Free Yale Course: Social Entrepreneurship: Creating Change

About this course

A promising idea becomes more useful when it addresses a problem that people actually experience. This free Yale social entrepreneurship course follows the journey from understanding a community challenge to designing, financing and communicating a workable response. It is relevant whether you want to create a venture or improve an existing organization.

Course at a glance

What you’ll learn

• Frame a social or environmental problem before proposing a solution.
• Compare stakeholder needs and test a proposed offering.
• Distinguish activity measures from meaningful social outcomes.
• Explain the relationship between a business model, financial viability and a funding proposal.

Skills you’ll gain

• Problem discovery
• Stakeholder research
• Impact measurement
• Business models
• Pitch development

Course Overview

The lessons connect research and conversations with affected communities to solution design, business models and measurable outcomes. Instead of treating a pitch as the starting point, the course asks you to investigate the problem and test assumptions first. Case studies introduce different ways organizations have responded to education, food access, health and environmental challenges.

How the course develops

• Problem discovery and community relationships: investigate a challenge, use data thoughtfully and learn from lived experience.
• Design and delivery: test an offering, map the customer journey and consider how operations support the intended outcome.
• Sustainability and influence: examine impact measurement, revenue, financing, governance and communication, alongside interviews with practitioners.

The classroom contains all 79 videos in this official YaleCourses playlist. Use the lesson list to follow the course or search for a topic you want to revisit. Introductory segments, teaching examples and supplementary discussions remain available within this course.

Who is this for?

Aspiring social entrepreneurs, nonprofit staff, project leaders and professionals developing an initiative within an existing organization.

Before you start

No business degree is required. Bring a specific issue you want to investigate and be prepared to reflect on perspectives beyond your own.

Put the lessons into practice

Choose a local challenge and draft a one-page concept covering who experiences it, evidence of the problem, your proposed response, one outcome to measure and one assumption to test through a conversation.

This optional study activity is provided by WikiFree for independent reflection. It is not a graded Yale assignment. Keep a short record of what you can explain confidently and what you need to revisit; use that record to plan your next study session.

Certificate / Assessment

The public videos can be watched free of charge. This WikiFree listing does not include a Yale certificate, academic credit, a degree, graded assessments or feedback from the instructors. A similarly named course on another platform may have different enrollment, assessment and payment conditions.

The classroom’s Mark complete control records your personal progress. It does not assess your understanding or award a credential. Course examples reflect the recordings; check current sources whenever you need up-to-date professional information.

Frequently asked questions

Provider: Yale. Videos play from the YaleCourses channel on YouTube.