Social Entrepreneurship At The Margins

Press Release

Today, a catastrophic convergence of political, economic, and environmental conditions are compounding and amplifying poverty, violence, and climate change—and driving the displacement of people from their homes and communities. Humanitarian aid is insufficient to support the unprecedented numbers of fellow human beings who are struggling as refugees, migrants, or modern-day slaves.

In this Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins report, Miller Center illustrates the clear and urgent need for bottom-up, enterprise level approaches, and highlights organizations that are already addressing these challenges in innovative ways. Social enterprises are encountering gaps in this emergent sector that inhibit their ability to scale; foremost among these is access to appropriate sources of funding. This report highlights the efforts of Refugee Investment Network (RIN) and other innovators to bridge these gaps and invites other stakeholders to collaboratively build sustainable solutions for the growing global challenges facing refugees, migrants, and human trafficking survivors.

By launching the pioneering Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins (SEM) accelerator program, Miller Center’s team learned that intermediary support for social enterprises working with refugees, migrants, and human trafficking survivors had not been offered before. This report details how we applied our depth of expertise at accompanying social enterprises to help organizations operating in this nascent sector.

In addition, we share what we learned about the specific needs of enterprises working with the most marginalized of our common human family.

Download the Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins white paper

 

Author

  • Miller Center for Global Impact

    For over 25 years, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship has been a leader in the global social enterprise movement. With an emphasis on climate resilience and women’s economic power, we accelerate social entrepreneurship to end poverty and protect the planet, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Located at Santa Clara University, we fuse the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley with the university’s heritage of social justice, community engagement, and global impact. Miller Center has served close to 1,500 social entrepreneurs based in over 100 countries that are impacting hundreds of millions of lives. Our 2024 Annual Report contains more information and stories about Miller Center’s outsized impact.