Page 108 - Social Enterprise A New Business Paradigm for Thailand

This marked a shift away from exclusive reliance on donations and government grants. In the
1960s, the U.S. federal government launched “The Great Society” programs, allocating billions of

dollars to nonprofit organizations to address poverty, education, healthcare, community
development, environmental issues, and the preservation of arts and culture. However, the
economic downturn of the 1970s led to drastic cuts in social welfare budgets in the decades that
followed. These cutbacks severely impacted nonprofits that had previously depended on public
funding. As a result, many nonprofits were compelled to expand their commercial activities, such
as producing goods or providing services, as a way to support their social objectives.

Thus, the growth of social enterprises in the United States has largely been driven by support
61
from private organizations rather than the public sector. In particular, organizations like Ashoka
and major philanthropic foundations, including the Kellogg Foundation, Kauffman Foundation,
Surdna Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation, have played a key role in promoting the
development of social enterprises. Their contributions span a range of support, from funding to
62
education, training, research, and advisory services.
Over the past three decades, the principle of sustainable development has gained widespread
international acceptance. This shift was driven by increasing skepticism toward traditional
economic development models, which allowed unrestricted exploitation of natural resources and
prioritized business profits, often at the expense of the environment, social equity, and economic

fairness. Such profit-maximizing business practices, focused solely on shareholder interests, have
led to pressing global challenges such as environmental degradation, poverty, and social
inequality.

One of the key challenges facing socially driven businesses in the United States has been how to
prioritize social and environmental values without exposing executives to lawsuits from
shareholders for failing to maximize profit. In response, new types of business structures have
been developed to allow companies to pursue social and environmental missions alongside
profit-making goals. The most significant of these include Benefit Corporations (also known as

Public Benefit Corporations), which are legally recognized company forms that embed social and
environmental objectives into their governing documents; Certified B Corporations (B Corps),
which are businesses certified by the nonprofit B Lab for meeting rigorous standards of social and
environmental performance, accountability, and transparency; and Low-Profit Limited Liability

61 Jacques Defourny and Marthe Nyssens, Conceptions of Social Enterprise in Europe and the United States:
Convergences and Divergences, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Volume 1, 2010, pp. 32-53.
62 Janelle A. Kerlin, Social Enterprise in the United States and Europe: Understanding and Learning from the
Differences, op. cit., pp. 253-255.
75