Social entrepreneurship as an idea and as a process: a view of non-profit organizations

The article highlights the formation and development of the institute for social entrepreneurship, it discovers a concept and definition of social entrepreneurship, the idea of its inception and institutionalization in both Western and Russian traditions. The phenomenon of social entrepreneurship is shown as a dual phenomenon, as it can be viewed on the one hand, as part of the business and as part of civil society because it represents a mix of commercial sustainability and social benefit from investment. The article contains the examples of the practices of social entrepreneurship, and the conclusions about the possibility of using foreign experience of social entrepreneurship in Russia, the problems of distribution of such experience, the tasks that can be solved through the development of social entrepreneurship in Russia. In this research a view of social entrepreneurship by leaders of non-profit organizations of Volgograd region is also presented.