November 30, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Social Entrepreneurship: The Art of Mission-Based Venture Development
by Peter C. Brinckerhoff
To be successful, nonprofit organizations–even if they don’t develop their own business ventures–need to think of themselves as “mission-based businesses,” rather than as charities, writes the author of this handbook.
As the environment of the nonprofit world becomes “more and more competitive for donated dollars, traditional grants and contracts, and even for quality staff members and volunteers,” Peter C. Brinckerhoff explains, nonprofit leaders must become social entrepreneurs and adopt business-development techniques.
Social entrepreneurs, as Mr. Brinckerhoff defines them, “take on risk on behalf of the people their organization serves.” Like corporations that launch business ventures for the benefit of their stockholders, social entrepreneurs, he says, take chances that will serve their charity’s “stakeholders.”
For charities that do want to start business ventures, Mr. Brinckerhoff describes in detail the business-development process. He discusses how to create project ideas and test their feasibility, write a business plan, and tap into new sources of financing. He offers exercises for applying his advice, suggests how charities can finance a business venture, and explores topics such as unrelated-business-income tax and corporate structuring.
Throughout the book, Mr. Brinckerhoff provides examples of flourishing nonprofit businesses, which he offers as models for readers to imitate.
He describes, for instance, a Denver children’s museum that set up a for-fee exhibit in a local mall, the income from which has helped the museum become less dependent on its annual-giving campaign.
Nonetheless, Mr. Brinckerhoff, who is president of Corporate Alternatives, a consulting company in Springfield, Ill., warns that social entrepreneurs must stay true to their philanthropic roots. The sound nonprofit organization, he cautions, always remembers that “mission, not money, is the bottom line.”
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1 Wiley Drive, Somerset, N.J. 08875; (800) 225-5945; fax (732) 302-2300 or (800) 597-3299; http://www.wiley.com; 238 pages; $44.95; I.S.B.N. 0-471-36282-4.
