note Note générale

Social Enterprise: A Tool for Social Development, unpublished working paper produced for the Institute of Management and Community Development

Introduction

This chapter deals with a subject that one of my former Native American students used to call "the cutting edge strategy" for social and economic development. The course that he was taking was Business Development. As part of the course requirements, each student had to prepare a business plan that specifically showed how a commercial or manufacturing venture was to attain social goals and community benefits while remaining financially solvent. This, in a nutshell, is basically what social enterprise development is all about: developing businesses that are not only economically viable but socially profitable as well.

This phenomenon is not new. At the very least, it dates back to the founding of the first co-operatives more than 150 years ago1. It could even be argued that trying to reconcile social and economic goals is what people such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx were seeking a century or two ago, even though they were searching in completely opposite directions. Smith and Marx, moreover, were primarily concerned with society as a whole and theirs was what could be called a “macro" perspective of economic development. On the other hand, developing social enterprises is much more a "micro" phenomenon, in the sense that it is concerned with the actual enterprises themselves and not necessarily the economic system within which they operate — although the economic system greatly influences their design and operations. In recent years, the expression "social enterprise" has gained favour in a number of industrialised countries such as Canada, the United States, Australia and those of Western Europe. This is because efforts to develop new ways of simultaneously providing needed goods and services, without losing money but while reducing unemployment or addressing issues related to poverty and well-being, have begun being documented2 and analysed3.

The purpose of this chapter is to help understand what makes social enterprise relevant for students, practitioners and policy makers in the field of social development. It is divided into three sections that attempt to answer key questions for using this model to achieve social goals: what is social enterprise development, why it is important, and what are some critical issues from a social development perspective? The third section also highlights the business planning process for those who may be contemplating trying out this strategy. This chapter concludes with some personal thoughts on the meaning of social enterprise development in a broader context of social change.