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I was struck by the fact that social enterprises are delivering high quality, lower cost products and services. At the same time, they create real opportunities for the people working in them and the communities that they serve.
Tony Blair |
The Prime Minister of Canada has recognized the promising and vital contribution of social entrepreneurship in community development, Canada lags far behind the US and the UK in implementing policy to foster this global movement towards double or triple bottom line economics.
It is interesting that some government departments are now looking for self-sustaining investment models that will move non-profit and charitable organizations towards new forms of social enterprise and ultimately towards more self-sustaining activities. These early indicators are part of the ground swell that is forming around this new hybrid – Non-profit/For-profit ventures.
Organizations embarking on entrepreneurial ventures are faced with many challenges because of the highly competitive nature of the marketplace. To succeed in the marketplace requires a completely different set of skills and levels of expertise than those found within the non-profit sector.
In recent years the Not for profit/charitable sector has attracted high level executives from the corporate world and numerous large and successful campaigns have been born of this marriage between the professional marketer and the non-profit. Generally in this area it is the big that get bigger for only national or even international campaigns are of interest to the large corporations who have the funding to support large scale initiatives.
There will always be the community driven events that will attract support and achieve certain levels of financial success but a market venture that can reach beyond the local community is necessary to deliver the kinds of funding that are required by the urban aboriginal support community. This is why some new approaches and new ways of thinking about the entire question are necessary.
A Social Enterprise is a new and innovative way to create a brand in the marketplace. This, though, has to be undertaken within the context of the market itself.
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A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximize profit for shareholders and owners.’
Social Enterprise: a strategy for success (2002) Dept. of Trade and Industry, UK |
