Social enterprises are businesses whose primary purpose is addressing a social or environmental challenge rather than creating profit for owners or shareholders. They bring together the entrepreneurial skills of the private sector and the values of public service.
Social enterprises are defined as businesses that:
- Have a clear and/or environmental mission set out in their governing documents
- Generate the majority of their income through trade
- Reinvest the majority of their profits
- Are autonomous of the state
- Are majority controlled in the interests of the social mission
- Are accountable and transparent
Examples of social enterprises
There are many examples of social enterprises, a business set up to create employment for those most severely disadvantaged in the labour market. For example, Fifteen is the name of several restaurants founded in 2004 by Jamie Oliver, a well-known British chef. It is a social enterprise is because Its profits go towards an apprentice programme for young unemployed people.
The Big Issue as a social enterprise
The Big Issue is a very popular example of a social enterprise, it even says on the website itself 'We are one of the oldest and biggest social enterprises in the UK. All the profits made by the Big Issue Group are reinvested back into helping vendors with a 'hand up, not a handout'. The magazine is sold on the streets by people experiencing homelessness, marginalisation and disadvantage. The Big Issue also released a statement explaining why working as a social enterprise is such a help to people who are struggling "The Big Issue was set up to lift people into work and reduce the chance of people in need ever resorting to wrongdoing. "By giving people a genuine hand up rather than a handout it is providing a real cost-saving for the taxpayer."
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