What is Social Entrepreneurship?

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is the work of social entrepreneurs. We believe that social entrepreneurs are those exceptional individuals who dream up and take responsibility for an innovative and untested idea for positive social change, and usher that idea from dream to reality. What enables social entrepreneurs to make lasting impact on the most difficult problems is a special combination of groundbreaking creativity and steadfast execution. Echoing Green’s portfolio of social entrepreneurs attacks the root causes of critical social problems with unparalleled rigor.

Echoing Green and Social Entrepreneurs

Echoing Green has been in the business of identifying, funding, and supporting emerging social entrepreneurs since 1987, when we funded our first fellow, Diana Propper de Callejon. We’ve provided critical support to social entrepreneurs like Wendy Kopp of Teach For America, Michael Brown and Alan Khazei of City Year, Mark Hanis of Genocide Intervention Network, and Karen Tse of International Bridges to Justice. People who have great ideas shouldn’t fall through the cracks, and sometimes they need a boost to find their way to execution and then to impact. Through the years, the Echoing Green Fellowship has been an indispensible ally to social entrepreneurs who have new and untested ideas for transformative social change.

As the field of social entrepreneurship has grown, new funding streams have developed to support social entrepreneurs on their pathways to change. Organizations like Skoll Foundation, Ashoka, Schwab Foundation, and Draper Richards Foundation now provide first-stage and mezzanine-level funding. Echoing Green remains committed to very early stage support of new and untested ideas in the hands of visionary social entrepreneurs.