Social Enterprise: A Portrait of the Field

This recent report summarizes a recent survey of 740 organizations on the current state of the SE field in the US. This work was prepared by the Social Enterprise Alliance, in partnership with Community Wealth Ventures and Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship. REDF funded the survey.

Some interesting findings include:

• Top five SEs: education/training, retail/thrift stores, consulting services, food services/catering, arts ventures.
• Top five mission areas: workforce development, housing, community economic development, education, health.
• 87% of respondents currently operating an SE anticipate launching another one within three years.
• 60% operate their SEs as a division of a larger organization, with smaller percentages utilizing a for-profit (15%) or nonprofit subsidiary (8%), or a joint venture (5%).
• One third of the 400 respondents currently operating an SE had SE revenues above $1 million.
• Larger organizations generate more SE revenue, both in terms of dollars and percentages. For example, 42% of respondents with operating budgets greater than $10 million reported SE revenue of $5 million or more. In contrast, 43% with operating budgets below $1 million reported SE revenue of less than $100,000.
• Not surprisingly, 80% of SEs lack sufficient growth capital. More surprising: for SEs launched since 2000, individual donations were the second most cited capital source, after foundation grants. Less than 9% of the SEs mentioned debt or equity financing as a major source of start-up funds.
• Finally, in terms of biggest challenges, 27% mentioned sales and marketing, 23% financial issues, 14% human resources, and 12% operations.

All in all, this report provides some useful baseline measurements, along with six informative SE case studies worth reading. We hope efforts will be made to update this data regularly. Among things to watch: Will the new L3C and B-Corp organizational structures gain traction among SEs? Will equity and debt financing become more common for SEs as social capital markets expand?

Stay tuned!

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Rolfe Larson