Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business
A 10-week online programme for professionals, entrepreneurs and business leaders who wish to engage in social entrepreneurship or conduct socially impactful initiatives as part of their business portfolio.
Upcoming programmes
Format:
Dates:
Duration:
Fees:
Online
9 Jun-15 Aug 2025
10 weeks (4-5 hours per week)
£1,800 + VAT
Upcoming programmes
Format:
Online
Dates:
9 Jun-15 Aug 2025
Duration:
10 weeks (4-5 hours per week)
Fees:
£1,800 + VAT
Overview
The Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business Programme combines the expertise of globally leading social innovation researchers and the experience of social entrepreneurs tackling social and environmental problems through commercial activity. Participants will gain a critical awareness of key issues and challenges facing social entrepreneurs in the UK and across the globe. They will also gain practical skills, enabling them to design and pitch a social enterprise to potential funders.
Benefits and career impact
Learn how to develop a Social Enterprise.
- Gain confidence to use the language of social entrepreneurship, to engage others in developing solutions to global as well as local social challenges.
- Understand how to write a business plan to pitch a social enterprise initiative within your company or to a potential funder.
- Learn how to incorporate and govern a social enterprise appropriately for its mission.
- Develop a network of peers to support your future social enterprise initiatives.
- Design a viable business model for a social enterprise.
- Develop an impact strategy for your social enterprise.
- Learn how to balance the commercial and financial bottom lines of your social enterprise.
Professor Neil Stott: “My name is Professor Neil Stott. I am the Academic Programme Director of the Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business programme and Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation.”
Nicole Helwig: “I’m Nicole Helwig, the Executive Director of the Centre, where I oversee Cambridge Social Ventures, including our social enterprise incubator. Over the past 10 years, Cambridge Social Ventures has supported over 1,000 social entrepreneurs and we’ve incubated over 250 social ventures, working in diverse fields, to create positive social and environmental impact.”
Neil: “This programme is informed by our experiences helping entrepreneurs who are committed to creating and growing a venture to address social challenges. If you have an idea for a social enterprise you wish to develop, or already launched and wish to grow your impact, this programme will equip you with the necessary tools to create sustainable and impactful social venture. This course is also for you if you are a charity or a social sector leader wishing to diversify your organisation’s income through trading activity, or a business leader wishing to engage in social entrepreneurship as part of your portfolio of offerings. We will help you devise a hybrid model, capable of balancing financial and social bottom lines.”
Nicole: “This programme is designed to help you navigate the many decisions and challenges involved in setting up and running a successful social enterprise. Throughout the course, we will hear from social entrepreneurs who will share their experiences, what they have learned from starting and running their social ventures, and the reasoning behind their key decisions. You will engage in self-paced, online learning and live webinars, which are structured to help you, step by step, to devise a social enterprise business plan. This includes creating a sound value proposition and effective business model and preparing a sound financial plan, along with a compelling impact strategy. You will gain the tools and skills needed to design and pitch a social enterprise plan and get started with your social venture.”
Neil: “This course is also designed to help you develop a network of like-minded individuals. At the end of the programme, you’ll have gained a critical awareness of key issues and challenges facing social entrepreneurs in the UK and across the globe, along with the practise skills to design a viable and socially impactful venture.”
Find out more about the programme from our faculty
Harness the expertise of globally leading social innovation researchers and the lived experience of social entrepreneurs to address social and environmental problems through commercial activity.
This programme is being delivered in collaboration with the
Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation.
Programme content
The programme will be 10 weeks long, with 6-8 hours of work per week. The structure will be a blended format with 10 weeks of online, self-paced, flexible learning and 6 live webinars.
Pre-programme (Online)
- An introduction to Cambridge Social Ventures, our principles, practices, and learnings.
- An introduction to the social entrepreneurs featured throughout the learning material.
- Introductory goal setting and reflection on challenges.
- A 90-minute live webinar.
Module 1: What is social enterprise?
8 hours of online self-paced learning over 2 weeks.
- Contrasting commercial and social enterprise.
- Operational models.
- Badges and codes of practice.
- Social enterprise around the world.
- Defining social problems and social mission.
- Systems, stakeholders and unintended consequences.
- Ideation for social impact.
- Scaling enterprise and scaling impact.
- A 90-minute live webinar.
Module 2: Doing social enterprise
8 hours of online self-paced learning over 2 weeks.
- Social and commercial value creation and value propositions.
- Business models for social ventures.
- Incorporation and governance for social ventures.
- Articulating social impact.
- Marketing, channels and competitors.
- Production and operations.
- Financing social ventures.
- A 90-minute live webinar.
Module 3: The social enterprise ecosystem
8 hours of online self-paced learning over 2 weeks.
- The bigger picture of social enterprise.
- The social finance ecosystem.
- Support organisations and infrastructures.
- Critical perspectives on social enterprise.
- Community-building and the solidarity economy.
- A 90-minute live webinar.
Module 4: Your social enterprise business plan
8 hours of online self-paced learning and capstone activity over 2 weeks.
- Reviewing key decisions.
- Risk, rewards and exit.
- Positioning your brand identity.
- Preparing your business plan.
- Pitching and negotiation skills.
- A 2-hour live webinar.
- Pitching your business plan.
- Responding to feedback.
Capstone and assessment
- Review of learning outcomes and goal setting.
- Next steps and learnings from the programme.
- A 90-minute live webinar.
To successfully complete the certificate, participants must:
- contribute to forums and polls throughout
- present a business plan
- offer constructive feedback on other participants’ work.
The task will be to present a project plan for an enterprise that applies the principles discussed. The participant will have the option of producing a written or audio-visual presentation.
How you learn: Online
The Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business programme runs over the course of 10 weeks, allowing you the greatest level of flexibility as to where and when you study. The learning is carefully structured in weekly components through a mix of curated videos, live webinars with Cambridge faculty plus Q&A sessions, assignments and discussions. Individual support is available through programme Leaders and a dedicated Programme Support Team.
Who attends
- Founders of social enterprises, and the members of their board of advisors, who wish to develop their practices and understanding of the field.
- Leaders and employees of businesses or public sector organisations who wish to launch a social-impact initiative or subsidiary, or conduct social enterprise activity.
- Charity sector leaders who wish to diversify their income through trading.
- Experienced commercial entrepreneurs wish to pivot to solve pressing social, economic or environmental issues.
- Impact-driven individuals who wish to generate business ideas to address a specific issue or support a specific community through social enterprise.
- Learners who wish to balance full-time work with flexible, self-paced study.
What I personally found most useful – as well as most challenging – was the focus on developing your particular idea into a solid proposal. This pushed me to clarify the areas I was most keen to pursue and to apply the theory ‘in real life’ to developing a proposition.
Faculty and speakers
Learn from our world-class faculty who bring fresh insights from their leading-edge research into all of our Executive Education programmes. The Academic Programme Director (APD) for the Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business programme is Professor Neil Stott.
Director of the Master of Studies in Social Innovation Programme
Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation
BA (McGill University), MBA (University of Strathclyde)
Michelle Darlington
Michelle Darlington
Head of Knowledge Transfer, Cambridge Centre for Social InnovationJunior Research Fellow, Cambridge School of Art
Co-founder, Thinking Through Drawing
PhD (Loughborough University)
Why Cambridge Judge Business School?
Related programmes
Social Enterprise and Impact-driven Business belongs to our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-topic executive education programmes. Here is a selection of related programmes:
Circular Economy and Sustainability: Impact on Business Models, Finance and Investments
Recycle, repair, remanufacture, Consider the importance of sustainability as it relates to development goals and business models, gaining an introduction to Circular Economy and an understanding of its impact on your balance sheet.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: DEI Strategies for Business Impact
Gain a solid understanding of diversity, from the different types of diversity and why diversity matters to related opportunities and obstacles as well as successes and failures.
Environmental, Social and Governance Leadership: A Pathway to Business Sustainability
Explore consumer, stakeholder and competitor issues surrounding ESG on this 4-day programme.
Contact us
If you have any questions or would like to have a chat about this programme and how it could benefit you or your organisation, please get in touch with the Open Programmes team:
Speak to a programme advisor
If you have any questions or would like to discuss how this programme could benefit you or your organisation, please get in touch with the programme advisor.
