SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

What is a Social Enterprise?
A social enterprise is a business that trades in the market in order to gain its full social objectives. A social enterprise seeks to join the market for social and economic gain.

Social enterprises have 3 common characteristics:

• Enterprise Oriented
  They are always engaging in some form of trade and to this with the intent of making a surplus( as opposed to a charity or voluntary organisation).
• Social Agenda They seek to develop their community through learning ,business and job creation and positive activities in wealth creation. However they are accountable to their members and trustees through the charters displayed in their memorandums.
• Social Ownership. They are owned by stakeholders or trustees and surpluses are left in their care, unlike limited companies which are for profit .A social Enterprise can not share it's surplus amongst members.

There are various type of social enterprises

Social firms are businesses set up to support or favour a peculiar set of people e.g Black and Ethnic minorities,Women groups,Asylum seekers etc. Where ever it is clearly established that a set of people are at an economic and social disadvantage a social firm can be setup with the intent of biasly favouring these groups.

Social Firms are groups that use their resources to support their clients entering the labour market or business scene. In recent times these types of solutions have leaned heavily towards IT related work.

A social enterprise is the way forward for an entrepreneur, who has a plausible social objective and:
A) Would like to be paid well for his/her time.
B) Would like to form an association of some sort that would have social and economic influence in it's sphere.
C) Needs finance to back up a well prepared plan for social development.

A social enterprise is normally set up as a company limited by guarantee, this is a service we provide

Social Enterprise Growth Initiatives

• Leadership, management and Governance
• Processes and procedures
• Financial capacity of organisational(including raising funds).

"Money makes the world go round". Quite true, but ignorance leads to disaster, the day of the passionate uninformed organisation, has come and gone. Today Not-for profit organisations have started to adopt management methodologies and rightly so.

This is key to sustained growth and vision management. It is true that control can stifle creative growth, but in the case of the Big issue, the chocolate factory and The body shop it actually facilitated smooth growth.

Investment in Human capital has always brought about the highest return on investment. Without informed leadership an organisation is bound to struggle and decline in its productivity. This is because the Production line (Brain initiative is uninformed).

Creativity and management often argued to be left and right side brain initiatives are both needed to bring true growth.

• Market Segmentation
• Training for Staff, Volunteers &trustees(Leadership, management & governance)
• Product and service development
• Mapping and end User evaluation
• Tender writing
• Comparisons between Charities/Social enterprises & Voluntary organisations