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Overview of Social Entrepreneurship at the Swearer Center

The Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service has launched its Social Entrepreneurship Program with generous support from the Goldman Sachs Foundation. The Social Innovation Initiative (SII) will include programming for students across three stages, beginning by inspiring and involving students in and around social entrepreneurship, then supporting their work with skills and resources, and finally helping professionalize their efforts to be more impactful and sustainable.

Social Entrepreneurship, uniting a commitment to social justice with independent, innovative thinking, is quintessentially “Brown.” Numerous students and alumni have already blazed paths, creating organizations or actively work within this emerging field.

Brown’s Social Entrepreneurship Program will seek to complement and support these efforts while establishing a vibrant infrastructure for social entrepreneurship on campus and in the greater community.

The Swearer Center is uniquely positioned to help launch this program. First, the urgency of societal challenges and their increasingly global context require us to look for additional ways and tools to address those challenges. Second, in our work to educate and prepare Brown students, we need to help develop skills and knowledge particularly in areas such as strategy, change, and management.

Several principles underlie the Swearer Center’s concept of social entrepreneurship:

  • Impact on significant social issues through research, practice, policy, and public engagement
  • Community-driven and sustainable solutions
  • Development and application of strong, disciplined analysis and management skills
  • Bridge between academic scholarship with community relevance