A new breed of business is springing up across the land: social enterprises, whose primary purpose is to support the common good. Organized as for-profits, nonprofits, and everything in between, they see businesses as the means to a better world for all. In this groundbreaking guide, Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls, Jr. draw on their own hard-won experiences and those of twenty other social enterprise leaders. Exploring ten key paradoxes of social enterprises, they show how to navigate the extreme challenges and seize the tremendous opportunities these organizations present. Whether you're looking for guidance on choosing a structure, finding and hiring talent, marketing, finances, operations, or scaling, this practical, accessible guide offers clear and compelling answers that light the way. “Read this book and keep it nearby. It is jam-packed with useful and relevant information not only for the aspiring social entrepreneur but for the experienced one as well. I learned a lot that will help me in my own business.” —Michael Hannigan, President and cofounder, Give Something Back, Inc. “Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls have written the most accessible, practical approach to social enterprise in years!  Newbies and veterans alike can mine their work over and over again and never come away empty.” —Jerr Boschee, founder and Executive Director, The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs, and Visiting Professor of the Practice in Social Enterprise, Carnegie Mellon University “Like the social enterprises it celebrates, Mission Inc. successfully juggles a ‘double bottom line,’ integrating a bold vision for business as a vehicle for social impact with exceptional practical advice for the organizations and people that increasingly pursue an idea whose time has come.” —Jim Schorr, Professor, Vanderbilt University, and former CEO, Juma Ventures Praise for Mission, Inc. "Read this book and keep it nearby. It is jam-packed with useful and relevant information not only for the aspiring social entrepreneur but for the experienced one as well. I learned a lot that will help me in my own business." --Michael Hannigan, President and cofounder, Give Something Back, Inc. "Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls have written the most accessible, practical approach to social enterprise in years! Newbies and veterans alike can mine their work over and over again and never come away empty." --Jerr Boschee, founder and Executive Director, The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs, and Visiting Professor of the Practice in Social Enterprise, Carnegie Mellon University "Like the social enterprises it celebrates, Mission Inc. successfully juggles a `double bottom line,' integrating a bold vision for business as a vehicle for social impact with exceptional practical advice for the organizations and people that increasingly pursue an idea whose time has come." --Jim Schorr, Professor, Vanderbilt University, and former CEO, Juma Ventures Kevin Lynch is president of Rebuild Resources, a nonprofit social enterprise that helps chronic addicts and alcoholics find a path to sobriety and self-sufficiency through employment and spiritual recovery. Julius Walls, Jr., is president and CEO of Greyston Bakery and senior vice president for business for Greyston Foundation. The Most Successful Business on Earth If you’re a businessperson who has picked up this book, chances are high that you already know something pretty important: we’ve got to change the way things are done. There’s a big pile of problems out there: violence, poverty, environmental degradation, human rights violations, disease, and more. It’s a big and daunting pile. It’s so well chronicled that we needn’t repeat endless statistics about its scale and scope, nor endlessly debate how things got to this point and who is to blame. The point remains: we’ve got to change it—and change it fast. The good news is, things can change. The pleasant surprise behind this book is that business—the same institution that by any measure must bear a fair amount of the responsibility for the current situation—is also the most potent force for turning things around. In fact, hundreds of businesses are already hard at work doing exactly that. The business you run, the business you’re starting, or the one you’re simply dreaming of can change the world for the much, much better. Make that your aim, and you’ll be running the most successful business on earth. The Power of Business One way to understand the history of a civilization is to observe the history of its architecture. For long periods of history, the greatest power resided in the grandest seats of government and monarchy. In other epochs, the driving force of religion was 2located in the great cathedrals, temples, and mosques, none more magnificently than the entire city-state of the Vatican. Today, fifty-one of the world’s one hundred largest economies are corporations. The vision evoked by the very title of David Korten’s s