You know the non-profit world. You know how to market your organization to move your mission and vision forward. Marketing a social enterprise is different. Marketing a social enterprise balances your mission with market. To succeed, non-profit leaders must showcase your organizations social, cultural, or environmental impact while attracting, serving, and retaining paying customers. This quick guide shares our insights into successfully marketing a social enterprise.

Three people with their thumbs up around having chosen the best social enterprise idea. If you’re like most non-profits, once you’ve set your social enterprise evaluation criteria , t he first thing you want to do is jump into brainstorming ideas. And why not? This is the fun part! When doing “green-light thinking” brainstorming every idea and every voice is important.  Mix and match your techniques to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute.  Generally, a mix of individu

When non-profits start exploring social enterprise, they often get hyper-focused on THE big idea. This is the idea that when they think about it, their gut says, “this is it!” The problem with this approach is that to make an evidence-based decision (objective, not subjective), you need to back the idea with solid data. That’s where market research comes in. Market research answers the simple but critical question: Will this work, and why?