Running a Social Economy Organization

running a social economy organization

Summary

The decision to start a social economy organization (or a social enterprise) is often motivated by the need to change the world and to answer to current urgent societal challenges. Volunteering or other kinds of experiences in SE organizations enhance the wish for running these types of organizations. Social economy professionals have solid ideals and aspire to contribute to the welfare of a community and tackle sustainability issues. However, they soon learn how many competencies are required to do so! We noticed that starting and successfully running a SE organization requires interdisciplinarity in competencies and cross-contamination between different fields. In particular, we identified the following key areas:

• Governance, Strategy and Human Resources Management
• Law and Public-Private-Partnerships
• Marketing and Fundraising
• Traditional Accounting, Social accounting and Value Impact Assessment
• Finance and Impact investing
• Social entrepreneurship and Business Planning.

Furthermore, we noticed that SE can be employed in different fields, such as CSR, green, social services, health, migration and so on.

Editorial

The first topic reflects on the experience of running or joining a social economy organization/enterprise. It will help people dive deep into the motivation that is pushing workers and volunteers to join the SE field. It will also help the reader to gather ideas on how to stimulate others to be interested in SE. You will find a list of resources covering diverse facets of social economy to have a complete overview of the elements entering SE organizations.  

The decision to start or join a social economy organization (or a social enterprise) is often motivated by the need to answer current urgent societal issues. Some people decide to start and run SE organizations/enterprises, such as managers and entrepreneurs, while others prefer to join an existing SE organization, as workers or volunteers. But overall, when people take action in the SE field or study to become a SE professional,  they have specific values or ideals in mind. They wish to make the world a better place and to support people in need. Also, people often feel pushed towards social economy by their own experience or the experience of close ones. The social, environmental and economic needs of their territory and their community is also a strong incentive to make a step towards social economy activities. What is the role of motivation in the social economy?

The initial hype is not what keeps people in SE organizations for years. The strong feeling of recognizing the importance and the impact of their work on a social group and on the surrounding community keeps people engaged. For some, the main incentive for taking action in the social economy field is to join a community with the common purpose of cooperating. The working environment also plays a fundamental role, such as a horizontal and democratic form of management, reduction of chaotic situations and flexibility.

Social economy has a huge potential, which is why it is important to highlight its qualities and make the most of them. The main aspect of starting and successfully running SE organizations (or social enterprises) is that all founders, volunteers, and workers strongly believe in the core mission. In fact, internal motivation helps them to find innovative and practical solutions to problems. Also, the working environment of SE organizations is built on dialogue and cooperation. Thanks to it, SE professionals feel free to make proposals and argue them to find a point of agreement. Indeed, negotiation is typical of SE organizations. This is because the non-profit sector constantly talks to many stakeholders with different interests. On one hand, there are urgent people's needs. On the other hand, there are both public administration and the private sector whereby sign agreements with the non-profit sector.

Is SE really able to answer to societal issues? All catastrophic events due to climate change, wars and economic crises will severely impact millions of people. As social inequality, unequal distribution of wealth and unemployment increase due to economic and political dynamics, the social economy plays a key role in addressing sustainability challenges. There are 2.8 million social economy organizations in Europe that employ 13.6 million people and have a strong capacity to create employment and generate positive economic and social impacts.

However, we do not have to forget that there are some people having negative experiences in SE organizations, which are often characterized also by easy withdrawals of members, conflicts between SE members, burn-outs, lack of visibility, time-consuming decision-making procedures and low income. Keeping these weaknesses into consideration is important for this collection of material. In fact, finding innovative and alternative educational resources is a key element to improving the knowledge and competencies of people operating in the SE field and, hopefully, reducing the negative aspects of working and volunteering in this kind of organization.

We see that, in order to really understand social economy’s goals and mechanisms, it is important to explore different aspects and elements of managing and starting a social enterprise or organization. This could also help the reader to get a grasp on what role people would like to play in the social economy field and what application of social economy people are most interested in.

Index of Resources

Title of resource	Type	Description	Language
Social entrepreneurship in the context of disaster recovery: Organizing for public value creation	Paper	Social entrepreneurship plays an important role in the recovery of areas struck by natural disasters. It develops opportunities and organizes to create public value over time. We identify extreme and calculated effectuation as key principles in organizing public services.	ENG
Fund managers acting as impact investors: Strategies, practices, and tensions	Paper	Using a multi-case-study analysis, we shed light on the strategies, practices, and tensions of fund managers acting as impact investors. The governance component emerges as the most relevant issue and this may help explain why impact washing is a key topic in the impact investing discussion.	ENG
Principles and Practice of Impact Investing: A Catalytic Revolution - Vecchi, Balbo et alt.	Book	This book is the first to look at impact investing as a "refocus" of venture capital to sustain the development of societal impact enterprises. The book is an inspirational and practical guide for actors and stakeholders to enable better understanding of impact investing.	ENG
Innovation in the Partnership between Businesses and NGOs or Social Enterprises - Anzivino, Bandini, Baldassarre	Paper	The strategic dimension of CSR has to be seen in a long term period. By taking into account the presence of the environment as one of its stakeholders, the business is thereby able to better match its desires and goals with the social context and likewise analyzes the results obtained. This research focuses on how this proactive logic extends in business relations towards nonprofit organizations and social enterprises.	ENG
Work integration social enterprises (WISEs): a legal and innovative form to promote the right to work of people with disabilities - Santuari	Paper	This article analyses work integration social enterprises (WISEs) as private organisations that promote and pursue general interest, namely, the right of people with disabilities to work and to be integrated into the labour market. Both EU law and the Italian 2017 Social Enterprises Reform Act enhance the activities and the role of WISEs. Their legal characters and innovation will be discussed.	ENG
Social enterprises in the European Union and the Italian 2017 Social Enterprises Reform Act: A legal framework for other jurisdictions? - Santuari	Paper	As to the European Union, Directives and Social Funds Programmes have provided an enabling legal framework that has helped social enterprises to grow, especially as providers of welfare services. Many Member States of the EU have passed statutes providing for the legal features and the role of social enterprises, especially in the delivery of welfare services.	ENG
Social Enterprises and Public Value: A Multiple-Case Study Assessment - Bandini, Gigli, Mariani	Paper	By considering the micro-foundation of value generation as emerging from the assessment of three Italian social cooperatives’ business models, the aim of this paper is to understand the contribution and the approach adopted by work integration social enterprises to the creation of public value.	ENG
Markets, Money and Capital. Hicksian Economics for the Twenty-First Century Scazzieri, Sen, Zamagni	Book	This volume examines John Hicks's intellectual heritage and discusses how his analytical contributions suggest a distinct approach to economic theory and policy making.	ENG
The Economics of Human Relationships, in: Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity - Sacco, Vanin, Zamagni	Book	The Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism provides a comprehensive set of reviews of literature on the economics of nonmarket voluntary transfers.	ENG
Social Economy Talks	Podcast	“Social Economy Talks” is a Podcast from Social Economy Europe about the most relevant upcoming issues in the social economy sphere.	ENG
Social entrepreneurship podcasts	Podcasts	List of podcast for (aspiring) social entrepreneurs.	ENG
Stuck in the gig economy? Try platform co-ops instead	TED Talk	The "platform cooperative” is a new way to create democratic companies of empowered workers -- and develop a better, fairer alternative to the gig economy.	ENG
Post-crash, investing in a better world	TED Talk	Instead of sending bailout money to doomed old industries, why not use stimulus funds to bootstrap some new, socially responsible companies -- and make the world a little bit better?	ENG
GATES	Gaming approach	Building skills for social entrepreneurship. Game-based training to answer the disruptive shift that will reshape the youth workforce landscape	ENG
Attiviamo energie positive	Laboratories, conferences and podcast	Attiviamo Energie Positive: corsi, incontri, laboratori e spazi di co-progettazione.	ITA
Social enterprises case studies (USA)	Case studies	Free cases on nonprofit governance and other social enterprises’ cases	ENG
Social enterprises case studies (UK)	Case studies	Social enterprises operate in nearly every sector from consumer goods to community energy projects, health and social care to the creative industries	ENG
Manual of Social Entrepreneurship	Success stories	This manual will contain the results of the comparative study in Europe on success stories of social entreprises with a significant social impact on the territories in which they operate.	ENG
Athena courses on social entrepreneurship and social innovation	Online courses and tools	Athena e-learning platform is powered by the participation in a large number of European projects of non-formal education. One of its main goals is the fulfillment of the educational and training needs of individuals and groups.	ENG
EMES Network publications	Publications	EMES is a research network of established university research centres and individual researchers whose goal has been so far to gradually build up an international corpus of theoretical and empirical knowledge, pluralistic in disciplines and methodologies, around our “SE” concepts: social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, social economy, solidarity economy and social innovation.	ENG
Board Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility	Paper	This study examines the impact of board diversity on firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Using seven different measures of board diversity across 1,489 U.S. firms from 1999 to 2011, the study finds that board diversity is positively associated with CSR performance.	ENG
Blue Ocean Strategy	Tools and cases	The market universe is composed of two types of oceans: red oceans and blue oceans. Learn what separates them and why understanding the difference can transform your organization.	ENG
Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation in Predicting Social Entrepreneurial Intentions	Paper	The aim of this research study to identify the role of empathy, moral judgement and social entrepreneurial education in predicting social entrepreneurial intention.	ENG
Exploring Opportunities for social impact and social innovation through PPPs	Podcast	Lakshmi Iyer describes how philanthropy and corporations can be viewed skeptically and are often misunderstood by social work and explains how for-profit organizations can help solve social issues and create an impact through collaborative partnerships	ENG
What is social infrastructure and how do PPP works?	Podcast	This podcast explains what a social infrastructure project is and how PPP works and why a municipality adopts PPP for its projects.	ENG
Risk governance in PPPs	Paper	This article provides an overview of current risk management and good governance barriers in PPPs, in an effort to strengthen the relationship between best practice and risk management, thereby increasing the performance of long-term PPP contracts.	ENG
Putting the NP in PPP	Paper	Nonprofits of this kind provide a “third space” in which PPPs can be formed, implemented, and sustained; they may also serve as value guardians of the PPP process. This article describes the essential but little credited role of nonprofit organizations in PPPs in the city of Cleveland, Ohio.	ENG
PPP and network governance	Paper	This article examines public-private partnership in light of the New Public Management and New Public Governance, showing the effect of the overlap and mix of elements generated by these paradigms.	ENG
Marketing and SE: implications for social marketing	Paper	This study exposes the challenges social enterprises face in developing strategic marketing activities that address business needs, while balancing stakeholder interests linked to the social missions of such organizations.	ENG
Marketing social missions - adopting social marketing for social entrepreneurship?	Paper	The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper conceptual understanding of how social marketing may be of use to social entrepreneurial organizations. The research reports on a case analysis of One Drop and its Aqua expo and the utilization of social marketing in pursuit of its goal to achieve water conservation in the Northern Hemisphere.	ENG
Social enterprises, marketing and sustainable public service provision	Paper	The article commences by exploring the current knowledge about the role of SEs as public service providers in the UK and about marketing as an explicit activity within them. It also examines the dimensions and challenges of sustainability in this context.	ENG
Recover & Rebuild – Impact measurement	Webinar	Sue Osborne shares how to use evaluation tools and methodologies to support effective decision making and planning, provide insights for marketing and data to funders.	ENG
The impact podcast	Podcast	Host Neetal Parekh explores social innovation through interviews with social entrepreneurs, impact investors, filmmakers, attorneys and professors. Discussions range from business to tech, from law to the media, all centered around the common theme of social impact.	ENG
The SIMPLE methodology	Paper	The paper presents a holistic impact measurement model for SEs, called social impact for local economies (SIMPLEs). The impact model offers a five‐step approach to impact measurement. These steps help SE managers to conceptualise the impact problem; identify and prioritise impacts for measurement; develop appropriate impact measures; report impacts and embed the results in management decision making.	ENG
Developing a social enterprise idea	Website	In this web site you’ll find all the steps to start and improve a social enterprise.	ENG
The social enterprise podcast	Podcast	In this podcast, Rupert Scofield explores the challenges of starting, building and running a social enterprise. Guests include other social entrepreneurs and impact investors who share their insights and experience.	ENG
Social Enterprise, Accountability and Social Accounting	Paper	Current social accounting measures are not adequate and need to support a more ethical approach towards social and ecological matters within business. Social accounting research shows that the current measures for accounting for sustainability build on the basis of the profit-maximising principle and therefore need to be profoundly rethought.	ENG
Corporate social responsibility and accountability: a new theoretical foundation for regulating CSR	Paper	This paper theorises the conceptual underpinnings of responsibility and its relationship with accountability to develop a formal model to underscore the nexus between CSR and corporate accountability while providing a novel theoretical foundation for regulating CSR.	ENG
Guide (Odhgos) KALO	Guidebook	This guidebook addresses SSE and the role of local authorities using historical overview and examples from around the world, and touches also on social innovation and assessment of social impact. It is in Greek	GR
THE RURAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GUIDEBOOK OF GOOD PRACTICE (ViseNET ERASMUS project)	Guidebook	This guidebook offers materials to help solve these problems, covering everything from how to identify your communities needs to how to practically set up and manage a social enterprise in a rural context.. Includes also several case studies as success stories.	ENG
Social start-up toolkit	Toolkit		ENG
The governance of hybrid organisations.	Paper	This paper discusses the challenges of SE to manage their social goals and commercial pressures and suggests how best to adapt governance to deal with this.	ENG
Social Enterprise - The Shaping of a New Concept in a Comparative Regional Perspective	Paper	The objective of this paper is to deepen the debate between the US and Europe on the the three terminological flags of social enterprise, social entrepreneurship and social entrepreneur in their respective contexts as well as the distinct developments they now tend to experience.	ENG
Cracking the organizational challenge of pursuing joint social and financial goals - Social enterprise as a laboratory to understand hybrid organizing	Paper	This paper seeks to answer the question if social enterprises can really sustain the joint pursuit of social and financial goals over time and how, so to provide a better understanding of the challenges that social enterprises face and how they can overcome them. In addition, this research is important for organizations pursuing social and financial goals more broadly — particularly as consumers, not-for-profit organizations and governments are increasingly asking companies to deliver social value in addition to profit.	ENG
Effective Management of Social Enterprises	Book	Lessons from Businesses and Civil Society Organizations. Research on 40 enterprises, half of them businesses and half nonprofits, all considered by their peers to be high performers in the social enterprise arena.	ENG
A study on issues related to establishment and management of social enterprise	Paper	The article aims at identifying and addressing some important areas a social enterprise faces, like establishment, credibility, sustainability, management and developing management framework	ENG
Social entrepreneurship self-assessment	Online platform/tool	The tool allows to assess whether current policies and programmes enable and support social enterprises to start-up and scale-up. The assessment includes seven modules with thought-provoking question statements, covering different action areas within the social entrepreneurship ecosystem.	ENG
OECD (2021), Social impact measurement for the Social and Solidarity Economy	Paper	After discussing the origins and drivers of social impact measurement, this paper examines existing methodologies developed at the local, national and international level and finally reviews how these are being implemented in the social and solidarity economy.	ENG
Social and Solidarity Economy	Video	Video delineating the seven principles’ guiding SSE initiatives	ENG
The Rise of Social Enterprises and the Social Entrepreneurs	Video	This video explains about The Rise of Social Enterprises and the Social Entrepreneurs to help you understand the meaning and impacts of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneur in the society.	ENG
Solidarity Economy in Barcelona	Documentary	Catalonia has been historically a fertile land of the co-operative movement and now is one of world's leading regions in terms of solidarity economy which is in close touch with different social movements.  This documentary highlights a number of such initiatives in Barcelona, such as healthcare, housing, incubator, bar, finance and culture, as well as XES (Catalan Solidarity Economy Network) which links such experiences.	ENG
Ajuntament de Barcelona, (2017), The Impetus Plan for Social and Solidarity Economy, 2016-2019	Presentation	This toolkit is a comprehensive guide for entrepreneurs looking to establish social start-ups. It covers the key aspects of planning, launching, and managing a successful social enterprise, providing valuable insights, best practices, and tools to help founders navigate the unique challenges of the social sector.	ENG
Poirier, Y. (2016). Legal and political recognition of social solidarity economy (SEE). An overview on SSE public policies and guidelines, RIPESS, pp. 1-12	Report	The UNRISD Flagship Report 2016 focuses on the role of public policy in fostering the growth and development of the social solidarity economy (SSE). It highlights the importance of supportive legal frameworks, financial resources, and inclusive partnerships to create an enabling environment for SSE initiatives.	ENG
U.N.R.I.S.D., (2016). «Promoting Social Solidarity Economy through Public Policy» in UNRISD Flagship Report 2016	Report	This RIPESS report by Yvon Poirier provides an overview of public policies and guidelines related to the social solidarity economy. It explores the ways in which governments can recognize and support SSE initiatives, as well as the challenges and opportunities for policy development.	ENG
Dinerstein, A. C. (2017). Co-construction or prefiguration? The problem of the ‘translation’ of social and solidarity economy practices into policy (σελ. 57-71). In: North, P. Scott Cato, M. (Εds.). Towards Just and Sustainable Economies. . Bristol, U. K.: Policy Press, University of Bristol	Paper	The Impetus Plan for Social and Solidarity Economy, 2016-2019 (Presentation, ENG): This presentation outlines Barcelona's Impetus Plan for the Social and Solidarity Economy, a strategic initiative designed to promote the growth and consolidation of SSE organizations within the city. The plan highlights key actions and objectives, including the creation of a supportive ecosystem, capacity building, and resource allocation.	ENG