A silent revolution is underway, initiated by social entrepreneurs, pragmatist visionaries who are challenging prevalent business motives and methods to invent market-based solutions to eradicate social injustice. Yet, many fail to succeed and reach real scale, and there are few books that question why or offer real practical solutions to this predicament.

Based on original research, the authors uncover why impressive solutions fail to scale up. This book is filled with international case studies of what can be done “within the system”, and augmented by the argument that the traditional division between “for profit” business that creates economic wealth and the “not for profit” public and social sectors is breaking down. It examines the solutions that work in some critical areas such as access to energy, safe drinking water, housing and financial services, as well as what can be done to get these innovations out of the lab and into the plant.