Energizing entrepreneurs: Resourceful communities and economic pathways

Abstract

INTRODUCTION This paper illustrates the relevance for the non-profit sector of moving beyond its traditional roles into entrepreneurial community economic development. Its approach aligns with conceptualizations of sustainability through the self-help galvanization and development of enterprise opportunities, education pathways, and labour market outcomes for the community, by the community. METHOD It develops the concept of social entrepreneurship as a hybrid form between private, non-profit, and public sectors, in line with examples of non-profit organizations with entrepreneurial offshoots, generating revenue for the organization’s social objectives. ANALYSIS The article operationalizes these ideas through the design, creation, roll-out, and achievement of a community enterprise incubation program for urban Polynesians in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It examines the challenges, how they were resolved, and analyzes how both challenges and reforms contribution to the body of knowledge. RESULTS Through the project’s demonstrable initial successes, the authors argue that it offers clear signposts to government, the public sector, and the private sector in how to move beyond simple capacity building to sustainable enterprises and by entrepreneurs in the community who have been created, energized, and given experience by participation in the process. They present the project as a prototype on how to resource community groups and organizations embarking on their community economic development journeys and how to liberate the self-motivating entrepreneurial energies of communities.