Social enterprises: breaching the gap between charity and business

Technologies, global markets, and even demographic compositions of cities are changing at a speed never experienced before. Many of these changes are moving towards a more efficient way to perform tasks in our daily lives. But these fast changes have also brought with them the challenge of the unknown, the new, and the different, which in many cases causes a polarization among groups of people. This polarization tends to slow down the progress in our communities, work places and countries as a result those barriers created in the process

In a recent UN summit for social innovation, held on June 6, 2011, much was discussed about whether or not nonprofits can have the financial capacity to make a sustainable social impact, and if private organizations’ corporate social responsibility operations are the only other hope to tackle pressing social needs. The answer to that question is still unclear. However, it is a well-known fact that many nonprofits struggle to raise the funds to advance their causes, as well as the fact that CSR portions of private organization have a limited scope of action dictated by their mother organizations. That is why social enterprises are needed to help breach the gap left in between charity and business, and that gap, in many instances, has been left unattended for the lack of organizations that can look at social challenges in a different way.

Social enterprises, for-profit organizations with the mission to advance a social cause in sustainable manner, offer an approach for taking on social needs with new and creative ideas. True to these principles, Dialogue Social Enterprise seeks to improve the situation of marginalized people by running exhibitions, workshops, and trainings that focus on interpersonal skills, team leadership, diversity training, and sensitization of others’ situations.  All of these skills cultivated through the use of the powerful of vehicle of darkness.  

Just as Dialogue Social Enterprise tackles the communications barriers between different groups of people, at the same time that other social business focus on other areas of the social spectrum that need attention, two questions arise: Should social enterprises remain one more tool to tackle social challenges left behind by the nonprofit sector and CSR? Or are social enterprises a better way to approach social challenges all together?

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