The Promise of Social Franchising as a Model to Achieve Social Goals

Social entrepreneurship implies a blurring of sector boundaries. In addition to innovative not-for-profit ventures, social entrepreneurship can include social purpose business ventures, such as for-profit community development banks, and hybrid organizations mixing not-for-profit and for-profit elements (Dees, 1998). Despite this broad playing field, it generally agreed that the central driver for social entrepreneurship is the social problem being addressed, and the particular organizational form a social enterprise takes should be a decision based on which format most effectively mobilize the resources needed to address that problem. (Austin et., 2006). Social entrepreneurs, therefore, look for the most effective methods of serving their social missions. One of the main challenges for social entrepreneurs has been to scale up their venture. Although these entrepreneurs may have a clear understanding of the needs in a given community and be able to raise the necessary capital to start social venture, they are frequently unable to develop or scale up the service delivery, marketing, and accountability challenges that all small businesses face (Zahra et al., 2008). Consequently, the impact of social entrepreneurs are usually limited to a specific region and there is a growing interest in