Sustainability of social enterprises – a framework to enable long term impact of their missions

This research is about sustainability of social enterprises. It is about enabling long-term existence of these ventures to continue creating and delivering environmental, and social impact, solving societal issues with innovative solutions where governments and private sectors have been ineffective or eluded entirely. Studies on sustainability of social enterprise has so far been fragmented. This report aims to consolidate through qualitative research, the collective wisdom from academics, field practitioners and interviews with social entrepreneurs about the essentials needed to preserve the longevity of a social venture. The insights gained from this research contributed to a framework for sustainability of social enterprise. Findings suggest that social entrepreneur must deliberate on critical variables at key milestones of its development, deploying an assortment of strategies and an art of managing them. Initial setup phase requires effective fundraising strategy, clarity on mission-profit motives for trade-off conflicts, and implementing viable commercial venture to self-sustain its mission. In monitoring performance, inconsistent practices found in tracking impact performance, and managing commercial and impact risk, citing lack of resources but were deemed imperative by investors. Results indicated most social enterprises remain small to medium sized and scaling decisions rests on founders’ direction. Social ventures with success in expanding reach had instituted key scaling-enablers identified in the research. A variety of management structures, financing strategies, adaptation to new markets, stakeholders and government engagements were deployed to advance mission. The significance of this research is that it will precursor to future research in this area and enhance social entrepreneurial efforts for long-term benefit of society