Your guide to balancing impact and commercial success
Using the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design
Updated version
What should come first? Your business plan or your business model?
I strongly believe it’s option B — your business model. But so many social enterprises I’ve seen, get it backwards which means they struggle to articulate how they create, deliver and capture value.
This is what first inspired me to create the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design in 2013. It outlined how I had used, tested and learnt about the Business Model Canvas, created by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, adapted for designing and growing social enterprises.
Since then I’ve applied the Canvas in a range of contexts and learnt more about some of the nuances of using it in relation to social and impact enterprises. Note, I now tend to use the nomenclature of ‘impact enterprises’ rather than just social enterprises, but for ease of continuation from the first edition I’ve stuck with the terminology. It should however be recognised that the ‘impact’ referenced in the document could refer to social, environmental, cultural or economic outcomes that impact people, communities or societies.
How to use the Canvas
The Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design and accompanying booklet is a companion to your strategy and planning. It’s a tool for you to get clear on how you’re creating revenue, how you’re creating impact, for who, and how both sides interact. You can use it at any stage of an enterprise’s lifecycle — before or at start-up, for testing a ‘minimum viable product’ model, for growth and development, and when pivots are required to build viability or sustainability. Completing a business model is not a desk activity, it is an immersive, practical, collective and engaged exercise that needs to be repeated over time.
I like to use large forms of the BMC, in group settings and I like to display the canvas following a workshop so that team members and stakeholders of the social enterprise can engage, understand and continue to co-design the business model.
Impact enterprises are extraordinary entities. If we can design their business models to reflect the best blends of commerce and impact we have the opportunity to truly transform people, places and planetary futures. What better way is there to do business?
