Chapter 1. Main trends in social enterprise development
This part underlines the importance of creating an enabling ecosystem that can effectively support social enterprises, and briefly presents the policy areas in which policy makers can act to this end. It discusses eight key lessons emerging from the policies, programmes, and initiatives analysed, and examines the challenges faced along with the policy approaches used to address them successfully. Finally, it includes an overview grid presenting the main features of each case, such as, the funding sources, the policy area and approach, and the key success factors and challenges. Finally, it features a one-page summary of each case.
Social enterprises in Europe: towards a shared understanding
The policy and public debate is increasingly highlighting the contribution of social enterprises to tackling socio-economic challenges- such as rampant unemployment and increased inequalities- often in innovative and sustainable ways at the local, regional and global levels. More precisely, social enterprises provide the opportunity to disadvantaged individuals to integrate or re-integrate into the labour market while contributing more generally to building cohesive and creative societies (OECD, 1999; Noya and Clarence, 2007). A survey conducted in 2015 on more than 1000 social enterprises in 9 countries (the SEFORÏS project in which the OECD LEED participated as well) showed registered revenues of more than EUR 6.06 billion, provision of services and products to 871 million beneficiaries, job creation - particularly for people with disabilities or migrant backgrounds - upwards of about half a million people, and job placement for approximately 5.5 million people (SEFORÏS, 2016).
A wide range of stakeholders, including policy makers, entrepreneurs, citizens and investors, have become more interested in social enterprises and social entrepreneurship as a result of this positive dynamic. “Millennials” in particular are showing great willingness to participate actively in addressing societal issues, through social entrepreneurship (UNICEF, 2007). Higher education institutions attempt to address this new interest and aspirations through a growing array of new courses and chairs in social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship programmes remain scarce at the primary and secondary education levels however.
Consumers are also increasingly attuned to the importance of ethical and environmentally friendly aspects, as illustrated by the fair-trade and “buy-social” phenomenon, which advocates the human being’s centrality in the economic undertaking. Their desire to provide direct support to social projects in different activity sectors is also illustrated by the new participative financing models, such as crowdfunding and crowdlending platforms. At the same time, new financial actors and intermediaries are entering the field: social impact investors, ethical banks and venture philanthropists provide new sources of funding for social enterprises, but also call for more rigorous social impact assessments, promoting a culture of measurement and evaluation (OECD/European Commission, 2015).
In this context, the European Commission adopted in 2011 the Social Business Initiative (SBI), which aims to support the development of social enterprises by improving their access to funding, raising their visibility and fostering a friendlier legal environment.
Building on the academic work done by the EMES research network1 and in line with the OECD analysis,2 the SBI identifies a social enterprise as “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” (European Commission, 2011). This definition is increasingly driving a shared understanding of what a social enterprise is across European countries. This is particularly important in the existing European landscape, characterised by a multiplicity of social economy organisations with different legal forms and statuses.3
← 1. EMES is a research network of established university research centres and individual researchers whose goal has been so far to gradually build up a theoretical and empirical knowledge around social enterprises, social entrepreneurship, social economy, solidarity economy and social innovation.
← 2. The OECD identifies a social enterprise as “any private activity conducted in the public interest, organised with an entrepreneurial strategy, but whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but the attainment of certain economic and social goals and which has the capacity for bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment” (OECD, 1999).
← 3. Not all social economy organisations, however, are social enterprises; only those that adopt the features described in the SBI concept are social enterprises. Many of these are “traditional” social enterprises aligned with the SBI concept; many others are transforming into social enterprises by adopting the Initiative’s key features. A growing number of “new” social enterprises – i.e. social enterprises originating neither from the third sector nor from the social economy – are also emerging.
Against this backdrop, policy makers at different government levels are called to act and to build an enabling policy environment that will empower, support and help social enterprises to maximise their impact.
Building conducive policy ecosystems
Social enterprises can be important partners for governments, helping them meet major policy objectives (e.g. reducing unemployment and poverty, and increasing social cohesion). However, they often face a number of barriers (e.g. a lack of legal recognition, and difficult access to markets and finance) that can limit their impact and prevent them from reaching their full potential. The recent report of the Expert Group on Social Entrepreneurship of the European Commission (European Union, 2016) stresses that favourable policy ecosystems are essential to helping social enterprises overcome these barriers. To build tailored policy ecosystems, policy makers first need to develop a sound understanding of the features, mission and needs of social enterprises before translating into policy actions supporting their development.
These policy actions need to be conceived using a holistic approach: any ecosystem is likely to be better tailored and structured when its different elements are coherent, inter-connected, and transversal (i.e. not designed and implemented in silos). This means, for instance, that designing a legal framework for social enterprises without simultaneously seeking to facilitate market access, support skills development and foster a varied financial landscape will yield a limited – if not counterproductive – impact on social-enterprise development. Likewise, an ecosystem’s policy outcomes and actions are just as important as the process that leads to them: not only should each policy area within the ecosystem be part of an integrated systemic vision, it should also be co-constructed with the relevant stakeholders and co-ordinated among the different (national and territorial) policy levels.
A number of policy areas – including legal frameworks, access to markets, access to finance, support structures, and education and skills – seem particularly relevant to social-enterprise development.
Legal frameworks
Legal frameworks bring clarity by defining the nature, mission and activities of social enterprises. By granting them recognition and visibility, they help policy makers support social enterprises through different levers (including fiscal measures), and they help funders and investors understand the benefits of providing funds to social enterprises. Inaccurate, unclear or excessively narrow legal frameworks can harm social enterprises, by causing confusion or failing to capture the array of entities that may qualify as social enterprises in a given context. Legislators can create a dedicated and appropriate legal framework by adapting existing legislation on specific legal forms – for instance co-operatives – or passing new laws. However, less rigid normative tools should also be considered, as they may be easier to adapt to new developments in the field.
Access to finance
Access to finance is key throughout social enterprises’ life cycle. Depending on their development stage, social enterprises derive financing from a combination of resources, ranging from subsidies and debt instruments to equity, patient capital and impact investments (OECD/European Union, 2016). Private donations are another (although less common) source of funding. Simultaneously, new actors – such as financial intermediaries, whose role is essential in assisting social enterprises to become more investment-ready, and connecting them with potential funders – are emerging. Still, policy support is vital to improve access to funding. Policy makers need to encourage capacity-building, along with efforts to unlock and attract funds that are better suited to social enterprises. Moreover, while they rightfully advocate mobilising private funds, they should keep in mind that public support remains an important element of the financial landscape that can help leverage and guarantee private resources for social enterprises. In fact, public support may remain the principal (if not the only) source of funding for some social enterprises facing particularly intractable challenges.
Access to markets
To be sustainable, social enterprises require access to public and private markets. Policy makers could support various instruments to this end, such as: 1) encouraging the use of social clauses in public procurement, both at the national and local levels; 2) supporting socially responsible procurement by private companies and facilitating their relations with social enterprises; 3) levelling the playing field, by allowing social enterprises to access the same enabling policy measures provided to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as tailoring support to their specific features; and 4) encouraging and supporting managerial training for social entrepreneurs (possibly by developing university-level taught courses on social enterprise management).
Support structures
Social enterprises require business support throughout their developmental phase. Targeted public support for structures such as hubs, accelerators or incubators is essential to ensure their sustainable development across territories and activity sectors. Training, coaching or consultancy services play a critical role in building social entrepreneurs’ skills (e.g. in developing business plans, accessing diverse funding sources and becoming financially self-sustainable); at a later stage, investment-readiness support can help them expand. However, social enterprises do not require the same services as commercial enterprises: because of their double bottom line, they need to balance financial sustainability with maximising social impact. Hence, policy makers may wish to promote “braided support” both for general business skills and social enterprises’ specific needs. (OECD/European Union, 2013).
Education and skills
Policy ecosystems need to foster social entrepreneurship not only in the short term, but also in the long run. To this aim, they need to develop education and skills that breed entrepreneurial behaviours. Educational programmes on social entrepreneurship provide students with opportunities to develop new solutions to unresolved social challenges, and learn about business creation processes and planning at the secondary and higher education levels. Partnerships between the social enterprise community and research institutions are a promising approach to develop the evidence base, improve understanding and raise visibility of the field.
Key lessons
This section presents and discusses eight key lessons on establishing an enabling policy ecosystem for social enterprises. These lessons emerge from the comparative analysis of the initiatives described in this Compendium. They demonstrate the importance of co-constructing and looking at ecosystems holistically. They also illustrate that similar challenges can be addressed by using different approaches within the same policy area, allowing for tailored and context-sensitive policy actions.
Raise awareness and visibility of social enterprises, and tackle misconceptions
Despite growing interest in social enterprises (and the different actions undertaken to increase their visibility and recognition by policy makers, potential funders, users and consumers), there is still limited understanding of their specificities. This breeds misconceptions that hamper them from effectively meeting social enterprises’ needs and setting enabling conditions for them to thrive. Yet policy makers can take an active role in supporting their visibility. For example, the French Law on the Social and Solidarity Economy, adopted in 2014, grants legal recognition to the institutions representing the social and solidarity economy (SSE) at the national level and strengthens the network of regional SSE chambers. Although the Law has a broad scope beyond social enterprises, it explicitly mentions them and creates favourable conditions for their development. It also foresees the use of a specific certification for those entities, within its purview, which place social impact first, helping public agencies and funders recognise and support them. Another interesting example is the initiative of the Minister of Innovation in Flanders (Belgium), which provided subsidies to the Social Innovation Factory (a local support structure) for activities aiming to raise awareness of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises.
Policy makers can also support efforts to raise funders’ awareness of social enterprises, aided by social finance intermediaries, who help funders design appropriate financing schemes. Supported by the Portuguese government, Portugal Innovação Social acts as a market catalyst and helps social enterprises access finance. Its creation stemmed from the awareness-raising and lobbying efforts of Social Investment Lab to promote social enterprises and social investment as priorities in the policy agenda. To this end, it produced papers on the relevance and applicability of social investment in Portugal, and conducted feasibility studies of social investment deals, fostering discussions with investors and local authorities. The German organisation FASE, for its part, uses a “deal-by-deal” approach to design a tailored financing scheme matching the needs of social enterprises and impact investors.
Support structures can also help raise the visibility of social enterprises. In Spain, El Hueco actively supports the creation of social enterprises and highlights their contribution to regenerating the sparsely populated area of Soria. This multidimensional support structure organises regular local events and an annual meeting bringing together social entrepreneurs, investors and public-sector representatives; designs creative communication campaigns about social enterprises; and has a strong media and social network presence. It also collaborates intensively with Soria’s provincial council (which finances the social enterprise competition “El Hueco Starter” award), as well as public administrations at the local, regional, national and European levels.
Joint efforts and partnerships among organisations that support social enterprises can strengthen and amplify awareness-raising. In Scotland, the Partnership for Supporting the Social Enterprise Strategy comprising three national social enterprise intermediary organisations (Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition, Senscot and Social Firms Scotland) increases the visibility of social enterprises through a range of activities; e.g. organising study visits to social enterprises by parliamentarians from all political parties and sending them monthly e-bulletins; submitting responses to government consultations and motions; and promoting social enterprises’ added value to the media and local communities through national and local events, awards and press activities.
Establish strategic and multi-stakeholder partnerships
Strategic partnerships constitute a win-win-win for a range of diverse stakeholders, such as social enterprises, public agencies and private sector entities. When policy makers adopt a multi-stakeholder approach and establish strategic partnerships, they create the conditions for helping social enterprises enter public and private markets; build or participate in value chains; and gain access to complementary resources, skills and networks. Partnerships between social enterprises and private companies are an interesting and less explored avenue. For example, the Social Impact Factory, a support structure aiming to spur social enterprise creation and inspire traditional enterprises to add a social or environmental component, resulted from a partnership between the municipality of Utrecht (Netherlands) and the Kirkman Company, a private enterprise. The Social Impact Factory uses an online platform connecting social enterprises both with private companies seeking to purchase social services or products and with the municipality, which advertises its calls for public contracts or suppliers. In Denmark, the partnership between the social enterprise Specialisterne and the multinational software corporation SAP integrates people with autism into the job market by leveraging their unique skills. Specialisterne is now part of the SAP value chain, allowing it to expand its operations – and therefore its impact – to 12 countries and establish new partnerships not only with other large corporations, but also local authorities.
Strategic partnerships enable stakeholders to leverage complementary strengths, expertise, skills and funds, as well as enhance knowledge-sharing. In Belgium’s Walloon region, SAW-B brings together social enterprises facing similar challenges and organises group discussions where they can share their experiences. It has also established a federation connecting social enterprises with complementary needs and skills. By joining forces and resources, some have already developed new services or products, while others have expanded their original regional scope to the trans-regional, national or even European scale.
Engaging and consulting with potential stakeholders is essential for public agencies to establish support frameworks for social enterprises. When an institutional development process is inclusive, the final output can more accurately reflect the needs of stakeholders, who will then take ownership of the process. The resulting institutional changes are more likely to be implemented effectively, and to endure through time and government changes. The Barcelona City Council Decree for Socially Responsible Public Procurement was the result of a consultation process among 50 representatives from 40 different entities (including experts, social partners, non-state actors, private-sector representatives, various municipal areas and political parties). A key success factor was the establishment six months before the adoption of the Decree of the Mixed Commission for Socially Responsible Procurement. The Commission regularly brought together all the stakeholders, who managed to reach common ground and drafted the legal text in a fully collaborative mode. Through this process, each side identified the benefits of the Decree and the potential risks if they failed to reach an agreement.
In Croatia, the Ministry of Labour and Pension Systems followed a similar path while developing the National Strategy for the Development of Social Entrepreneurship. It established a working group (comprising representatives from other government authorities, social partners, vocational and educational institutions, and an umbrella organisation representing social enterprises’ interests) that met regularly over a period of two years to produce a draft Strategy. The final draft Strategy became available for public consultation on an online platform, where citizens could add their suggestions.
Foster viable and sustainable social enterprises
One of the most effective ways of helping social enterprises become viable and sustainable is to foster social entrepreneurs’ business skills and know-how. To this end, support structures (e.g. incubators) and networks rely on professionals who understand both traditional businesses and social enterprises, and build social entrepreneurs’ capacity become sustainable without diluting their social mission. In Denmark, the Copenhagen Project House (KPH) incubator supports social enterprises from the early stage to scaling by providing mentoring and peer-to-peer activities in a large co-working space. KPH has a network of private partners who help entrepreneurs interact with corporate social responsibility managers at events and mini-conferences; identify the skills necessary to collaborate with them; and generate social and business value. Meeting and working closely with established companies and large organisations can help social enterprises test their ideas and create new business opportunities that may also attract investors.
Policy makers should identify social enterprises’ financial needs and design appropriate financial support tools. For instance, the United Kingdom’s three-year funding programme Big Potential offers grants to help social enterprises progressively take on repayable investments. The grant amount depends on the enterprise’s stage of development; it is coupled with one-to-one support sessions to discuss its business model and an online diagnostic tool that helps it identify its needs. Policy makers should also consider supporting initiatives that help social enterprises aiming to consolidate their business model shift from a grant-funding mindset to taking on credit and micro-loans. ESFund TISE, a pilot repayable instrument in Poland, offers social enterprises a combination of loans and 30 hours of free expert advisory services on a wide array of subjects.
Finally, financial intermediaries can facilitate this changing paradigm and help social enterprises identify the right tool for reaching financial sustainability. However, social enterprises – especially small ones – often struggle to pay for intermediaries’ services. To overcome this challenge, Portugal Inovação Social provides grants and vouchers to facilitate social enterprises’ access to tailored support by specialist providers in areas such as financial management, business modelling, impact measurement, leadership and governance. Public financial instruments can also provide useful support in this regard.
Support risk-sharing mechanisms for finance providers
While public support (predominantly through grants and subsidies) is a major financial source for many social enterprises, an increasing number now seek to access financing provided by mainstream or new funders (e.g. commercial banks or impact investors). However, social enterprises may not always be investment ready, or have sustainable business models. Germany’s FASE focuses on creating impact-investment pipelines that bring together impact investors and investment-ready social enterprises, and support them throughout the transaction process, clearly demonstrating that both public support and philanthropic funds are equally crucial to early-stage social enterprises and intermediaries aiming to provide them with sufficient capital to survive and thrive.
Another challenge is that mainstream funders or impact investors perceive social enterprises – especially in the early stages – as high-risk clients, and are therefore reluctant to invest in them. Commercial banks share this view, considering that social enterprises may not have the capacity to sustain the loan costs or present the necessary financial guarantees. One effective response to this challenge is guarantee schemes, which are widely known for sharing or amortising risk with mainstream funders, impact investors and commercial banks. JEREMIE Sicily, a financial instrument in Italy, has established a dedicated guarantee fund that helps social enterprises and SMEs access credit. Portugal Inovação Social and its Social Innovation Fund provide guarantees to co-investors, thereby improving social enterprises’ risk profile and allowing banks to lend them on more favourable terms. In Ireland, the social finance provider Clann Credo takes a slightly different approach, providing retail loans to social enterprises based on their size, repayment capacity and expected social benefits. In the event of a loan default, Clann Credo shares 50% of the loss with the Social Finance Foundation, a wholesale social-finance provider. Still, its operations emphasise prudent lending practices in social finance and capacity-building for assessing risk.
Foster social-entrepreneurship skills in the education system
Uptake of entrepreneurship education is still low in most OECD countries, particularly at the primary and secondary education levels. And yet entrepreneurship education can nurture an entrepreneurial mindset while enhancing students’ creativity, collaborative skills and ethical thinking – all of which are particularly important in social entrepreneurship. By providing related programmes to students throughout the education system, organisations help fill this gap. However, teachers rarely have the opportunity to undergo initial training and continuous professional development in social entrepreneurship. They are often unfamiliar with the concept, and hesitate to adopt new, project-based pedagogical methods. As highlighted by JA Europe, raising awareness on the benefits of entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship) education, and providing relevant training to teachers and head teachers – who are critical to their success – is key when implementing these programmes.
Policy makers can play a critical role in designing and implementing strategies fostering entrepreneurship education, and seeking to develop students’ ability to recognise and act upon opportunities to create social value. For example, the French Law on the Social and Solidary Economy created the Higher Council for the Social and Solidarity Economy (Conseil supérieur de l’ESS) which aims (among other things) to promote social entrepreneurship among young people through the public education system. Another example worth mentioning is the Croatian Strategy for the Development of Social Entrepreneurship (adopted in 2015), which allocates 28% of its total budget to educational activities (e.g. replicating innovative educational programmes, and supporting institutions providing formal and informal programmes on social entrepreneurship).
Supporting public-private partnerships between schools and third-sector organisations – including social enterprises, which are specialised in providing social entrepreneurship education programmes – is another promising strategy that does not require additional government spending. JA Europe, which is almost completely independent from public funding, is a good case in point: in 2015, only 14% of its total annual budget stemmed from public funding, and 82% from private sources.
Promote impact measurement and evaluation
While public and private funders increasingly ask social enterprises to measure their impact (OECD/European Commission, 2015), most social enterprises have a limited impact measurement and evaluation culture. First, over-emphasis on measuring their impact can divert social enterprises’ attention from actually producing social change, and lead them to change their organisational structure. The financial intermediary PHINEO has reached out to more than 200 opinion leaders across Germany, describing social enterprises’ mission and organisation structure, and explaining how they should be taken into account when designing impact measurement requirements. PHINEO also strives to raise awareness within social enterprises, by explaining that measuring impact has a useful function in substantiating and improving non-profit activity. In this process, it conducts issue-related impact assessment studies in which social enterprises are invited to participate free of charge and without risk. After undergoing a selection assessment process, social enterprises that meet certain criteria (regarding their organisational and financial structure, vision, potential impact and capacity to yield results) are publicly profiled and awarded PHINEO’s “Wirkt!” impact label. PHINEO publishes guides, such as the Social Impact Navigator, which gather and analyse social enterprises’ impact measurement experiences, as well as offer hands-on advice, checklists and step-by-step activities.
Second, measuring impact requires skills, financial resources and time. Social enterprises often lack team members with appropriate skills, and cannot afford to recruit new ones and/or pay for relevant training. Policy makers can support structures that help social enterprises learn how to measure their impact. NESsT provides (and teaches social enterprises how to use) a performance-management tool that sets goals and targets, and regularly monitors performance (based on tailor-made indicators on the social enterprise’s organisational capacity, enterprise performance, social impact and financial sustainability).
Finally, policy makers could encourage partnerships among higher education institutions, social enterprises and support structures. In France, the regional incubator Alter’Incub, in partnership with the Occitanie region,1 and Aix-Marseille and Montpellier universities, has convened an interdisciplinary group of researchers in the social sciences, economics and management to develop cutting-edge research on impact evaluation and measurement methods. Social enterprises incubated at Alter’Incub learn to implement these methods in their own context.
Establish user-friendly administrative processes
Like SMEs, social enterprises often face complex and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures. Portugal Inovação Social stresses the difficulty of navigating through EU structural fund procedures. In Croatia, the heavy bureaucracy and requirements for obtaining the “social enterprise” status are a major bottleneck in implementing the National Strategy for the Development of Social Entrepreneurship. Moreover, the public-procurement bidding process is one of the most challenging – yet essential – exercises for social enterprises. NESsT notes the procedures are often not user-friendly and require specific skills, which can prove discouraging for social enterprises that are not tender-ready. Public administrations find implementing social clauses equally challenging. In Barcelona, many public officials did not have the relevant skills to implement the City Council Decree for Socially Responsible Procurement and evaluate tender offers.
Policy makers can streamline the administrative procedures for social enterprises and reduce the red tape. In Poland, ESFund TISE has suggested that government agencies relax some of the longstanding, rigid procedures in public procurement and financial schemes, which may no longer be suitable for social enterprises. Finally, policy makers could showcase the activities and tools used by support structures that help social enterprises navigate administrative procedures. For example, both SAW-B in Wallonia and the Social Impact Factory in Utrecht prepare guides that help social enterprises respond to calls for tender.
Ensure institutional continuity and political support for social enterprises
Sustained policy support is essential to establish an enabling ecosystem allowing social enterprises to thrive over the long term. Political impetus can act as a catalyst for both nascent and/or well-established ecosystems, fostering and accelerating favourable conditions for social enterprises. However, challenges may emerge when political support fluctuates owing to government changes. In Croatia, strong political commitment would probably have accelerated the design and adoption of the National Strategy for the Development of Social Entrepreneurship. Although the political fluctuation may have slowed implementation of the Strategy, the multi-stakeholder engagement in its development and steadfast commitment of some elements of the public administration ensured its continuity. Portugal experienced strong political endorsement at the ministerial level in 2013, which transcended partisan affiliations and ensured a smooth transition through the government change, leading to the creation of Portugal Inovação Social. So far, the changes in the ministers responsible for innovation have not affected the agenda for establishing a social-investment market.
References
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European Commission (2012), Entrepreneurship in the EU and beyond, Flash Eurobarometer 354, European Commission, Brussels, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_354_en.pdf.
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Note
← 1. When Alter’Incub was created the name of the region was Languedoc-Roussillon, but it changed to Occitanie in January 2016, after the territorial reform.