Social enterprise

What is social enterprise?

From our unprofessional understanding, it's generating revenue that can be used to sustain and grow your not-for-profit / charity. This tends to exclude traditional funding sources such as grants and donations, although these can often used to lay the ground work for new social enterprises.

Some organizations may form as a social enterprise, perhaps under a traditional "for-profit" business incorporation model. However, many not-for-profits will incorporate aspects and social enterprise programs into their organization.

Here's a great powerpoint outlining a bit about social enterprise.

Examples of social enterprise

It's really up to your organization to plan and try different ways to generate revenue. Here are some things we've done at Career Skills Incubator:

-Consulting on mentorship programs (we learned so much in our own we have a lot to share!)

-Supporting mentorship programs (as extra "people power" hired as part of a contract for more direct operational work)

-Customizing our open source mentorship tool (while open-source, we have expertise that can be leveraged to customize specially for organizations)

-Workshops paid for by larger organizations such as Employment Ontario centres

-Workshops paid for by participants

Here are some more examples: http://www.socialenterprisecanada.ca/en/learn/nav/whatdotheysellmakeanddo.html