What are Social Enterprises?
What is a Social Enterprise?
Social enterprises are businesses that trade to intentionally tackle social problems, improve communities, provide people access to employment and training, or help the environment. Social enterprises use their profits and business practices to address a societal need. Though these enterprises can take many forms across many industries, they ultimately exist to serve the common good.
There are currently more than 3,500 social enterprises trading across metropolitan and regional Victoria employing an estimated 60,000 people and contributing $5.2 billion to the Victorian economy.
They can be defined by following key factors:
are driven by a public or community cause, be it social, environmental, cultural or economic
derive most of their income from trade, not donations or grants
use the majority (at least 50%) of their profits to work towards their social mission.
Invest efforts and resources into their purpose such that public/community benefit outweighs private benefit.
Source: Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector Report 2016
