The purpose of this study was to explore the background and motivations of social entrepreneurs. The research specific to social entrepreneurship indicates that solving a social need is the entrepreneur's dominant motivational factor. The business literature research suggests that business entrepreneurs are motivated by the tradeoff between risk and profit. While the social entrepreneur does have a self-sustaining, revenue generating mechanism in the business model, profit is not the overarching goal. This study addresses the question of how social entrepreneurs' motivation and background...