Leveraging Existing Tools to Help Social Enterprises: A Case Study

The terms social enterprise and resource constraint go hand in hand and appear to be inseparable. While the operation of social enterprises in developing countries brings in a set of resource constraints, the very nature of these organizations imposes a financial resource constraint. Striking the right balance between the mission of a social enterprise to make a difference and its ability to sustain itself financially is quite a challenge. In the Frugal Innovation Lab at Santa Clara University,we try to help social enterprises to achieve this balance by leveraging existing tools, which not only foster their mission but also empowers them to adapt to the changing business needs. In this paper, we present three such cases.