Educating Social Entrepreneurs, Volume I

CHAPTER 14

Marketing a Social Enterprise: Generating Questions to Construct Observation Experiences

Mary Conway Dato-on

Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College

Introduction

In designing marketing or communication strategies, students often rush in to offer suggestions to social entrepreneurs prior to fully appreciating the breadth and depth of the organization’s challenges and context. Rushing to solve social-related problems often demonstrates a lack of empathy for social entrepreneurs’ and their clients’ struggles. When this occurs, resulting suggestions and marketing plans are often unrealistic or mismatched with organizational needs—resulting in frustration and ultimately failure to improve outcomes. At the same time, social ...