NOTE: Course information changes frequently, including Methods of Instruction. Please revisit these pages periodically for the most recent and up-to-date course information.

Can economic growth be reconciled with sustainability? Can social entrepreneurs find solutions to climate adaptation challenges? How do we incentivize fishermen to conserve the world’s fisheries? Can microfinance loans to the entrepreneurial poor reduce global poverty? What practices can businesses adopt to align their bottom lines with sustainability? How can we do well while doing good – and while embracing principles of equity, access, participation, and human rights?

In this course participants are introduced to key concepts and skills associated with social entrepreneurship, finance, and economics and are consequently enabled to think proactively about solving some of the world’s biggest problems – while also probing how profitability and social justice might intersect and at times come into conflict.

Students are introduced to economic concepts such as supply and demand, utility, macro- and microeconomics, the time value of money, and the use of indicators. They also engage with key concepts relating to business formation and management, raising funds using debt or equity, and financial accounting.

Participants begin to see some of the largest social problems we face today as essentially economic challenges – and are then asked, through a mix of projects, debates, field trips, and case studies, to come up with potential solutions, their work culminating with a social enterprise pitch competition.