Social entrepreneurship in New Zealand: where to from here?

This paper is submitted for consideration as part of theme 10, 'social entrepreneurship'. Its primary focus is to describe an attempt to bridge the perceptual gap between (a) those societal engineers who wish to pursue their objectives in a more entrepreneurial manner; and (b) those entrepreneurial individuals who wish to use their skills to 'make a difference' in society. The subject project has been conceived as a three part process, stretching over an eighteen month period, and the paper to be presented in February 2006 will report on the background and history of the project, and on the outcomes of stage one of the research. As such, it is very much a work in progress, and should be evaluated as such. In this section, the broad aim and specific goals of the project are identified, and in the next the research methods are briefly described. Results are as yet unknown, and are therefore discussed in outline only.