This course offers an introduction to social impact strategy and social entrepreneurship, including key concepts, an overview of the field, and tools to get started as a changemaker. Students will learn how to innovate and design new ideas and new organizational forms to implement those ideas. Students who take this course will be better prepared to launch social impact
Offered By
Social Impact Strategy: Tools for Entrepreneurs and Innovators
University of PennsylvaniaAbout this Course
Skills you will gain
- Market Analysis
- Business Model
- Business Modeling
- Social Entrepreneurship
Offered by

University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Introduction
Learn about the key qualities of social innovation, social enterprise, and social entrepreneurs. How do social entrepreneurs approach problem solving? How might we identify social initiatives that are truly innovative in their approach to delivering on their mission, sustaining their venture, or scaling their impact? This module introduces the topic and offers examples of initiatives you might study as cases organizations throughout the course.
Define and Design
Learn the inputs and basic blueprints of a well-articulated vision. Develop an understanding of the design process, and learn to use an empathy map and a mind map for client-oriented innovation. Learn to build a logic model, which will help you articulate your innovation's theory of change from resources (inputs) to activities to impact. We encourage students to apply these tools immediately, to an active or idea-stage social initiative, that you are working directly on or that you admire.
Pilot and Scale
We must test our ideas in the real world, early and often, to determine if they can truly deliver on either their social or financial mission. Learn to build and use the balanced scorecard, a key tool to assess the real-world performance of a social innovation. The scorecard will allow you to measure and articulate both the initiative's current reach and health, as well as the work that is left to be done. An innovation achieves the intended social impact in a way that is financially supportable may be a candidate for scale. Learn to assess whether and how to approach scale for your social innovation.
Sector Selection and Business Models
This course concludes with an exploration of the organizational forms and modes of delivering impact across the business model spectrum.
Reviews
- 5 stars80.53%
- 4 stars17.61%
- 3 stars1.66%
- 2 stars0.09%
- 1 star0.09%
TOP REVIEWS FROM SOCIAL IMPACT STRATEGY: TOOLS FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATORS
I'm still unsure of where my business model lies, but this course has really opened up my eyes and have given great prompts that allow me to think and innovate for my next project!
I find this course very informational and more importantly, very actionable. I finished the course feeling confident that I will be able to use the tools taught in my own initiative.
Useful course for beginners. Provides good theory base. You need to have a ready business idea to participate in discussions. However the discussions are quite weak here.
I really enjoy this course even though i took times to understand but at least i got something beneficial regarding business organization. Thank you so much for the clear and good videos.
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