I’ve linked to a good article from the NY Times regarding alternative ways to solve social problems. It’s worth the read.
Experts concede that not all social problems respond well to the for-profit model. One example could be early childhood education. “If you set it up as a business, you might be able to raise money more quickly and grow more quickly,” said David Bornstein, the author of “How to Change the World” (Oxford University Press, 2004), an often-cited book on social entrepreneurship. “But if you want to be profitable, you might find that you have to make choices that diminish the quality of your program and then children won’t learn to read as quickly. While Stanley Kaplan can make a fortune selling education to well-heeled people, providing the same services to low-income kids would probably not provide a very good income.”