Social Enterprise Alliance

SEA: Champions for Social Enterprise Since its inception as The National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs in 1998, the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) has been the champion and key catalyst for the development of the social enterprise sector in the United States. Our Mission and Vision Our vision is for social enterprise to reach its potential as a force for more effective and sustainable social impact. We empower social enterprises and social entrepreneurs with the tools and resources they need to succeed, and work to foster a social enterprise ecosystem in which they can thrive. Our History Social enterprise is a dynamic, growing and increasingly robust field. Upon the Alliance’s founding, however, social enterprise was a burgeoning field with little attention, structure, influence or connection. Six pioneers of social entrepreneurship (Jerr Boschee, Jed Emerson, Gary Mulhair, John Riggan, Billy Shore and Richard Steckel) recognized this gap and organized The National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs in order to convene thought leaders and practitioners who could share ideas, lessons learned and networks to increase their impact. In the years that followed, the National Gathering became the Social Enterprise Alliance, a membership organization focused on advancing the field of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. What We Do As social enterprise and social entrepreneurship continue to expand across the United States, it needs a comprehensive vision, a clearly-defined perspective and a unified movement to attract capital for growth, effect government policy, facilitate cross-sector collaboration, raise consumer and investor awareness and aggregate capacity and resources. Social Enterprise Alliance is the platform for such a movement of organizations and individuals who dedicate themselves to social progress through social enterprise. In pursuit of these objectives, we support our members and ultimately advance the field by helping grow the network, share stories and build the capacity of social enterprise to solve problems.