After the March 11 Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Disaster, both the public and private sectors have been struggling in the recovery process. Globalization of economic activities has brought not only benefits to business but also many difficulties. Social enterprises can be regarded as a new model of modern nonprofit organizations. They are working to challenge and solve the various social problems we face today, such as environmental and well-being issues, the inequality of educational opportunity, and disparity in income distribution. The aim of this study is to survey the performance of social enterprises and examine how they solve various social problems. Although prompt action must be taken to overcome these problems, government by itself cannot resolve them satisfactorily, so social enterprises have recently stepped in and are changing the boundaries. They supply not only social services but also job opportunities to those at the bottom of the social ladder. From the viewpoint of sustainability, to accomplish their various targets, they need to earn through their own business. They also need to receive contributions or investment to continue their activities. Reforming the donation tax system and revising the NPO certification standards (including the public support test) would help while solutions are being worked out. Hindering social enterprises research at present is the lack of consensus on the definition of social enterprises: the more articles published on them, the more definitions of them appear in the literature. This lack of consensus is not helping the optimal use of data stored in research database. More discussions to reach a consensus on definitions and improved usability of the database will help promote the potential of social enterprises research in the near future. JEL Classifications: D63, H44, M14