About Social Enterprise project

With the aim of promoting the concept of social entrepreneurship across Serbia, we have started the Social Enterprise project.

As part of this project, in partnership with the Young With Disabilities Forum, we are currently running a programme that consists of training for development of social enterprise business plans - Think Social. Act Business. Find out more about this programme.

Who is a Social Entrepreneur?

Social Enterprise is defined as ‘a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community’. In simpler language that means it is:

			business
			has social objectives
			the profits are used to support the social or environmental cause

Social entrepreneurs offer innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. The social purpose of what they do is central to their business.

The strength of Social Entrepreneurship

Social Enterprise encourages positive social change and social inclusion. It supports civil society, the economic empowerment of disadvantaged groups and environmental and economic development. It enables communities to take responsibility for themselves.

Social Entrepreneurs challenge and help government to improve the way public services are designed and delivered. They can also raise standards for ethical business and corporate social responsibility.

Social Entrepreneurs prove that social and environmental responsibility can be combined with financial success. Social enterprises account for 5% of all businesses with employees and contribute over £8 billion per year to the UK economy - around 1% of annual GDP.

The project in South East Europe has four core elements:

			raising awareness of the benefits which Social Enterprise offers to individuals, communities, business and government and providing information and practical advice
			developing and implementing learning, training and mentoring programmes and awards schemes based on UK and international experiences in social enterprise development
			supporting start-ups by developing social venture funds with partners
			creating opportunities for international and partnering social enterprises government institutions and communities in the UK with their counterparts in South East Europe to develop and share new approaches to address social, economic and environmental problems through social enterprise.

Social Enterprise project will provide an international learning and networking programme by reaching over 100,000 people, 1,000 communities and 500 institutions across the UK and worldwide.

If you want to know more about this project, please contact Mirjana Nikolić in our office in Belgrade.