The landscape of today’s social problems is continuously changing, with recent years highlighting how rapidly needs can shift. These changes have underscored the importance of finding solutions to issues impacting everyday life, including responding to public health emergencies, dismantling systemic racism, and adapting to climate change.
While we’ve made significant progress on some fronts, many existing social challenges continue to grow in magnitude and complexity. Designing solutions for today’s social problems requires an entrepreneurial approach.
When you think of entrepreneurship, nonprofit work may not be the first thing that comes to mind. You may instead visualize successful entrepreneurs from the tech industry or new business owners creating innovative products. But the same entrepreneurial mindset that drives these startup ventures can also apply to your nonprofit’s work.
Applying entrepreneurial thinking to your nonprofit’s problem-solving can help you think bigger, move faster, and make a more significant impact. Below, we’ll help get you started on incorporating an entrepreneurial spirit into your work.
What Is Entrepreneurial Thinking?
Entrepreneurial thinking is a mindset that embodies the characteristics of bold thinkers with daring goals. These entrepreneurs craft data-driven strategies with iterative solutions. They think outside the box and try multiple approaches. In other words, individuals who demonstrate entrepreneurial thinking stretch beyond an organization’s comfort zone to look for new opportunities to make a real-world impact.
But it’s crucial to note that this mindset doesn’t just apply to the traditional definition of an entrepreneur. Today, many organizations across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors embrace entrepreneurial skills internally to solve problems more effectively. For example, organizations can integrate entrepreneurial thinking into their culture and everyday operations.
5 Ways an Entrepreneurial Mindset Helps Solve Social Problems
Entrepreneurs possess many valuable skills that apply to nonprofits. So when adopting an entrepreneurial mindset at your nonprofit, start by considering how this approach can translate into meaningful solutions to today’s social challenges.
1. Entrepreneurial Thinking Combines Creativity With Market Intelligence
Entrepreneurial thinking naturally embodies creativity—a boundless imagination of what’s possible. But the most successful entrepreneurial endeavors balance creative solutions with comprehensive market intelligence.
Successful entrepreneurs start with a solid understanding of the problem. They can explain why it’s a pressing need, then back that assertion up with relevant data. In addition to identifying an existing social problem, they look at how it’s been addressed historically. That’s where their creativity comes in.
So rather than tinkering away at current solutions in hopes of incrementally improving, entrepreneurs decide those approaches are not good enough. They seek new ideas to address social problems with exponential improvement.
For example, passionate individuals start nonprofits when they’ve identified a specific problem and feel called to solve it. Over time, they may get comfortable with their current programming or approach. But entrepreneurial thinking reminds nonprofit leaders to ask “what if?” and brainstorm new, creative solutions that could take their organization to the next level.
Entrepreneurial Mindset in Action
EarthEnable found that 75% of Rwandans live in homes with dirt floors, contributing to child mortality caused by dust, parasites, and other pathogens.
It sought creative inspiration to solve this problem from a growing movement in the United States, where homeowners installed sustainable earthen floors in their houses. EarthEnable created a floor made of gravel, laterite, fine earthen mix, and oil that’s affordable and safe for children in Rwanda. These floors reduce the incidence of childhood diarrhea by 49% and parasitic infections by 78%.
2. Entrepreneurial Thinking Centers Around Lived Experiences
In traditional business models, customers are the recipients of a product or service. On the other hand, entrepreneurial business plans view customers as active participants in the product or service. The latter seeks customer feedback, asks for business ideas, and creates customer-focused messaging. And the result is the best possible product or service for those using it.
This same entrepreneurial mindset helps drive crucial change in solving social problems, as nonprofits can ask beneficiaries what they most want and need. This feedback informs optimizations to program designs or sparks innovations for new approaches to solving the problem.
3. Entrepreneurial Thinking Considers Measurable Impact and Sustainability
Entrepreneurship aims to make lasting positive change—it’s not enough to solve an issue once if the root cause of that problem persists. As part of entrepreneurial project management, creative thinkers detail their plans and describe how they’ll measure their success. Ensuring a concept’s sustainability in its initial design is critical to a successful outcome.
This type of entrepreneurial thinking can help nonprofits anticipate potential roadblocks and challenges and establish a mitigation strategy proactively. It also allows nonprofits to move toward solving the issue’s deeper causes instead of just fixing the surface cracks.
Additionally, donors may find this element of entrepreneurial thinking attractive when considering which organizations to support. It shows accountability for using donor funds effectively and identifying when it’s time to make changes.
4. Entrepreneurial Thinking Embraces Risk and Failure
Funding protocols, public perception, and the significance of the problems nonprofits address have contributed to a risk-averse approach in the social sector. But unfortunately, ideas that drive dramatic change are inherently risky propositions and present the potential to fail. Entrepreneurial thinking acknowledges that uncertainty and accepts it as a necessary driver of progress.
Organizations run by entrepreneurial-minded leaders know that new ideas put them at risk for huge potential losses. Their missions are big and bold, but they know the rewards far outweigh the risks. And if failures arise, entrepreneurial thinking helps leaders quickly reframe those as learning opportunities to make adjustments and try again.
Entrepreneurial Mindset in Action
Pencils of Promise’s initial strategy was to build schools to address a lack of education for children in Laos. Then, the organization quickly became known for building hundreds of schools worldwide.
Over time and through lessons learned, it recognized that the physical structure of a new school is only one piece of providing quality education. As a result, Pencils of Promise took a risk by launching additional programs to create a more holistic approach to educational access, including teacher support, digital learning platforms, sanitation and hygiene, and evaluating student outcomes.
5. Entrepreneurial Thinking Adopts a Bold Vision for the Future
Big problems require big solutions, and entrepreneurs often live by a “go big or go home” mentality. Because of that, incremental change is insufficient for entrepreneurs—they demand monumental change toward a gutsy endgame.
Entrepreneurial thinking helps solve social problems by not shying away from the biggest, most challenging topics. Instead, the mindset focuses on what is possible. In other words, entrepreneurial thinking has the potential to inspire your nonprofit’s vision statement for what the world will look like as a result of your impact.
How to Encourage Entrepreneurship at Your Nonprofit
Once you understand the basic tenets of entrepreneurial thinking, establish specific ways to implement them into your nonprofit’s operations.
Using the learnings from above, you may want to:
Think about ways to communicate your impact to stakeholders that demonstrate your program’s sustainabilityInterview your beneficiaries to learn how you can serve them better and consider other ways you can get them involved in your solutionsEncourage an organizational culture where the staff feels comfortable throwing around big ideas and taking risksImplement projects a quarter at a time to allow for constant evaluation and reworking when neededShowcase your brand and vision in bold ways that identify the root causes you address
With small tweaks to your nonprofit’s entrepreneurial approach, you can spark innovation toward social problems. From an entrepreneurial standpoint: Why only provide meals, for example, when you can end world hunger?
Accelerate Your Nonprofit Mission With an Entrepreneurial Mindset
An entrepreneurial mindset isn’t just for the for-profit sector—it’s an approach that can fuel new ventures for your nonprofit.
Consider well-known entrepreneurs as mentors and look for opportunities to translate their successful business ideas into strategies to elevate your organization. You might even consider ways to secure a corporate sponsorship as part of your problem-solving work.
Incorporating entrepreneurial thinking into your nonprofit’s strategy helps your staff learn new skills while supporting the viability of your vision.