Start Something Amazing
Social Enterprise. It’s one of those phrases that get peppered around like “public consultation” and “urban regeneration”. But what does Social Enterprise actually mean and more importantly why should you care? Let’s break it down...
- A Social Enterprise trades, it sells goods and/or services.
- A Social Enterprise has a social and/or environmental mission which it its primary focus.
- Income/Profit is reinvested to further social or environmental mission
So Social Enterprise is essentially like a charity except it is run like a business which means (potentially) profits and this is “the why you should care” part. But this isn’t just profits for you or shareholders, this is profits for everybody. Benefits may be a better word; Social Enterprise benefits everybody, you, the people who you work with and the community as a whole.
Maybe you want to start a café in your youth club heck maybe you want to run the youth club. Maybe you want to start a zine for young people in your neighbourhood, set-up a recording studio or a club night? Maybe you want to start a company so as to fund the creation of a skate park, a cricket team or a theatre company?
As long as it has the whiff of philanthropy, altruism or general do-goodiness about it and as long as the profits aren’t skimmed off for shareholders but reinvested into the company or are used for things that benefit the community then that’s Social Enterprise.
You may be thinking something along the line of “No profit? Phmph! Why should I bother?” Well just because there’s no profits don’t mean there’s no money in it, we’re still talking about a business. Therefore you can still pull a wage, make your own job and finish every day with the thought that you’re making things better. Imagine how it would look on a CV or job application that you started something off your own back.
We think Social Enterprise is a good thing, especially with the way things are going at the moment and we want more young people to know about it, so we’re putting together a handbook… but we need your help. If you could fill out this survey, this ever-so-small survey, this five-minutes-max-I-promise survey then you’ll be doing us, you, the organisations, the young people of Wales, in fact every-ruddy-body a big favour.
Please could we get your responses back by Friday 11th November.
If you have any questions please contact John Reaney (john@cwvys.org.uk)
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1 Comment – Post a comment
emb789
Commented 6 months ago - 29th October 2011 - 16:45pm
I filled in the survey, I encourage everyone else to, as well!