Why encourage social entrepreneurship
in homelessness?
Social enterprises are profit-making organisations which reinvest the majority of their profits for the benefit of their community to tackle social and environmental problems.
There are at least 55,000 social enterprises in the UK with a combined turnover of £27billion per year. They account for 5% of all businesses with employees and contribute £8.4billion per year to the UK economy - almost 1% of annual GDP.
Developing a business approach in organisations who are already working in the homelessness sector not only increases its capacity to deliver services, but it offers a long-term and sustainable way to address an immense problem.
Entrepreneurial business models enable organisations to receive a greater proportion of their total income from earned income – as opposed to grants or donations – and gives them greater control in planning the sustainable delivery of their services. Making a profit releases charities from the grant trap that perpetuates dependence and gives them greater freedom about how their money is spent.
The adoption of this ‘enterprise’ approach has also been proven to create employment, to broaden training and development opportunities and to build the self-esteem of people working in social enterprises. The Big Issue and The TREES Group - founding partners in Spark – are two of the leading examples of this approach in the UK.
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