barriers to employment (including disabled, homeless, ex-offenders, youth at risk, etc.). REDF also
began applying the tenets of venture capitalism to philanthropy ("venture philanthropy") to architect its
funding and technical support approaches, as well as to begin measuring investor rates of return on
social impact (social return on investment).
In doing so, REDF created a venture portfolio of 10 employment development social enterprises19 and
published widely on tools and lessons drawn from its work with portfolio organizations. Indeed,
REDF's contributions to social enterprise literature are the closest claim the social entrepreneurship
field has to any one given methodology for social enterprise. The employment-model