What are social enterprises?

Social entreprises are very special businesses. The European Commission defines them as follows: " A social enterprise is an operator in the social economy whose main objective is to have a social impact rather than make a profit for their owners or shareholders. It operates by providing goods and services for the market in an entrepreneurial and innovative fashion and uses its profits primarily to achieve social objectives. It is managed in an open and responsible manner and, in particular, involves employees, consumers and stakeholders affected by its commercial activities".

In essence, the definition of "social entreprise" can be used to indicate the foollowing kind of businesses: 

• Those for who the social or societal objective of the common good is the reason for the commercial activity, often in the form of a high level of social innovation.
• Those whose profits are mainly reinvested to achieve this social objective.
• Those where the method of organisation or the ownership system reflects the enterprise's mission, using democratic or participatory principles or focusing on social justice.

In short, it is possible to confirm that there is no single legal form for social enterprises. Many social enterprises operate in the form of social  cooperatives, some are registered as private companies limited by guarantee, some are mutual, and a lot of them are non-profit-distributing organisations like provident societies, associations, voluntary organisations, charities or foundations.

What characterises social entreprise, is thus, their mission, despite the differences; and their activity strongly connected with "sustainability":, social, environmental and economical. Still according to the European Commission, a social entreprise can operate supporting/developing:

• Work integration - training and integration of people with disabilities and unemployed people
• Personal social services - health, well-being and medical care, professional training, education, health services, childcare services, services for elderly people, or aid for disadvantaged people
• Local development of disadvantaged areas - social enterprises in remote rural areas, neighbourhood development/rehabilitation schemes in urban areas, development aid and development cooperation with third countries
• Other - including recycling, environmental protection, sports, arts, culture or historical preservation, science, research and innovation, consumer protection and amateur sports.

Look at the following video to better undestand implications of being/establishing a social entreprise. The video is also an opportunity to reflect regarding the specific business models that can shape social entreprises all over the EU and beyond:

To support the reinfocement ofn the European Social entrepreneurship ecosystem, the European Commission lanched in the 2016 a lighthouse initiative entitled "The Start-up and scale-up initiative", with the main aim of : 

• removing barriers for start-ups to scale up in the single market
• creating better opportunities for partnership, commercial opportunities and skills
• facilitating the access to finance. 

You can explore more about the initiative here: the start up and scale up iniziative for social entreprises of the European Commission

This initiative is crucial to support the upscaling of social entreprises, considered one of the pillars of the innovation ecosystem for sustainablem competitiveness of the EU Area. 

A seconf lighthouse initiative was launched by the Commission in 2011, The social business initiative (SBI), launched in 2011, aims to introduce a short-term action plan to support the development of social enterprises, key stakeholders in the social economy and social innovation. It also aims to prompt a debate on the avenues to be explored in the medium/long term. There are 11 priority measures, organised around 3 themes:

Theme 1: Making it easier for social enterprises to obtain funding

Theme 2: Increasing the visibility of social entrepreneurship

Theme 3: Making the legal environment friendlier for social enterprises

Look at the following video to have valuable insights on social entreprises business models: Social enterprise: a new business model for Europe | Euronews, this will be useful to introduce the next training session as well!