would prefer working in the for–profit sector. In the past these two options were seen as mutually exclusive. One was focused on service while the other was primarily about earnings. Frustrated by this binary choice as well as the inherent limits of both nonprofit and for–profit organizations, entrepreneurs have recently created a new standard for expected organizational output—the multiple bottom lines of the social enterprise (Bornstein … Davis, 2010). The social enterprise simultaneously pursues both problem attacking and profit making. For Christians, social entrepreneurship may provide a way to pursue a holistic calling, integrating skills in business with desire to confront social problems.