58 - Faith in Social Enterprises: Comparative Assessments of Agriculture Enterprises in the United Methodist Church

Abstract Information: Social enterprise models are known to seek a dual goal of solving social problems and while seeking revenue generation at levels of ensuring sustainability. While some nonprofit organizations have the flexibility of pursuing such models in their organizations, faith-based nonprofit organizations that are centered around the church pose some challenges in pivoting their programs towards some version of an enterprise model. This research contributes mainly to evaluation practices and less on theory. Regarding theory, this evaluation will reveal and test a unique hybrid social enterprise model that is strictly church-centric. It identifies conditions under which such a model will succeed based on results obtained from ongoing projects. It also identifies shares between the two extreme objectives (for profit and non-for profit) that the program is supposed to emphasize to identify to ensure sustainable of the investments.