The phrase "Social Enterprise" has been getting a fair bit of airtime recently. Last year the Social Enterprise World Forum was hosted in Christchurch, raising the profile of the sector/concept significantly around here. However, each conversation I have, I find I need to spend a good chunk of time determining exactly what the other person is talking about when they say "Social Enterprise".

For this conversation, let's keep it simple: I want to specifically consider the idea of a property development company established as a "Type I Social Business" as defined by Muhummad Yunus in the first chapter of his book "Building Social Business".

He describes a Type I Social Business as

...a non-loss, non-dividend company devoted to solving a social problem and owned by investors who reinvest all profits in expanding and improving the business.

Could a property developer be a social business like this? What would that look like? What would be different? What would be the same?

The two key questions that come to mind for me are:

What is the social problem that is being solved?
How will being a zero-dividend company affect the approach to business?

I am neither a social researcher not a business expert, but I have a few hunches which I'd like to share with you.