Business for Good: Could Social Entrepreneurship be Your Next Career Move?

If your ambition is to create positive change in communities and the environment while growing a successful business, social entrepreneurship can offer a rewarding career path. But what does it really involve?

In this guide, we delve into social entrepreneurship, including what it means to be a social entrepreneur, the essential skills needed to thrive in this field and examples of social entrepreneurs in Australia, along with their innovative businesses. If you’re contemplating whether to pursue social entrepreneurship or traditional entrepreneurship, we’ve included a short quiz to help you discover which path may align better with your goals.

What is a social entrepreneur?

A social entrepreneur is someone who prioritises people and the environment by creating a business designed to make a meaningful difference. Similar to traditional entrepreneurs, they operate within the marketplace, but their goal focuses on addressing social, cultural or environmental challenges rather than maximising profit. A social entrepreneur typically adopts a self-sustaining revenue model for their organisation and often reinvests their profit into their mission.

Social entrepreneurs across industries share a commitment to generating positive change. This may involve reducing environmental waste, promoting gender equality or providing marginalised groups with employment and training opportunities. Unlike profit‑driven entrepreneurs who identify market gaps for financial gain, social entrepreneurs aim to meet unmet community needs and improve lives. While revenue does play a role in sustaining their business, it’s often used as a means to fund initiatives that bring social impact.

The evolving social entrepreneurship landscape in Australia

Australia's social entrepreneurship environment has experienced remarkable growth in recent years. According to Social Enterprise Australia's 2022 Business for Good report, approximately 12,000 social enterprises contributed $21.3 billion annually to the Australian economy and employed more than 206,000 people. However, since these latest official figures are from 2022, they have likely grown since then, as evidenced by Social Traders’ Report on Identified Social Enterprises in 2024. This more recent report, which involved 5,795 social enterprises, found they collectively generated $16 billion annually, suggesting the sector's total economic contribution may exceed the earlier $21.3 billion estimate.

Social Traders’ report also highlighted how social enterprises have the unique ability to balance both financial resilience and social and environmental impact, as these organisations generate 86 per cent of their revenue from trade. By focusing on business activities, social enterprises can invest directly in their missions without depending on unstable external funding, giving them more capacity to fulfil community needs. Social enterprises also outperformed small businesses and charities in financial performance, with 68 per cent of social enterprises reporting a net profit compared to 57 per cent of small businesses and 62 per cent of charities. This suggests that social entrepreneurship can be both a personally fulfilling and financially rewarding career path to pursue in Australia.

Recognising the social enterprise sector’s economic and social value, the Australian Government has provided initiatives to support social entrepreneurs. For example, through the Social Enterprise Development Initiative, announced in the 2023–24 budget as part of the Targeting Entrenched Disadvantage package, the government committed $11.6 million to support the growth of this sector. Eligible social enterprises can access grants of up to $120,000 for essential business needs, including planning, financial management, legal support and contract negotiation.

The steady trajectory of this sector’s growth, supported with governmental assistance, presents a great opportunity for you to become a social entrepreneur in Australia, where you can work towards building a successful business while also making this world a better place.

What does a social entrepreneur do?

Social entrepreneurs use business strategies to tackle societal and environmental challenges. They focus on creating sustainable solutions that generate positive impact for communities while ensuring financial viability. While their daily tasks may vary depending on their specific role, company and industry, below are some of the general responsibilities they may take on:

• Identify social, cultural or environmental needs in communities
• Develop innovative business ideas that can solve community concerns
• Collaborate on projects with government agencies, not-for-profit (NFP) organisations or other businesses
• Raise awareness of social issues through business initiatives
• Ensure ethical practices in business operations
• Adapt business offerings according to evolving community needs
• Reinvest business profits to advance social causes

What does a social entrepreneur's journey in building a social enterprise look like?

A social entrepreneur's journey in establishing and growing a social enterprise generally involves defining the kind of impact they want their business to create, developing a business plan, choosing a business structure and building a team. To boost credibility and attract more funding, some social entrepreneurs seek to have their business certified. These entrepreneurs also typically track progress as their enterprise grows to measure how they’re contributing to positive change.

While every social entrepreneur's story is often unique, many of them follow a similar progression from identifying a cause to scaling an enterprise. Understanding the typical pathway of a social entrepreneur can help you envision what your own journey may look like and determine if you’re well-equipped to commit to this career path. Discover what this journey often entails below:

1. Determine which social cause to support

Most social entrepreneurs begin by identifying a specific social, environmental or cultural problem they want to address. Your personal experience, background and passion can help guide you in this process, as working towards a cause that’s personally meaningful to you can motivate you when launching and scaling your business. For example, if you’re passionate about environmental sustainability, you may consider upcycling waste materials as a business venture. If you’re from a marginalised community, you may choose to develop business ideas that create employment opportunities for people in your community.

2. Develop your business plan

Once you’ve confirmed what cause you want to support through your business, the next step is to create a solid business plan to serve as your strategic roadmap. While all entrepreneurs need business plans, social entrepreneurs must include their impact model. This section demonstrates how your business will make a positive impact and how you'll measure it. Having a clear impact model can make it easier for you to secure funding and get your business certified later.

Based on the Australian Government’s official business portal, there are three models you can choose from:

• Work-focused model: Provides training and jobs for disadvantaged groups.
• Access model: Makes products or services accessible to fulfil a community need.
• Redistribution model: Donates at least half of its profits to a charity.

Choosing the right impact model can help you create a clear mission statement for your business. For example, a pet supply company adopting the redistribution model can commit to donating 70 per cent of its profits to animal shelters and welfare programs, ensuring vulnerable animals receive the care and protection they deserve.

For a comprehensive guide on what to include in your business plan, check out this article.

3. Identify your business structure

In Australia, a social enterprise is not a legal business structure, so you’ll need to choose from options like a company, co-operative, partnership or trust. This is a crucial step, as your structure determines your tax and legal requirements, investment options and decision-making processes.

You'll also need to decide whether your social enterprise will operate as an NFP or for-profit, as this affects your funding options. For example, donations are only available to NFPs, while equity finance is exclusively for for-profits. Given the complexity and long-term impact of this decision, it's highly recommended that you seek professional legal and financial advice before registering your business.

4. Build your team

Having the right talent and expertise is often essential for managing and scaling your social enterprise. Identify the skills gaps in your venture and hire staff or recruit volunteers who can fill these roles effectively. The size of your team often depends on the complexity and scale of your enterprise. You can collaborate with your team to develop a comprehensive business model that defines how you'll achieve your goals, fund your operations and ensure long-term sustainability.

5. Get your business certified

While certification is not required to operate a social enterprise in Australia, it can provide significant benefits for your business. Social enterprise certification can help you access funding opportunities, strengthen your credibility with stakeholders and boost your business marketability. Social Traders offers one of the most recognised social enterprise certifications in Australia. Other popular certifications include B Corp and People and Planet First.

6. Grow your business and measure your impact

When you first launch your business, begin on a small scale to test the viability of your offerings in the market. This early phase allows you to identify potential issues and refine your products or services before expanding your operations. As your business grows, monitor its performance and refer to the metrics established in your impact model to measure its social impact. Stay adaptable to evolving market and community needs to maximise both business success and social impact. Always embed your social commitment in your operations and key decisions throughout your business’s growth.

What skills does a social entrepreneur need?

A social entrepreneur can greatly benefit from skills in impact management, grant writing, market research, business acumen and financial management. Beyond these technical skills, they should also excel in social intelligence, demonstrate values-based leadership, have great problem-solving skills, show resilience when faced with setbacks and communicate with others effectively to build trust and support collaboration. This blend of hard and soft competencies can empower them to lead a business that serves both financial sustainability and social impact. Find out more below:

Hard skills

Impact management: Social entrepreneurs rely on strong impact management skills to systematically track and evaluate whether their business initiatives are creating meaningful social change effectively. This skill enables you to refine business strategies to improve their outcomes and hold your organisation accountable in fulfilling its missions.

Grant writing: While social enterprises typically generate revenue by selling goods or services, some may also depend on grants as a funding option, especially for startup capital. If you’re a social entrepreneur looking to launch your venture, grant writing is an essential skill. This involves developing compelling applications that demonstrate how your social impact targets align with donour priorities and how the funding can help your organisation achieve them.

Market research: Before launching your socially conscious business, you must have a deep understanding of the cause you want to support with your venture. Having this skill allows you to examine social and environmental issues in your community and identify problems your business can address. Understanding these needs can also help you customise your products or services to remain relevant and maximise impact.

Business acumen: Social entrepreneurship requires more than passion to succeed. You need to have strong capabilities in managing and growing a business, which involves optimising operations and developing effective strategies to ensure your organisation remains self-sustaining. This is crucial, as many social enterprises typically rely on generating revenue to fund their social or environmental initiatives.

Financial management: Knowing how to manage cash flow, handle budgets and make informed investment decisions is essential for any entrepreneur. Effective financial management ensures continuous viability for your business, allowing you to reinvest profits into your mission.

Soft skills

Social intelligence: Since you’ll often be working closely with diverse communities and stakeholders, mastering the ability to empathise with others, understand social dynamics and adapt your approach to different audiences and cultural contexts is crucial. This skill helps to foster collaboration and ensure that your business solutions are inclusive and respectful of the communities you support.

Values-driven leadership: As a social entrepreneur managing an organisation focused on creating positive change, you need to consistently align business practices with your mission, demonstrate integrity and inspire others to prioritise social good alongside financial profit. Demonstrating values-based leadership can help your team remain steadfast in doing good, even as the business continues to expand.

Problem-solving: The primary goal of social entrepreneurship is to tackle complex community challenges or broader environmental issues. Strong problem‑solving skills empower you to approach these issues from multiple perspectives, think creatively and design innovative solutions that balance both social impact and business sustainability.

Resilience: As a social entrepreneur, you may encounter barriers like limited funding, regulatory issues or systemic challenges. Being resilient allows you to adapt to setbacks, continue pushing forward and remain committed to doing business for good.

Communication: Managing your business as a social entrepreneur typically requires constant engagement and networking with diverse stakeholders, including team members, investors, partners, clients and customers. Developing effective communication skills can help you articulate your business’s social mission clearly, build rapport and earn the trust of the community you want to serve, which is vital for ventures that depend heavily on community support and advocacy.

Social entrepreneurs making waves in Australia

In Australia, many social entrepreneurs are recognised for building innovative enterprises that address diverse social and environmental issues. Their efforts range from supporting young people experiencing hardship, reducing environmental waste and empowering women’s workforce participation to elevating refugee‑owned businesses and amplifying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Below are examples of inspiring founders of local social enterprises and how they contribute to their causes:

Rebecca Scott and Kate Barrelle – STREAT

Started as a small street food cart in 2010, STREAT has now grown into one of Australia’s leading social enterprises. Designed to address the challenge of disadvantaged youth and homelessness, the organisation reinvests 100 per cent of its profits into supporting and training primarily young people in Melbourne. The organisation has a portfolio of hospitality businesses, including cafes, catering and an events space, to fund its youth programs, which consist of training and employment pathways for people aged 16 to 24. The organisation also helps young people secure a safe and long-term place to live through partnerships with a wide range of housing services across Melbourne.

Cat Harding and Mardi Brown – PonyUp for Good

Founded in 2016, PonyUp for Good is an environmental, social and governance engagement agency that helps socially conscious organisations transform their decommissioned technology into charitable impact. By collecting donated devices, erasing data and re‑marketing them, their lifespan can be prolonged by up to seven years, reducing e‑waste in landfills and waterways. This social enterprise also donates 50 per cent of its profits from every collected device to its charity partner, SecondBite, which rescues millions of kilograms of fresh food and redistributes it to food relief programs across Australia.

Renata Singer and Marion Webster – Fitted for Work

Established in 2005, Fitted for Work is a national NFP organisation dedicated to supporting women, non‑binary and gender‑diverse jobseekers in Australia. This organisation offers various in-person and online services like interview preparation, mentoring and programs to help individuals transition into work and stay employed. Fitted for Work also operates The Conscious Closet, which is a social enterprise promoting circular fashion by selling high‑quality pre‑loved clothing, with all profits reinvested into its services. Thanks to their initiatives, this organisation has supported more than 47,000 women to secure and sustain employment.

Marjorie Tenchavez – Welcome Merchant

Founded in 2021, Welcome Merchant is a social enterprise that champions refugee‑powered businesses in Australia through curated events, merchandise collaborations and an online business directory. This organisation also provides refugee entrepreneurs with free social media marketing services and practical skill‑building workshops. Since its launch, Welcome Merchant has organised more than 70 refugee‑powered events, such as markets, film nights and art exhibitions. In addition to elevating these businesses, this enterprise has donated over $40,000 to diverse charities through fundraising initiatives and socially-conscious gift hamper sales.

Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan – Clothing the Gaps

Launched in 2018 by two health professionals, Clothing The Gaps is an Aboriginal social enterprise streetwear label that uses fashion to fund health promotion efforts within Aboriginal communities and influence social change. This organisation is dedicated to educating and amplifying Aboriginal voices and causes, while ensuring fair and ethical trade with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. In 2025, the organisation was honoured with the Community Choice Award at the Kinaway Business Awards, a recognition voted on by the Kinaway community and its networks to celebrate the significant accomplishments and impact of one of its members. Kinaway serves as the leading body supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in Victoria.

Who should become a social entrepreneur?

Understanding the characteristics of a social entrepreneur can help you determine if this role aligns with your strengths and values. A social entrepreneur career path is ideal for individuals who are motivated by both commercial success and meaningful social impact. In this position, you'll need to blend strategic business acumen with resilience and a passion to create positive change.

Considering a career in traditional entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship but unsure which path is right for you? Take the quiz below to gain valuable career insight:

Image

Challenges in social entrepreneurship

As a social entrepreneur, you may encounter challenges in securing start‑up capital, balancing social impact with profitability and managing diverse stakeholder interests. Without the necessary skills and resources, expanding your enterprise can also be difficult. Explore more below:

• Securing start-up capital: Socially-driven organisations may be perceived as less profitable than commercial businesses, as their primary goal isn’t focused solely on financial gains. Due to this perception, social entrepreneurs may face difficulties in securing start-up capital, which is necessary to cover costs like wages, licenses, office-related costs and more.
• Balancing social impact and profitability: It can be challenging for social entrepreneurs to achieve their social mission and remain profitable simultaneously. They need to implement effective business strategies that balance both objectives. Passion alone may not be enough to ensure success, especially without a sustainable business model.
• Managing stakeholder interests: Social enterprises need to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders, such as executives, suppliers, customers and investors. This requires social entrepreneurs to navigate competing priorities carefully, as these stakeholders may influence their organisation’s long-term viability.
• Scaling business operations: Social enterprises may lack the capability to expand if they face structural barriers and resource constraints. For example, a social enterprise designed to hire people with physical disabilities may struggle to grow if workplaces lack accessible infrastructure.
• Lacking in business expertise: Social entrepreneurs are often motivated by a strong desire to drive positive change. However, translating that vision into a viable business requires expertise in core areas like marketing, human resources and financial management. Without these skills, launching and sustaining an enterprise can be challenging.

How postgraduate study can support social entrepreneurship

Postgraduate study can provide opportunities for you to build advanced skills and knowledge to pursue social entrepreneurship. Courses that focus on social impact can help prepare you for a career in social innovation, while entrepreneurship programs enable you to gain the competencies needed to launch and scale your own business in the social enterprise sector. Many of these courses also include specialised units dedicated to social entrepreneurship, offering you targeted insights into building purpose‑driven businesses.

For example, the Graduate Certificate of Social Impact at Swinburne University of Technology is tailored for individuals wanting to elevate their career in the NFP, social enterprise and philanthropy sector. This course includes the Social Impact: Entrepreneurs and Social Innovation core unit, which delves into the growing importance of social innovation and social enterprise in creating solutions to persistent social and environmental problems. You’ll explore the theoretical principles involved in the social innovation ecosystem and participate in in-person and online learning activities.

The University of Western Australia‘s Graduate Certificate in Social Impact aims to enhance your capabilities to manage organisations and social programs across the corporate, government and NFP sectors that bring positive social change. One of the core units you’ll take on is Social Impact: Entrepreneurs and Social Innovation, which delves into trends influencing the dynamics of social impact. You’ll explore core concepts like social entrepreneurship, social value creation, social investment and social impact assessment. This unit examines the emergence of organisations that generate both social and economic value and what that means for the social economy.

If you’re looking for a more in-depth learning experience through a master’s degree, the University of Queensland offers the Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which can help you build your understanding of how to practice business depending on your goal, whether it’s to create a new product, address a social issue or guide business transformation. One of the study fields offered in this course is Social Enterprise and Community Impact, which includes the Social Entrepreneurship in Practice unit. In this unit, you’ll learn how you can create social impact sustainably while maintaining profit. You’ll work in a group and be given the tools to translate a social opportunity you’re passionate about into a financially self-sufficient business

Flinders University’s Master of Business Administration (Social Impact) is designed to equip leaders and professionals with essential knowledge and skills to drive meaningful social change across diverse environments, including NFPs and governments. This course features the Leadership for Social Impact core unit, which delves into mission-driven leadership, power and influence, achieving outcomes and cross-sector leadership. You’ll also learn how to assess your own capacity to lead for social impact.

Consider enrolling in the University of Melbourne’s Master of Entrepreneurship to learn how to build value and grow revenue through entrepreneurial ventures. This course offers a wide variety of electives to complement your core units, including Social Entrepreneurship. Designed and delivered with insights from experts in the social enterprise sector, this elective seeks to support you in creating a startup social enterprise with the goal of addressing a social or environmental challenge. As part of the unit, you’ll design a business plan and pitch it to a panel of industry experts. Students with the best ideas will be awarded prizes that can help them translate their solutions into successful social enterprises.

Drive social change with a postgraduate course

If you’re passionate about creating positive change in the world through business, a career in social entrepreneurship could be suitable for your next career move. To thrive in this field, it’s essential to equip yourself with the right expertise. Advancing your qualifications can be a valuable way to enhance your entrepreneurial skill set and understand how business can drive societal change. Discover a wide range of postgraduate courses in entrepreneurship and social impact offered by top universities in Australia today.