The key to kick-starting your social enterprise dream is to turn inspiration into motivation and motivation into action. Many social entrepreneurs started their ventures as passion projects, but over time have reaped the rewards of running their own business. Finding funding is one of the biggest challenges faced by social entrepreneurs. You can have what you think is the best idea in the world but without the moolah to make it happen, it’ll be close to impossible to even get off the ground. But it’s not all doom and gloom – here are some awesome social enterprises that have harnessed the power of crowd to kick-start their social enterprise dreams.

Addressing the world’s most complex challenges by designing specifically for social impact is a largely untapped market with a continuously increasing demand. However, designing for social impact isn’t simply about creating pretty objects for a good cause or selling rad merchandise and giving a percentage of the proceeds to charity. In its ideal form, designing for social impact is envisioning the impact you want to have for a community or individual, bringing stakeholders into the process, working toward sustainable solutions, measuring the difference you’re making, and sharing your results so that positive impact can spread across the world.

Hearing input directly from your customers can be daunting for a social entrepreneur. You’ve likely put everything on the line for an idea that you believe in and while you know that seeking input from customers can be valuable, it can be a confronting exercise! Many entrepreneurs avoid research because of this, but those who do know that the payoff is big.