The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough

The extractive economy is failing. The regenerative economy is being built. This is the definitive field manual for entrepreneurs, investors, and changemakers ready to stop tinkering with a broken system—and start building what replaces it. When Laurie Lane-Zucker coined the term impact entrepreneur in 2011, he named an emerging movement. Fifteen years later, that movement has reached a breakthrough. The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough maps how to join it. Part manifesto and part operating manual, this book shows how enterprises, ownership, capital, markets, security, and culture must transform together—and provides practical tools to begin immediately. Drawing on three decades at the forefront of impact investing and regenerative economics, Lane-Zucker introduces powerful new frameworks, including the Five Pillars of Real Security, the Prevention Dividend, and Defense as a Service—reimagining protection as shared resilience rather than fortified isolation. You’ll learn to design enterprises that heal communities and ecosystems; structure ownership so mission survives growth and succession; deploy capital for long-term resilience; rethink risk through prevention and collaboration; and translate regenerative values into concrete strategies and decisions. Each chapter moves from analysis to action, with real-world applications from practitioners already building the Impact Economy. The breakthrough is happening now. The question is whether you’ll participate.