<p>Faith-based social enterprises (FBSEs) are formed by religious groups to tackle a myriad of social problems around the globe. Given their hybrid nature—their social, economic, and spiritual orientation—they face challenges that tend to cause ‘mission drift’. The study examines challenges faced by FBSEs that cause potential mission drift and discusses how they can overcome them. Drawing on focused group discussions with four congregations of Catholic sisters in Kenya and Tanzania, a thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo. The results show that FBSEs face various challenges as they navigate mission drift issues, including lack of knowledge, skills and training among FBSE managers, conflicts arising from misplaced priorities, lack of a standard operating procedure to ensure commercial-social balance, governance issues that include poor management, and lack of teamwork and strategy. Further, regarding the extent to which FBSEs run by Catholic sisters can navigate mission drift, the need to survive (commercial domain) appears to be more likely to be the priority than the need to serve (social-spiritual domain). The study suggests strategies that FBSEs can use to reduce mission drift: governance of FBSEs that brings every stakeholder on board and lays down clear terms of reference, servant leadership and effective management strategies characterized by effective supervision, delegation to expert managers, collaboration with all stakeholders and a firm and focused direction of FBSE policies. Thus, FBSEs should continue to recalibrate strategically, managerially and via governance to improve outcomes that reduce mission drift.</p>