The following is an excerpt from our featured Page to Practice book summary of Search for Social Entrepreneurship by Paul Light.

In a nutshell

This book examines the power of social entrepreneurship to accomplish large-scale systemic change within the nonprofit sector. Author Paul C. Light takes on the behemoth task of synthesizing differing views and research outcomes to arrive at a consensus so entrepreneurialism can be studied and replicated for the greater good.

Despite the fact that absolute certainty about what constitutes a highly entrepreneurial organization is elusive, Light successfully teases out useful similarities among researchers’ findings. He does so by identifying four basic components of social entrepreneurialism. In the end, the reader gains a collective view of what highly entrepreneurial organizations look like and how they behave. In the meantime, we give you six of his strategies for entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship involves a relatively simple but dynamic process that demands complicated strategies for success. Each step carries its own risks and rewards, according to Light and fellow researchers:

1. Imagining a new equilibrium. Some of the most interesting work in the study of business entrepreneurship focuses on the role of imagination in sparking initial action. Entrepreneurs must believe that change is both essential and possible. Hunter, Bedell and Mumford report that “organizations should allocate more time and resources for imagination, encourage participation, avoid micromanagement, build diversity into the creative process, and set goals that challenge their employees.”

2. Discovering an opportunity. The right opportunity involves three related strategies: First, entrepreneurs must constantly scan the competitive environment and build in search infrastructure to help entrepreneurs identify targets of change or “wedge” opportunities. Second, entrepreneurs should be proactive about future trends where others might hesitate. Third, entrepreneurs should engage in collective search with trusted advisors and peers.

3. Inventing the idea for change. New ideas rarely involve eureka moments. Instead, they require traditional methods of problem solving.  Wolcott and Lippitz claim there are four strategies for creating a new idea:

1. The Opportunist Model – This model is based on the organization that depends upon a product or service champion to lead the endeavor in spite of the organization’s lack of support.
2. The Enabler Model – Teams within an organization are enabled with resources so long as they incubate an idea that fits within the nonprofit’s framework.
3. The Advocate Model – In this scenario, the organization claims ownership for creation of the new idea while intentionally only providing modest budgets to the core group.
4. The Producer Model – Here organizations create internal incubators for new ideas. This model also aims to protect ideas from turf battles, encourage cross-departmental collaboration and create pathways for executives to pursue careers outside of their existing roles.

4. Launching the idea into action. Successful launches generally involve exceptional skills in marketing research, sales, distribution, promotion, research and development, and the use of cross-functional teams making marketing decisions – all the while keeping an eye on timing.

5. Scaling up for high impact. Scaling up is an effort to increase social impact to more closely match demand. Steven LaFrance claims that “successfully-scaled social entrepreneurs are able to expand their resource base by viewing fundraising as a way to achieve mission and by finding ways to connect supporters to programmatic work.” LaFrance also emphasizes collecting and using data to make smart decisions that relate to the effectiveness of the model, setting priorities and choosing strategies.

6. Diffusing the idea. Light agrees that diffusion has long been considered a mark of successful ideas. The greater the diffusion, the greater the replication; the greater the replication, the greater the impact. Diffusion is a nonlinear process for spreading an idea. However, organizations can leverage three factors to increase the odds for diffusion:

1. An adaptive and flexible organizational structure supports decision making among departments and teams in the trenches.
2. Leadership and management support the implementation process, and they are committed to the success of implementation and routinization, making innovation a norm.
3. Human resources help to sustain innovation by hiring talent that is motivated and competent.

Read more about The Search for Social Entrepreneurship by subscribing to Page to Practice™! Or, purchase this or one of our other Page to Practice™ executive summaries by visiting the CausePlanet summary store. We welcome your comments on this book or any of our others on our CausePlanet blog.  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.