SMALL BUSINESS | Seeed Conference
There’s a new kind of small business growing in Rhode Island and across the nation: social enterprises. These are businesses created to improve the community. Just as traditional businesses are created to fill a need in the marketplace, social enterprises are businesses launched to respond to a societal need.
we need to unleash the innovative power of social entrepreneurs
You may have been a customer of some of them. The Friendship Café on Broad Street is one of several businesses staffed by clients of Amos House, a social service agency. They also own a catering business, a packaged baked goods business, and a construction company – and they’re all thriving businesses that help support both the operation and the mission of Amos House. Edesia, a Providence manufacturer of a nutritional supplement for severely malnourished children that is being distributed globally, is operating two shifts a day, and through a partnership with the International Institute is employing 37 refugees. While some social enterprises are owned by non-profit corporations, many are not. Providence Granola, which is distributing its product in dozens of retailers, was founded specifically to create job opportunities for refugees. There are more than 120 social enterprises like this in Rhode Island, and that number is growing rapidly. In the last five years nearly every top business school in the nation has incorporated social enterprise classes and programs into its curriculum. Rhode Island is increasingly being viewed as a national leader in social enterprise
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RISBJ | rhode island small business journal
development. Last month, more than 400 social entrepreneurs, innovators, civic leaders, legislators, academics and students from 15 states traveled to Providence to explore the role of social enterprise in economic development. The Social Enterprise Ecosystem and Economic Development (SEEED) Summit, held at Brown University with the support of Social Venture Partners Rhode Island, explored the increasingly important role of social enterprise in our local, national and global economy. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Honorary Chair of the Event, said at the Summit, “When visionary Americans apply their entrepreneurial spirit to today’s most pressing issues, they challenge us to rethink how business and government can work together and grow the economy in Rhode Island and around the globe.” That vision is what motivates Social Venture Partners Rhode Island (SVPRI), a partnership of nearly 100 business and community leaders who are giving their time and resources to help nurture this growing sector of our economy. SVPRI launched the country’s first social enterprise co-branding marketplace, Buy With Heart, www.buywithheart.org/. The