A social entrepreneur is somebody who comes up with clever solutions for social dilemmas, such as poor educational outcomes and perpetual poverty. You can always work on social problems like these using the free market as your guide, so why do I bring it up now? Because right now the government is offering lots of money to social entrepreneurs who are working on social problems the government wants you to work on. Obama’s Social Innovation Fund (SIF) recently named its first 11 investments that are giving out $50 million over the next few years.
Where are the investments going?
The largest chunk, $7.7 million, is going to Jobs for the Future, which will train 23,000 workers and 1,000 employers; $4 million to teach broke families how to make better financial decisions; $2 million to “tackle” smoking and obesity in Missouri; $5 million to New Profit, which helps high school students make the transition to college.
The government is spending this money on social problems; why not collect that money yourself by coming up with clever solutions yourself? And you can call yourself a social entrepreneur, too.