Ask any self-respecting social entrepreneur why they do what they do, and they will tell you passionately about a social problem and how they are working to solve it. Most achieved a moment of clarity when they recognized an injustice and were compelled to take action. In tackling the social problems, their approaches are as wildly different as the problems themselves, yet our research and experience tells us that social entrepreneurs’ motivation is ubiquitous—to make sustainable social impact.

To this end, social entrepreneurs are obsessed with how well they achieve social impact. Regrettably, little attention has been given to examining performance in social enterprise methodology; instead numerous pages have been written on capturing how much social impact social entrepreneurs achieve. At first glance these perspectives appear identical, and they are indeed interdependent: the first stresses organizational performance, which then produces the second, external impact (measuring social impact metrics).1 Our assertion is that by enabling social entrepreneurs to assess and improve how well they achieve social impact they can in turn improve their performance, and increase how much impact they achieve.

We begin with a bold thesis: social enterprise is a paradigm for social organizations to achieve high performance.

In this paper we define social enterprise as: “socially-oriented venture (nonprofit/for-profit or hybrid)2 created to solve a social problem or market failure through entrepreneurial private sector approaches that increase organizational effectiveness and sustainability while ultimately creating social benefit or change.”3

We define high performance organizations as “efficient, adaptive, strategically-minded organizations capable of simultaneously creating economic wealth and social value and addressing root causes of social problems in order to achieve deep, lasting social impact.”

However, at the time of this writing there is a dearth of tangible materials and tools devoted to helping social enterprise practitioners understand and improve their performance—do what they do better. Instead, social enterprise literature is rife with definitions and chronicles of social sector leaders and their endeavors. The power of inspirational stories to motivate aspiring social entrepreneurs to implement their ideas should not be underestimated; however, analyzing and chronicling best practices is required to understand social enterprise performance, ergo develop social enterprise methodology.

Social enterprise methodology gains to date underscore three narrowly-focused schools of thought:4

1. the Social Entrepreneur Approach, which supports leadership development of the practitioner;
2. the Funding Approach, which advocates earned income as a means to fund social projects and organizations; and
3. the Program Approach, which uses commercial activities to execute social programs (i.e. micro-credit).

All three approaches have merit, yet neither alone nor together do they go far enough for the practitioner who is interested in mitigating a social problem. Money is motivating only in that it is a necessary means to finance costs related to solving a social problem. Strong leadership is essential to the success of any social enterprise, yet does nothing to address pragmatic questions related to institutionalization or capacity building. Finally, employing business activities is attractive only if doing so generates greater social value.

Social enterprise lies at the nexus of management science and social science, and therefore its practices should be drawn from and inspired by multiple disciplines such as business administration, social work, geography, policy studies, anthropology and economics. Social problems, too, are complex and often require multifaceted tactics to untangle their causes and effects. Thus, any comprehensive social enterprise methodology must take a holistic view of the social enterprise and integrate and build on current schools of thought—leadership, funding and program.

An integrated methodology requires that a complex network of internal systems function individually as well as interdependently to achieve a healthy whole. Diagnosing “symptoms” of poor social enterprise performance such as the inability to draft a strategic plan, high staff turnover, improper financial management, mission discord, dissatisfied clients, a poorly functioning board, etc. may indicate weaknesses in one functional area, whole systems, or institution-wide. Correcting problems may be isolated events or require comprehensive change management; either way changes in one area or many has an inherent impact on the performance of the social enterprise, for better, for worse or both concurrently. Social enterprise performance is dependent on the interrelationship between money, people, community, resources, capacity, leaders, values, knowledge, culture, acumen, and vision, etc. and how these aspects work together, or in opposition, toward achieving the end goal of sustainable social impact. Thus, achieving a high performing social enterprise is like a steady fitness regime that requires enduring vigilance, not only to remedy problems, but to strengthen capacity and maintain general health.

• 1The relationship is illustrated with a logic framework: organizational outcomes are the result of activities that lead to measurable outputs and subsequently organizational change, the cumulative effect is impact.
• 2Social enterprise is agnostic about legal form, which is usually dictated by governing laws in the countries where they operate.
• 3Alter, Kim, Social Enterprise Definition, Virtue Ventures, 2006.
• 4Alter, Kim and Vincent Dawans, “The Integrated Approach to Social Entrepreneurship: Building High Performance Organizations,” Social Enterprise Reporter, April 2006.

Social enterprise has been touted as the answer to achieving performance gains in the third sector, yet as a field it has been slow to develop its core methodological components. The purpose of this framework is to support the social enterprise community by developing an integrated methodology, one that goes beyond splintered factions and works to unite social enterprise around common challenges and performance criteria, thereby furthering the development of social enterprise as an established field and a means for achieving sustainable social impact.

Social enterprise achieves social impact by creating social, economic, and environmental value. Using a market-based approach, social enterprise incorporates commercial forms of revenue generation (and thus creates economic value) as a means to accomplish its social mission (and thus creates social value and/or environmental value);1 the combination of these results is a “blended value” outcome. Simply put, it is difficult to dissect value produced by the social enterprise and assign it to discrete activities because value production is a function of the interdependent nature of all social enterprise activities. For example, the social value of wealth generated by a successful microfinance institution (MFI) can be directly correlated to the economic value created to keep it afloat: the greater the number of productive loans disbursed, the greater the benefit to poor entrepreneurs, and the greater the amount of interest collected to sustain the MFI.

In the social enterprise, the means by which value can be created are as diverse as the social enterprises themselves. For instance, social value can be achieved through any or all of the following modalities: a direct result of executing the business; ancillary social programs; social services embedded in the social enterprise model; management and/or governance philosophy or processes; procurement of supplies and raw materials; strategic partnerships; and socially and/or environmentally responsible policies. To complicate, trade-offs occur whereby one type of value is compromised, curtailed, or forsaken to achieve another type of value. Most often this relates to economic value at the cost of social or environmental value to ensure the social enterprise’s survival. For instance, microfinance institutions went upmarket, making larger and higher margin loans to the “less poor” as a means to commercialize. The concession was reduced group loans to the “poorest of the poor,” while the benefit was being a going concern that could lend to many more poor people over time. The goal is to be strategically intentional about where and how to create maximum value and to view value creation as a holistic outcome of social enterprise performance.

Questions we seek to answer:

• How is performance defined and measured in social enterprise?
• What do we mean by ‘integrated methodology’?
• How can integration lead to higher performance?

• 1Social enterprise may add environmental value by employing environmental sustainable practices in its activities, or in the case of an environmental social enterprise—e.g., Nature Conservancy—environmental benefits are baked into the organization’s mission and integrated with its social programs.

First, we start by framing performance in the context of sustainable social impact, this being the ultimate goal of any social enterprise. In doing so, we avoid attempting to arrive at a common definition of ‘sustainability,’1 but instead focus on key characteristics exhibited by successful social sector organizations, namely their commitment to achieving (1) deeper social impact, (2) blended socio-economic value, (3) increased efficiency and (4) greater adaptability. We further demonstrate that the lack of these characteristics would negate any pretense of sustainability (although we certainly do not imply that their existence is all there is to sustainability).

We then apply these performance criteria to the social enterprise methodology, describing how social enterprise practitioners have addressed the challenges common to all social sector organizations along the four performance criteria.

Second, we make the case for an integrated social enterprise methodology. We start by demonstrating that social sector organizations, regardless of their performance, face common challenges in four strategic areas—we call them strategic lenses: how they engage their stakeholders, mobilize their resources, develop their knowledge, and manage their culture. We then conclude that each strategic lens has a role to play in each of the four performance criteria, potentially creating a complex series of synergies and tensions calling for an integrated approach across all four strategic areas to achieve the organization’s performance objectives.

Next, we conduct an analysis of how social enterprise practices seen through these four strategic lenses can potentially impact organizational performance. More importantly, we seek to show the integrative relationship between key performance criteria and social enterprise practices seen through the four lenses—a shift in organizational practice seen through any of the strategic lenses will impact (positively or negatively) the organization’s performance across the key criteria. Thus, we combine key performance criteria with the four strategic lenses to arrive at an integrated framework that we hope will further the development of social enterprise methodology as a means for achieving optimal performance in social sector organizations.

• 1This is an important ongoing debate but not the purpose of this framework.

The performance of a social sector organization is ultimately measured by its ability to create and sustain social impact.1

Sustainable Social Impact

“Sustainable social impact,” meaning enduring social impact, is a frequently used term in social enterprise literature and jargon. In some camps, creating sustainable impact is linked to institutional and financial sustainability; the underlying assumption is that if an organization exists in perpetuity its impact is sustained. In the context of this paper, however, and for the purpose of informing social enterprise methodology, sustainable impact, has everything do with solving a social problem or market failure. In other words, when a social problem or market failure is resolved, continued impact is achieved because the problem ceases to exist.

Does that mean that the concept of creating a sustainable institution is in conflict with solving a social problem? Not necessarily. In most cases solving social problems is a long-term proposition requiring systemic change that can take generations to realize. Working toward the resolution of a social problem may require rendering ongoing social services through a sustainable institution over many, many years. In many cases the social enterprise becomes a permanent fixture, a “third sector” institution in the landscape of private, state and civil society. Nonetheless, it does mean that a social enterprise must plan formal exits or reinvent itself to address new problems as old ones fall away. Here, it is relevant to consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,2 and how the nature of human need evolved: as “base” physiological and safety needs are met, a person moves up the pyramid toward self-actualization. Hence, once one problem is solved, another one often surfaces, so new opportunities continue to present themselves.

Beyond Financial Sustainability

“Private sector practices” in social enterprise are borrowed from the commercial business and pertain to financial profit-making activities. However, for a social enterprise whose goals are to sustain social impact as well as its own existence, sustainability is a good deal more complex than simply earning money. Also, lest we not forget, one role of the social sector is to mitigate or undo harm to society, the environment, and its people, some of which is the result of unsustainable behaviors of the private sector. To fully appreciate sustainability in the context of the social enterprise, one must consider the three interrelated aspects that enable a social enterprise to become self-sustaining: financial sustainability (the ability to generate income to cover expenses), institutional sustainability (organizational capacity to execute and compete in the market) and sustainable environmental practices (the use of renewable materials, energy and processes that do not ravage the environment). A social enterprise combines at least financial and institutional forms of sustainability, and often environmental sustainability, to create and sustain social impact.

• 1This particular understanding of the concept of performance must be accepted for the framework to be relevant.
• 2Maslow, Abraham, A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review, 1943.

The challenge in creating a common performance framework is that both the concepts of social impact and sustainability are hotly debated and highly subjective.

Hence, in creating a common framework, we have chosen to focus on a set of common criteria that can be simply demonstrated and accepted as being essential to sustainable social impact creation, without pretending to define the full scope of ‘sustainable social impact.’

The framework establishes four common performance criteria that lead to increased sustainability:

Depth of Impact. How effective is the organization at addressing the underlying causes of the social problem? There is no sustainability without deep, lasting impact—solving (not palliating) the social problem should be the end goal.

Blended Value. How effective is the organization at making economic wealth creation and social value creation truly interdependent, so that eventually one cannot exist without the other? There is no sustainability without blended value creation because it is not viable to maintain activities that generate a value deficit.1

Efficiency. How effective is the organization at systematically striving to do more with less? There is no sustainability without efficiency because waste leads to a vicious cycle of resource attrition.

Adaptability. How effective is the organization at adapting to changing conditions? There is no sustainability without adaptability because the inability to negotiate threats and seize opportunities leads to exhaustion and extinction.

We can think of these four performance criteria like the central pieces of a puzzle—if one is missing, we will never arrive at a full picture of sustainability. That said, we do not assume that these performance criteria are all there is to achieving sustainability—our focus has been to identify the common pieces at this stage of development of the social enterprise field.

• 1We use the term blended value here as defined by Jed Emerson: “What the Blended Value Proposition states is that all organizations, whether for-profit or not, create value that consists of economic, social and environmental value components—and that investors (whether market-rate, charitable or some mix of the two) simultaneously generate all three forms of value through providing capital to organizations. The outcome of all this activity is value creation and that value is itself non-divisible and, therefore, a blend of these three elements.” Read more about blended value at www.blendedvalue.org

To be relevant as a methodology for social sector practitioners, social enterprise must address the challenges common to all social sector organizations, while offering novel approaches to addressing these challenges.1

At the core of social enterprise methodology lies a simple observation: private sector markets—like it or not—are predominant worldwide, massively overshadowing public sector markets. At the same time, many social sector challenges can be demonstrably related to the inclination of private sector markets to provide for the short-term needs of a few rather than for the long-term common good—particularly when the two are not deemed compatible.

The social enterprise methodology differentiates itself in the way it seeks to associate social sector challenges and private sector limitations. It addresses both concurrently by leveraging the strengths of private sector markets (as exemplified by the business methodology) to achieve social gain.2 The beauty of social enterprise is that commuting business practices to effect social change offers so much more possibility than just money.3 Social enterprise methodology harnesses the power of the private sector by actively engaging in the market and strategically employing market mechanisms in decision-making to solve social problems and generate value for the greater good. Other methodology tenets include operating the social enterprise with the financial discipline, innovation and determination characteristic of private business, which promote savvy survivalist behavior time-tested in markets.

	Address social sector challenges…	…by leveraging private sector strengths while addressing its limitations.
Depth of Impact: How effectively do we address the social problem?	Address the root causes of the social problem. Rely less on short-term "quick fixes" that come from palliating the symptoms of social problems.	Leverage commercial markets’ ability to provide for a vast array of individual wants and needs. Address, from within, the market's inclination to address opportunity based on short-term profit potential while ignoring long-term social impact.
Blended Value: How effective are we at integrating social and economic value creation?	Rely less on economic wealth generated externally and develop means of internal wealth creation. Change the current paradigm; social value creation shouldn’t depend on financial resources created without regard to social impact.	Leverage the market's long-standing track record of wealth generation. Address, from within, the market's failure to make economic wealth creation more dependent on social value creation, so that one cannot exist without the other.
Efficiency: Do we systematically strive to do more with less?	Implement process reengineering and keep up with the need, expectations and potential for increased productivity. Question established knowledge and conventional processes in a constructive manner.	Leverage the market's track record of supporting innovation and producing high-yield solutions to address market demand. Address the market's tendency to create superficial needs to leverage existing solutions (solutions in search of a problem), instead of creating solutions to more fundamental needs (problems in search of a solution).
Adaptability: Are we willing and able to respond to changing conditions?	Implement flexible structures, mindsets and decentralized control mechanisms. Question the status quo and challenge complacency.	Leverage the market's track record of supporting calculated risk-taking, complementary (even contradictory) approaches, and a willingness to embrace change. Address the market's inclination to seek change for change’s sake, to go along the path of least resistance, or to fail to "stick with it.” Instead, demonstrate long-term commitment to addressing fundamental needs.

• 1We are not implying that being novel automatically makes you better; instead we are saying that to be relevant, a new methodology obviously has to bring something new; whether it performs better has to be judged on, well, how it performs! This seems rather obvious but important to avoid falling in the trap of innovation for the sake of innovation.
• 2This "fighting-fire-with-fire" aspect is probably what makes the social enterprise methodology both effective and hazardous at the same time.
• 3Alter, Kim. “Social Enterprise Models and Their Mission Relationships,” in Social Entrepreneurship: New Models of Sustainable Social Innovation. Oxford University Press, 2006.

We have seen that performance (good, bad and neutral) can be traced to a series of common challenges relating to the four performance criteria outlined above.

Although the particulars of these challenges are naturally wide ranging, depending on the nature of the social problem and the operating environment, most challenges call for actions in four common strategic areas: Stakeholder Engagement, Resource Mobilization, Knowledge Development, and Culture Management.

These four central themes—we call strategic lenses—highlight a series of strategic questions common to all social sector organizations.

Strategic Lens	Central Theme	Core Strategic Questions
Stakeholder Engagement	A stakeholder is anyone who has a role to play in addressing the social problem (i.e. community, clients, donors, staff/ management, board, environment, public, etc.).	Who are our stakeholders? What part do they have to play in addressing (or perpetuating) the social problem? How do we get them to play (or stop playing) that part?
Resource Mobilization	Resources can be: Human (people and their skills), Relational (networks, partners, communities— including intangibles such as brand, reputation and image), Physical (tangible assets: vehicles, land, buildings, raw materials), or Financial (cash, loans, equity, grants, etc.).	What resources do we need to address the social problem? How can we best make use of these resources to address the social problem? How do we make more of these resources available and ensure they remain available in the future?
Knowledge Development	Knowledge is the combination of information (content, results from research, data) and processes (methodologies, systems, techniques, procedures).	What knowledge do we need to develop to address the social problem? How do we develop that knowledge? How do we ensure our knowledge remains up-to-date, coherent, and impactful on our actions? How do we execute and manage that knowledge? How do communicate that knowledge?
Culture Management	Culture results from the combination of the many belief systems and mindsets found among stakeholder groups.	What mindsets and values do we need to embrace to address the social problem? How can we create a coherent cultural system out of potentially conflicting values? How do we promote our cultural system?

Now that we have identified performance criteria and critical strategic areas common to social sector organizations, we can start examining the interplay between strategic actions and performance, and how the two together can lead to sustainable social impact. The construct of strategic questions related to each strategic lens and cross-referenced with performance questions can be used to create a diagnostic tool to assess social enterprise performance.

Performance assessment through Four Strategic Lenses highlights unrealized opportunities to increase performance, indicates weaknesses and pinpoints conflicts that may detract from achieving performance objectives. Once social enterprise’s performance is assessed, its leaders can decide which strategic actions should be pursued to enhance or improve performance in pursuit of sustainable social impact.

Assessment can be conducted formally and comprehensively and used to inform periodic strategic planning with ongoing performance monitoring . However, the true strength of the Four Lenses Framework to deliver high performance lies in its potential to be incorporated into daily social enterprise management practice and decision making. Constant vigilance, rather than episodic attention, is required for a social enterprise to attain and maintain a sustainable social impact.

The chart above and table following illustrates the relationships between the strategic lenses and performance criteria, and therefore the synergies and tensions within the lenses themselves. It’s important to note that social sector organizations are dynamic. Although the depiction in the chart gives each of the lenses equal weight, weights can shift depending on the relative importance of what is going on within the organization or how the organization is affected by what is going on in the external environment. Practitioners may concentrate on improving the social enterprise performance of one lens given the urgency or timeliness of internal factors (deficit, new leadership, stakeholder resistance, etc) or external factors (emergent competition, partnership opportunity, etc.).

The Four Lenses and their relationship to performance function like clockworks: adjustments in one lens to improve performance creates the need for tinkering in other lenses. As suggested by current social enterprise theory, a focus on one dimension of performance (historically these were leadership, funding, program) in and of itself does not achieve sustainable social impact. Social enterprise performance objectives are attained by comprehensive management of all strategic lenses (though one or more may take priority at a particular time) as well as the interplay between the lenses. In short, high performance cannot be achieved if actions and decision making in one or more of the strategic lenses are neglected.

Performance Criteria	Primary lens through which performance is delivered…	Secondary lenses further enhancing or hindering performance…
Depth of Impact	How successful are we at engaging all stakeholders deeply and durably?	How do our culture, resources and knowledge support (or hinder) a deeper stakeholder engagement?
Blended Value	How successful are we at mobilizing resources in an integrated, viable and renewable manner?	How do our knowledge, stakeholders and culture support (or hinder) viable resource mobilization?
Efficiency	How successful are we at developing knowledge that leads to more appropriate processes?	How do our resources, culture and stakeholders support (or hinder) the development of appropriate processes?
Adaptability	How successful are we at creating a culture that supports initiative and reduces resistance to change?	How do our stakeholders knowledge and resources support (or hinder) a culture of change and initiative?

The framework offers one explanation for why sustainable social impact appears much easier to achieve than it actually is! Although it looks like a simple puzzle when we sign up for it, achieving sustainable social impact actually requires solving a Rubik’s Pyramid.

From a simple puzzle…

… to a Rubik’s pyramid!

In a Rubik's Pyramid, each of the four faces is covered by nine small triangles, divided among four solid colors. A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colors. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid color.

The four lenses are like the side of the pyramid: trying to “solve” one without the others is counter-productive. Instead, all four need to be addressed in an integrated manner to solve the puzzle.

This version of the table shows performance criteria across, with the lenses in column.

The content however is absolutely identical to table 2.

Click on any link below to expand the particular cell.

This version of the table shows lenses across, with the performance criteria in column.

The content however is absolutely identical to table 1.

Click on any link below to expand the particular cell.

This case represents the first installment of a case study series developed to test and enhance the “Four Lenses Strategic Framework” as a tool for analyzing organizational behavior and performance in aspiring and established social enterprises.

It is organized around four key performance criteria: Depth of Impact, Blended Value, Efficiency, and Adaptability. These criteria are further examined through four intrinsically linked strategic lenses: Stakeholder Engagement, Resource Mobilization, Knowledge Development, and Culture Management.

The Four Lenses Strategic Framework is an integrated approach to social enterprise that postulates that high performance is linked to an organization’s activities across the Four Lenses. Building on this premise, the Industree Craft case study describes activities across strategic focus areas and illuminates the synergies and tensions that arise when taking an entrepreneurial approach to addressing a social problem like rural poverty in India. The case study highlights the organization’s many notable strengths, while also illustrating potential implications of Industree’s hybrid structure and its impending scale-up process, the challenges that lie ahead, and the lessons this case holds for similarly structured organizations.

Performance Criteria	Primary lens through which performance is delivered…	Secondary lenses further enhancing or hindering performance…
Depth of Impact	How successful are we at engaging all stakeholders deeply and durably?	How do our culture, resources and knowledge support (or hinder) a deeper stakeholder engagement?
Blended Value	How successful are we at mobilizing resources in an integrated, viable and renewable manner?	How do our knowledge, stakeholders and culture support (or hinder) viable resource mobilization?
Efficiency	How successful are we at developing knowledge that leads to more appropriate processes?	How do our resources, culture and stakeholders support (or hinder) the development of appropriate processes?
Adaptability	How successful are we at creating a culture that supports initiative and reduces resistance to change?	How do our stakeholders knowledge and resources support (or hinder) a culture of change and initiative?

This case was developed through an extensive documentation review, electronic correspondence, and a series of in-person interviews with Industree’s Founders, Neelam Chhiber and Gita Ram, top management (including Industree’s CEO, R. Singh Rekhi), other Industree employees, stakeholders, and rural artisan groups. Information for the case was also gathered by way of Neelam Chhiber’s participation in Social-Impact International, a professional development and support accelerator for social entrepreneurs in India. With the support of Social-Impact’s one-year program, Chhiber fine-tuned Industree’s incorporation of social enterprise methodology and launched the scale-up plan described in this case study.

The authors would like to thank Industree Craft founders, Neelam Chhiber and Gita Ram, and all the Industree staff for their generous accommodation throughout the research process for this case. Much gratitude is owed to Social-Impact for first sponsoring the work of Industree and other social entrepreneurs in India, and second, for their financial contribution to documenting this case. Finally, many thanks go to the Skoll Foundation for supporting the development of the Four Lenses Strategic Framework, this and other cases, and the tools and resources that accompany the Framework. The field of social enterprise will continue to strengthen and evolve as a result of the Skoll Foundation’s commitment to capacity-building initiatives like the Four Lenses.

There are some 40 million rural artisans in India today. While global demand for Indian artisan products is growing both in India and abroad, rural artisans largely remain poor. Prior to the industrial revolution, high quality artisan products were historically crafted in rural areas for domestic and international consumption. Following the economic reforms of the 1990s, the government’s heightened support for manufacturing centers in urban hubs has increasingly isolated rural producers and decreased their access to functioning markets. As a result, much of India’s rural population has migrated to cities in search of work, sadly trading rural unemployment for urban displacement and poverty.1

At the same time, India has seen substantial shifts in its domestic marketplace, with trends projected to continue. The country has emerged as a global economic force, with its growing middle class becoming an increasingly upwardly mobile population. Economists estimate that 320 million additional people will join the consuming class by 2010, and organized retail, reaching $25 billion in 2007-08, is estimated to quadruple by 2010. A new generation of socially responsible consumers is emerging in India’s urban centers, one that is rooted in ethnicity yet aspires to modernity. One Indian organization is addressing this gap between rural unemployment, traditional artisan craft, and India’s growing consumer market.

Industree Craft is a hybrid social enterprise—literally comprised of for-profit and nonprofit entities—based in Bangalore, India. Industree's mission is “to enhance and create artisanal owned rural livelihoods through marketing of contemporary designed artisanal produce for urban markets,”2 Industree sources products and materials from small-scale artisan groups across Southern India and sells their products, primarily home textiles, gifts, and natural fiber furniture, to domestic and international markets. It currently operates three Industree-branded retail shops, sells via shop-in-shops in leading domestic retail stores, and exports products for international retailers such as IKEA. Industree’s annual revenue reached $1 million USD in 2007.

Industree boasts a unique organizational structure, which marries a for-profit commercial retail company that excels in marketing and design with a traditional non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides skills training and capacity building to rural artisans. Founders Neelam Chhiber and Gita Ram have, over the years, struck a synergistic balance between the non-profit and commercial arms of their organization, leveraging capacities on both sides to achieve maximum impact by the organization as a whole.
Central to this case is the recent capital investment in Industree of $1.5 million USD by Future Ventures, an investment arm of the Indian retailing giant Future Group, which owns national retail brands in apparel, food, home, consumer goods, and electronics. This cash investment will support Industree’s ambitious scale-up plan, targeting a 40-store expansion, development of a new multi-brand retail company, and an increase in domestic trading revenues from $1 million USD to $38 million USD over the next five years. Mr. R. Singh Rekhi, the recently hired Industree CEO with experience in both retail and community development sectors, has been charged with leading the scale up effort.

Its hybrid structure and demonstrated commitment to scaling make Industree Craft an exciting case study in social enterprise methodology. How will Industree’s social enterprise model withstand new investor pressures to grow quickly and increase profitability? Will larger scale necessarily result in greater social impact? How will scale-up related challenges in organizational culture and operations affect the core competencies that Industree has established to date? Employing the Four Lenses Strategic Framework, we hope to gain an in-depth understanding of Industree’s model and to shed light on some of these unknowns.

• 1Statisticians estimate that by 2050 half the population of India will be living in cities.
• 2Industree Crafts Annual Report, 2007-08.

We can use the Four Lenses Strategic Framework to analyze Industree’s model in greater detail and determine strengths and weaknesses in the organization’s implementation of social enterprise methodology by focusing on four key performance criteria: Depth of Impact, Blended Value, Efficiency, and Adaptability, as seen through each of the Four Lenses: Stakeholder Engagement, Resource Mobilization, Knowledge Development, and Culture Management.