What is Social Enterprise?

Social enterprises are businesses that have social or environmental objectives; they reinvest their surpluses into the business or community. They are organisations interested in overcoming social injustice or exclusion and contributing to society. Social enterprises contribute to society in many ways, they:

• Tackle social and environmental problems
• Set new standards
• Raise the bar for corporate responsibility
• Improve public services and shape public service design particularly as ethical consumerism increases in popularity
• Offer a high level of engagement with users and a capacity to build their trust
• Pioneer new approaches
• Attract new people to business
• Encourage under-represented groups (e.g. women, youth and offenders)