ASE promotes the development of social enterprises, business ventures which address social problems. Social enterprises are more-than-profit businesses that use blended-value models to create a revenue-generating business with a social-value generating element.
Although our work to date has been focused on not-for-profit organizations, including churches, our programs are designed to serve a broad range of social entrepreneurs.
Our core program is the Social Enterprise Academy, which provides training and mentoring, as well as the opportunity to compete in a venture competition. Since ASE began, working with a variety of strategic partners, ASE has produced over two thirty-two Social Enterprise Academies. The unique program has expanded capacity for over 300 social entrepreneurs, generating over $10 million dollars in new investment and earned income streams. In post-program evaluation reports, 65% of the participants generated new revenue within a year of participating and 94% said that their participation in the Academy had a valuable and significant impact on the way that they manage their business.