The End of Charity

The winner of the 2006 Iremonger Award is a challenging, thought provoking and inspiring exploration of how we should rethink the idea of charity, arguing that to truly address the problems of poverty, inequality and environmental sustainability we need to become social entrepreneurs, establishing social businesses with real values at their centre.

Nic Frances is a social entrepreneur. He once worked for charity. This is the story of how he came to understand that charity can never deliver a just and sustainable world. It is only through a value-centred market economy that we will ever see real social change.

Breaking new ground and drawing on his encounters with business and social leaders around the world as well as his own richly-lived experiences, Nic Frances leads us through his principles of social entrepreneurship. He introduces us to the powerful idea that the market can be a tool for delivering a range of values besides profit. He explains the growing recognition that corporate social responsibility benefits businesses as well as the community and that welfare organisations will only be really effective when they start exploring social enterprise and corporate partnerships.

The End of Charity is as hopeful and as it is inspiring. It heralds a breakthrough to lasting change to the seemingly intractable problems of poverty, injustice and environmental sustainability. It is a book for everybody who cares about the future.