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Social Enterprise: Growing a Sustainable Business

Learn how to grow a sustainable social enterprise in this free online course from Middlesex University Business School.

18,798 enrolled on this course

  • Duration

    3 weeks
  • Weekly study

    4 hours

Is your social enterprise sustainable? Through theory, practical information, and video case studies from around the world, this course helps you evaluate your model and develop a plan to take it to the next level by mapping your stakeholders, marketing your business, and managing change.

Continue learning with the Social Enterprise program

This course is one of three in the Social Enterprise program prepared by Middlesex University Business School, the Jindal Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Living in Minca.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 9 seconds The main challenge I think is the profit, because we don’t want to make more profit and we also want to provide the best price for our community. I think all the challenges of change are all the challenges of growth. Challenge, is making sure you’ve got a sustainable business as well. Giving away all of your intellectual property, could threaten the survival of the business.

Skip to 0 minutes and 35 seconds Just grow your own organization. Do well, grow it, get more business get more customers, get more contracts, and just grow.

Skip to 0 minutes and 47 seconds To this day, more than 5 million children have benefited from Escuela Nueva. Because we’re forming partnerships, looking for appropriate partners in other countries.

Skip to 1 minute and 2 seconds What you want to achieve, what your networks are, what your customers are, what your stakeholders are, where do they go, how do they behave? How much money you have to make things happen? It’s about creating connections and creating a plan, on paper first, then with conversation with people, and then testing it, testing it, testing it!

Skip to 1 minute and 32 seconds To create a strong, sustainable social business you need to have a strong, sustainable economic model riding alongside. How do you create a scalable model that also scales social benefit and social impact. And what I didn’t want was to build a model that had “social impact” as a tag on. You know, an additional bit. I wanted to build a model that every level of the business…

What topics will you cover?

  • Identifying challenges
  • Evaluation and Diagnosis
  • Strategies for Sustainability
  • Marketing strategies
  • Storytelling strategies
  • Funding and Investment
  • Measuring social impact

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Assess the financial and marketing considerations for growth
  • Evaluate the different growing and scaling up strategies for social enterprises
  • Evaluate the challenges of a social enterprise
  • Demonstrate how to achieve social impact at scale

Who is the course for?

This course is intended for anyone interested in learning more about social enterprise, including entrepreneurs, charities and students.

Who will you learn with?

Sara is a the co-founder and CEO of Minca Ventures Ltd. She is a certified business consultant and has a wide range of experience working with sustainable related businesses.

Jeremy is the Founding Director of the Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship (JSiE), an award-winning social impact centre at O.P. Jindal Global University.

Andres is the co-founder and COO of Minca Ventures Ltd. He is an expert in Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Follow me @AndresMoralesPM

Who developed the course?

Middlesex University Business School

Founded in the 1960s, Middlesex University Business School is one of the largest Business Schools in the UK.

Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship

The Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship (JSiE) is an award-winning social impact centre at O.P. Jindal Global University located in North India.

Minca Ventures

Minca Ventures Ltd supports social innovation & social enterprises across the globe. The company offers consultancy, sustainable business modelling, training and educational courses, research, filmmaking, and storytelling communication strategies.

Endorsers and supporters

funded by

British Council

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn

Get a taste of this course

Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:

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You can use the hashtag #FLsocentsustainable to talk about this course on social media.