Definition
Specialized legal form of organization available in a majority of US states, designed to accommodate the dual profit-making and social good generation purposes of social enterprises.
Introduction
Under US law, nonprofits are not permitted to distribute their profits to owners or members (Hansmann 1980); thus, nonprofit legal forms are not suitable for enterprises designed to blend profit-making for owners with the pursuit of social good. Instead, such dual-mission enterprises organized in the USA may choose among the various legal forms available for for-profit enterprises. The benefit corporation is a relatively new option, made available as a legal form of organizations for US businesses starting in 2010 (Murray 2016). The benefit corporation varies the corporate purpose, shareholder voting, fiduciary conduct, and disclosure requirements applicable to traditional for-profit corporations to tailor use of the form for businesses with dual social and profit-making missions...
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Brakman Reiser, D. (2021). Benefit Corporation. In: List, R.A., Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9504-1
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