Michael Shuman’s new book combines a broad view of the major forces shaping our economy, with a strong grasp of the economic realities playing out at the local level around the country today. While this book does not speak specifically to social entrepreneurs, it helps to give us a sense of how social enterprises can work with other community builders in the movement to rebuild local economies.

In 1985 Gifford Pinchot\'s big book Intrapreneuring \"defined the ground rules for courageous pursuit of new ideas in established organizations.\" In that book, Pinchot said that most innovation occurs not because of established R&D programs, but because entrepreneurs who work as an INTRAcorporate entrepreneur takes ideas to fruition in spite of the established systems. Intra + preneuring = intrapreneuring. In Part One of this book, Pinchot takes the concepts and examples of intrapreneuring and turns them into a methodology with step-by-step guidance.

Jill Bamburg’s book provides the reader with a provocative and thorough look at how a range of social purpose ventures were able to take their businesses to scale, without selling their souls. Case studies of nonprofit and for profit ventures are compared and contrasted as Ms. Bamburg uses this information to draw tangible conclusions around models that typically do and don’t work for scaling social purpose ventures.

The Enterprising Non-Profits Program (ENP) is a funding partnership in Vancouver, Canada. ENP has published The Canadian Social Enterprise Guide, which consists of chapters by different authors covering various aspects of business ventures development by non-profit societies and co-operatives. It does not deal with issues related to for-profit businesses or forprofit co-operatives even if they have a social purpose. With this limitation and except for the information on legal and tax matters, the Guide will be helpful for emergent social enterprises in any location.

This is, as far as I am aware, the first book on social enterprise written from a Canadian perspective. Although this is a Canadian book, much of what is contained is generally applicable to North American social enterprises. Author Shelley Williams, a Muttart Foundation Fellow, has 22 years experience as an executive director and senior manager of five different Canadian social service agencies that have run social enterprises. She provides information and suggestions to help individuals and organizations decide whether social enterprise is an appropriate choice.

If you are part of a faith community, either as a paid staff member, volunteer, or participant, you can likely imagine the problems that may arise when combining business and church. However, Kirbyjon Caldwell and Walt Kallestad, the authors of Entrepreneurial Faith, believe that these barriers can be overcome. In fact, they see no inherent conflict between church and commerce.

Get ready! This is a BIG book. Not in the sense that it is long or hard to read. It is a BIG book because it tackles BIG problems and proposes BIG ideas. Alperovitz believes that “serious ideas count.” This book delivers on those. Alperovitz calls himself a “historian and a political economist.” He is professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, but is quick to note that he also has extensive practical experience, including work as a legislative director in the U.S. Congress, where he was involved in the early stages of the civil rights and environmental movements.

“Understand that competition is a fact of life. At some level your organization is competing with other organizations whether you want it to or not.”(Kearns, 2000, pg. 30) While this quote might lead the reader to think that Play To Win is an Ayn Rand missive—it is not. Instead, it is a carefully crafted argument for a mission driven, ethical balance between collaboration, cooperation and competition. As La Piana states: "Competition is a critical dynamic in your non-profit’s strategic life.

Don’t use the term “soup kitchen” to describe the D.C. Central Kitchen that Robert Egger founded on Inauguration Day of January 1989. It’s a depression- era term that limits the public’s perception of what places like the Kitchen can accomplish: a job-training program, a forprofit catering company, a cooking school, and drug counseling program. And they serve up 4,000 meals a day, seven days a week by collecting and reusing unserved food from Washington D.C.-area restaurants and caterers.

The bottom line on Guy Kawasaki’s new book, The Art of the Start, is: read it! Kawasaki brings humor, intelligence, and good common sense to a daunting task—the launch of a new enterprise. What does it take to turn plans into action? How to deliver an expert pitch to prospective investors? What’s the best way to recruit the best and brightest? How to partner and scale your enterprise without getting swallowed whole? In quick, pithy chapters, Kawasaki offers key principles for getting an enterprise developed and off the drafting board.