Building Social Business : The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs

Muhammad Yunus, the practical visionary who pioneered microcredit and, with his Grameen Bank, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, has developed a new dimension for capitalism which he calls "social business." The social business model has been adopted by corporations, entrepreneurs, and social activists across the globe. Its goal is to create self-supporting, viable commercial enterprises that generate economic growth as they produce goods and services to fulfill human needs. In Building Social Business, Yunus shows how social business can be put into practice and explains why it holds the potential to redeem the failed promise of free-market enterprise.

Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank and more than fifty other companies in Bangladesh. He is widely known as both the father of microcredit and of the social business movement. In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. Yunus is the recipient of fifty-five honorary degrees from universities in twenty countries, and has received 112 awards from twenty-six countries, including state honors from ten countries.