There is no consensus on a definition for a social enterprise. However, in general social enterprises are organisations that centre themselves around a social mission and use commerce as tool to maximize sustainability and impact.
While some programs run by Pro Sport Development (PSD) are funded through grants, others are facilitated through professional contracts. Since 2013, PSD has reinvested all its surplus funds into our initiatives to advance our goal of utilizing sport to aid in the holistic development of children and youth.
We believe that limiting our funding avenues restricts the impact, flexibility and sustainability of our programs, which hinders the fulfillment of our mission. We feel that as a social enterprise we can aid the holistic development of children and youth more effectively and sustainably.
A charity solely relies on funding from individuals or institutional donors to implement programs, whereas social enterprises can sell goods and services in addition to receiving donations.
While a social enterprise's primary purpose is its social mission, and any profits made are recycled back into that mission, an ethical business' primary purpose is generating profits for its owners or shareholders, even if it takes an ethical approach to generating those profits.
Common characteristics of social enterprises are that they:
- Have a clear social and/or environmental mission for their organisation to pursue.
- Generate their income through a mix of donations, grants and sale of products/ services.
- Reinvest their profits to further their social and/or environmental mission.
- Be autonomous of any government.
- Be run to maximize the interests of the social mission.
- Be accountable and transparent.
+ https://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/Pages/FAQs/Category/FAQs
While the origins of social enterprises can be traced back to worker's cooperatives that were set up in Europe in the 19th Century in response to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, the term social enterprise only entered common use in the 1990s as a way to group together co-operatives, community-owned enterprises and social businesses.
