International Marketing and Real Estate Research Paper

International Marketing and Real Estate - Research Paper Example Concept of Social businesses The actual concept of a social business entails the establishment of an entity that has a social objective, rather than a financial objective, although it applies a business model to generate the necessary resources that will help it achieve the social objective. Nevertheless, Social businesses are different from the Non-profit businesses and the Not-for profit organizations in that, while the Non-profit business depend on outside funding to be able to accomplish their social missions and objective, the Social businesses operate under a self-financing mechanism, meant to generate moderate profits, which then helps the business to expand its social offerings and reach more of the recipients in the society (Bari, 116). Thus, a social business eliminates the burden of dependency of financiers, donors, charity, and well wishers, to place the responsibility of meeting certain designated social objectives on its shoulders, through generating moderate profits th at enables it to achieve the social mission. Simply put therefore, the fundamental differentiating characteristic for Social businesses is that while other business and organizations with a social objective can be funded by philanthropy and government, Social businesses are self-sufficient and self-sustaining (Alter, 46)2. History of Social businesses Charity, philanthropy and social assistance are concepts that are as old as the history of human being. Man has always engaged in supporting the plight and the needs of the others, starting from the family level up to the highest levels of societal needs. This has been achieved through charity and donations, and mainly through the works of philanthropists. However, in 1974, the actual concept of Social businesses was born and actualized, through the idea and effort of Muhammad Yunus (Yunus, 44). In 1974, Bangladesh experienced a terrible famine, which has come to be referred as the Bangladesh famine of 1974. During this period, the cit izens of this country suffered much, and needed a system that would revive them, and enable them to earn a descent living. Looking at the conditions of predatory lending that existed in this country where the lenders only extended loans to the borrowers under high interest rates making it difficult for the borrowers to prosper in their investments, Yunus developed the concept of lending to a group of poor villagers who could not afford to repay interests on loans, so they could start small businesses (Yunus, 27). The concept was operated with the borrowers repaying the loans granted to them at very low interest rates, which could then be loaned to more others. This was meant to create a system of self-sufficiency, where the lender could not depended on the donors and other funding from the government and organizations, to run the