The tricky part of social enterprise from my perspective is that high impact activities are hard to find, and I figure they would be even harder to find when placed under the additional constraint that they must be self sustaining. Which is not to say that you might not find one (see here and here), just that, finding an idea that works is arguably the trickiest part.
for-profit social enterprises may be more sustainable because of a lack of reliance on grants that may not materialise;
This is true, but keep in mind, impact via social enterprise may be “free” in terms of funding (so very cost-effective), but, it comes with opportunity costs in terms of your time. When you generate impact via social enterprise, you are essentially your own funder. Therefore, for a social enterprise to beat your earning-to-give baseline, its net impact must exceed the good you would have done via whatever you might have otherwise donated to a GiveWell top charity if you instead were donating as much money as you would in a high earning path. (This is of course also true for non-profit/other direct work paths). Basically, social enterprises aren’t “free” (since your time isn’t free) so it’s a question of finding the right idea and then also deciding if the restrictions inherent in trying to be self-sustaining are easier than the restrictions (and funding counterfactuals) inherent in getting external funding.
The tricky part of social enterprise from my perspective is that high impact activities are hard to find, and I figure they would be even harder to find when placed under the additional constraint that they must be self sustaining. Which is not to say that you might not find one (see here and here), just that, finding an idea that works is arguably the trickiest part.
This is true, but keep in mind, impact via social enterprise may be “free” in terms of funding (so very cost-effective), but, it comes with opportunity costs in terms of your time. When you generate impact via social enterprise, you are essentially your own funder. Therefore, for a social enterprise to beat your earning-to-give baseline, its net impact must exceed the good you would have done via whatever you might have otherwise donated to a GiveWell top charity if you instead were donating as much money as you would in a high earning path. (This is of course also true for non-profit/other direct work paths). Basically, social enterprises aren’t “free” (since your time isn’t free) so it’s a question of finding the right idea and then also deciding if the restrictions inherent in trying to be self-sustaining are easier than the restrictions (and funding counterfactuals) inherent in getting external funding.