British Council: US Social Enterprises Make Strides but Lag on Gender Equity

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

In the United States, we often like to rate the human rights practices of others, but we too rarely consider how others view our own human rights practices. This week, though, the British Council released a report, covered by the British publication Pioneers Post, that aims to assess “how well social enterprise is addressing gender inequality and women’s empowerment in the US.”

The report, done in cooperation with the US-based Social Enterprise Alliance, is titled “From an Activist to Entrepreneur: The role of social enterprise in supporting women’s empowerment in the US,” and is meant to be the first in a series of country studies. For those of us in the United States, the study, although modest in length, provides a valuable outsider’s eye regarding the state of our social enterprise field.

Sometimes though, having an outsider’s eye can be jarring. For example, did you know that the US ranks 43rd of 44 countries in a 2016 survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation regarding countries where “women fared best when taking into account representation in leadership roles in social enterprises and the gender pay gap?”

Photo courtesy of Steven Depolo.

Source: Nonprofit Quarterly (link opens in a new window)

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gender equality, nonprofits, social enterprise