October 22, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
While the current financial crisis has hurt fund raising, it may trigger bigger problems for social enterprise, meaning nonprofit groups that adopt business tactics or for-profit operations to further their charitable goals, writes Jeff Trexler, a professor of social entrepreneurship at Pace University.
On his blog, Uncivilsociety, Mr. Trexler writes that the social enterprise “movement has yet to grasp the extent to which it is as much a product of the bubble as subprime loans and credit-default swaps—it’s not just a coincidence that do-gooders started talking business when business was good.”
“At the peak of the bubble this gave the movement a rhetorical advantage, but as the economy tanks, this same language can make the social entrepreneur seem untrustworthy, defined by profit, self-interest, and the very business practices that created the problems charity now has to solve,” he continues.
What do you think? Will the financial meltdown lead to a change in some nonprofit approaches, or at least how some charities market themselves as businesslike?
