Let me start with a number that should stop us in our tracks. The United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. 193 countries signed on. We are now closer to 2030 than to the moment those goals were written — and by most measures, we are not on track to meet them. Not even close.
Climate breakdown is accelerating. Inequality within and between countries is widening. Gender gaps in leadership, pay, and opportunity persist stubbornly across every industry and every region. The systems we have built to address these problems — government programs, international frameworks, corporate CSR initiatives — are not moving fast enough. And the economic model that has dominated for the last half century, one built on the premise that profit maximisation serves the common good, is proving not to deliver on that promise.
I say this not to be pessimistic. I say it because I think it matters enormously where we look for answers. And I believe the answer is not more of the same business-as-usual with a sustainability label attached. I believe the answer is a fundamentally different model of enterprise — one that builds purpose into its DNA, not its marketing.
That model already exists. It has been quietly gathering momentum since the cooperative movements of the 19th century, through pioneers like Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank to prove that financial services could serve the poorest rather than exploit them, and William Drayton of Ashoka, who made the word social entrepreneur part of our vocabulary. Today it is the fastest-growing organisational form in many parts of the world. It is called social entrepreneurship — and it is not a niche. It is, I would argue, the most important economic model of our time.
What is a social enterprise, really?
There is no single global definition, and this is itself revealing. Social enterprises emerge from local realities — from specific communities, specific gaps, specific injustices — and so they take different forms in different contexts. Some are nonprofits. Some are for-profit with a mission-first orientation. Some are hybrid models, combining both. What they share is not a legal structure but a logic: they exist primarily to create social or environmental value, and they use business as the means to do it.
At EOS Academy, we work with the European Commission's definition: a social enterprise is a business that exists mainly to create social impact, not to maximise profits. It provides goods or services in an entrepreneurial and innovative way, reinvests most of its profits to achieve its social goals, and involves employees, consumers, and other stakeholders in how it is run. This definition matters because it draws the line in the right place. The purpose is the mission. The business model is in service of the mission. Not the other way around.
J. Gregory Dees, one of the founding thinkers in this field, described social enterprises as hybrid organisations that pursue a social mission using a commercial business model. That word — hybrid — is important. It tells us that the old distinction between doing good and doing business is a false one. Social enterprises prove, every day, that financial sustainability and social impact are not in opposition. They are interdependent.
"The economic system we live in is not working for everyone. Governments alone can no longer address all the challenges we face. Social enterprises have emerged as part of a growing mixed economy where private, public, and third-sector actors collaborate to deliver solutions and drive inclusive progress."
Why this model matters now more than ever
Here is what strikes me most about this moment. We have more data than ever about what is broken. We have more technology than ever to build solutions. And we have a generation of people — particularly women, particularly mid-career professionals who have lived through the disillusionment of the corporate world — who are hungry for work that actually means something.
The European Social Enterprise Monitor, which surveyed 1,807 social enterprises across 30 European countries in 2023–2024, found that women hold the majority at every organisational level in social enterprises — from the workforce to the board. This is not a coincidence. The values that drive social entrepreneurship — purpose, collaboration, long-term thinking, stakeholder inclusion — are values that many women have been practising for decades, often in contexts that did not reward or recognise them.
At the same time, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found in 2024-2025 that women are 5% more likely than men to prioritise sustainability over economic goals, and 2% more likely to cite making a difference as a primary motivation for starting a business. The motivation is there. The skills are there. What has been missing, in many cases, is the structure — the frameworks, the community, the belief that business-as-vehicle-for-change is a legitimate path.
A model built for this moment
What social entrepreneurship offers is not idealism. It is a practical response to a practical failure. When government cannot reach, when commercial markets will not serve, when the problem is structural and urgent — social enterprises step into the gap. They address unemployment. They support marginalised communities. They tackle environmental degradation. They build local resilience. And they do it in a way that is financially sustainable, which means they can keep doing it.
The Triple Bottom Line — the framework introduced by John Elkington in the 1990s — asks businesses to measure their success not just in financial terms but across three dimensions: social well-being, environmental health, and financial stability. For most businesses, this is an aspiration added on top of their existing model. For social enterprises, it is the founding premise. The difference is not cosmetic. It changes everything about how decisions are made, who is at the table, what success looks like, and what gets built.
We are in a crisis of multiple overlapping systems. The crisis of the climate. The crisis of inequality. The crisis of meaning in work. These are not separate problems. They are expressions of the same underlying reality: a model of organising human activity that optimises for the wrong things. Social entrepreneurship is not the only answer. But it is one of the most powerful answers we have. And we are not using it at anywhere near its potential.
That is what I want to change. And it is why the work of building the next generation of social entrepreneurs — particularly women, whose leadership this sector both reflects and needs — feels to me like some of the most important work of this decade.
Research Foundation :This blog draws on the following sources: European Social Enterprise Monitor 2023–2024 (1,807 SEs, 30 countries); Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2024/2025; European Commission Communication 2011/682 on social enterprise; Dees (1998) on hybrid organisations; Elkington (1997) on the Triple Bottom Line; UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
If this resonates and you are exploring what social entrepreneurship could look like for you, EOS Academy exists to support exactly that journey.. NavigatingTransformation@amfortas.eu — Dr. Eleftheria Egel, NavigatingTransformation & EOS Academy