In 2006 an American traveler, Blake Mycoskie, befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by caring TOMS customers.

Since their beginning, TOMS has given over 140,000 pairs of shoes to children in need through the One for One model. TOMS plans to give over 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world in 2009.

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Survival of Social Enterprises in the Current Economic Scenario
By Kevin Long

The current economic scenario when everyone is anxious about their business, jobs and future, encouraging social enterprises may not seem to be the right thing to do. But industry experts are of view that the present condition is best suited for social enterprises to take hold of the prevalent financial, social as well as environmental challenges.

The concept of social entrepreneurs making profit along with improving the society does not make sense to all. Many companies believe that they can either benefit the society or make profit. There is no doubt that sometimes effectiveness and efficiency can’t be achieved together. If social enterprises start focusing on making money, their ability to serve social and environmental causes might get affected.

But one also can’t deny the fact that such enterprises need a strong financial backing so that they don’t have to compromise on their objectives of sustainable development. Since banks are mostly risk-averse and foundations don’t offer grants on easy terms, lack of finance has become the biggest hurdle for such enterprises to grow. Therefore, social entrepreneurs should try operating and thinking like commercial businessmen to some extent so that their services don’t get affected due to irregular cash flow.

Experts believe that non-profit organizations can run efficiently as a sustainable business if the services they provide to the community, provides something back to the business that can help the enterprise grow further. This concept has been coined as creative capitalism within which a company can make profit as well as serve the society. TOMS Shoes can be considered a good example of creative capitalism. When a consumer purchases one pair of TOMS shoes, the company gives a pair of new shoes to a needy child. With a simple yet innovative One for One concept, the company has managed to make a difference along with making profit.

Private companies are profit based and this in turn attracts investors from all sectors. More social entrepreneurship funds are required to make the social investment community as strong as the mainstream investment community. Partnering with private companies will also help social entrepreneurs learn more about running business the smarter way.

Kevin Long is the founder of Global Deaf Connection and the co-founder of Justmeans, a social utility site that helps companies to attract and ignite advocates of better business. Kevin has done significant business development work for both for-profit and non-profit organizations that support good work.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Long