Social enterprises often find their purpose in providing services and goods that others cannot or will not. They are often born out of seeing a need, an unfilled gap, the observation “Somebody should do that.” People are usually at the root of that impulse to help. Helping others is us at our best.

Mission-driven ventures are also more sensitive to the needs of the people who work for them. Good conscience and care for others begins at home with respect, good working conditions and paying a living wage. Every startup is going to take a lot of focus and effort. Social entrepreneurs find creative ways to acieve work/life balance for themselves and those they work with.

Social enterprises also respect everyone they deal with. Fair and firm partnerships and contracting means always being respectful, acting with transparency and honesty without sacrificing the advantages of your position, knowledge and experience.

Many social enterprises are focussed on the environment, finding new ways to conserve and protect the world we live in. It just makes sense to do right by the planet in whatever way we can. Honestly, why wouldn’t we? There’s nothing radical about minimizing consumption, conserving resources, using energy efficiently, avoiding waste. People have been been frugal and resouceful in these ways forever. The question for business is always how to make make the best product you can with the best use of resources. Reuse. Repurpose. Recycle.

It is hard to be profitable when you are providing services and goods that others are not. There’s usually a reason they are not and the reason is often money; it either costs too much to provide the service or there is no direct way to profit from it.

But our understanding of economic costs and savings is becoming more sophisticated. When true costs are figured in, it often becomes evident that providing a needed service will be cheaper in the long run. A good example is Guaranteed Annual Income: providing a reasonable minimum living standard reduces crime and improves health. Savings in policing, hospital visits and other health and social services more than make up for the added cost, even without calculating intangible benefits like increased civic spirit and improved social relations generally.

It is difficult to channel social benefits back to the producer in the form of money unless you are a government, and even then. Taxpayers can be impatient, hesitating to back plans that will result in cost savings they won’t see for many years or savings to services they don’t themselves use. Social enterprises often have to innovate in finding resources to support their work. Partnerships are often the key.

Sometimes, consumers are willing to pay a little more for a product that is better for the environment, is creating needed employment or where a portion of the proceeds from sales are directed back into other socially constructive projects.