Support for social entrepreneurs from disadvantaged areas navigating crisis: Insights from Brazil

When a socioeconomic crisis arises in an emerging economy, it highlights structural social issues facing the country and disproportionally impacts those from disadvantaged areas. Social entrepreneurship may be important as part of the solution to overcome this situation. However, it is often privileged individuals who engage in social entrepreneurship to tackle the problems of those who are disadvantaged. To enable social entrepreneurship in disadvantaged areas, we argue that it is instrumental to overcome a lack of at least three capitals: economic, human, and social and to craft enabling ecosystems. This rapid response paper explores how intermediary organizations might support and foster social entrepreneurs from disadvantaged areas. We discuss challenges and opportunities drawing on insights from micro and macro level perspectives in the entrepreneurship literature and from the challenges faced by ANIP, an organization which brings together actors from different sectors to develop social entrepreneurship in disadvantaged areas of São Paulo, Brazil.