Hope of Profit, Social Change Meet in New College Programs

02 June 2011

William Paddock helped Custom Packaging in Tennessee put in place sustainable business methods.

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Small business entrepreneurs play an important part in American job growth. Small businesses have created almost two-thirds of new jobs in the last fifteen years. They also employ about forty percent of the workers in high technology jobs.

The economy has traditionally been divided into three sectors. One is the private sector, meaning businesses. The second is the public sector, or government. And the third is the nonprofit sector.

But now some people talk about a fourth sector. It represents nonprofit and for-profit organizations working toward goals of social change and environmental activism.

Universities are starting to offer training and degree programs to prepare students to work in this area. One of these schools is Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. It now offers a degree in social entrepreneurship.

Bernard Turner is director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship at the university. He says student interest is driving these new programs.

BERNARD TURNER: "Students are saying 'Now I want to be an entrepreneur, but I want to do something that deals with a social problem or a social issue that's dear to me.' So what happens is that a lot of these programs have come to fruition because they are student-driven."