Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social Enterprise Funding'

This bachelor thesis evaluates how high-engagement investors contribute to the development and growth of for-profit social enterprises by providing both funding and non-financial advisory services focused on organisational capacity-building. Case studies on three social enterprises describe the structure of funding deals, what considerations affected these due to the high social character of the ventures, and inquire into the relationship between social enterprise and their investors to evaluate how the investors provide value for their investees beyond capital. The investor types involved include commercial venture capital funds, angel investors, accelerator programs and venture philanthropy funds; a sort of social impact investment fund which combines the high- engagement mentoring of venture capital funds with lower expectations on financial returns in exchange for higher demands on social impact. The findings indicate that high-engagement investors in general provide a wide range of services to the social enterprises studied, where strategic advisory services and networks introductions are identified as key enablers for development. Aligning philosophies on the combination of business and social impact is also identified as critical for a constructive relationship between investor and investee. The perceived value of venture philanthropy funding diverges between the cases; while filling an empty space in the social enterprise capital market, some findings question their capabilities and investment model. Apart from the initial research questions on how high-engagement investors add value to social enterprises, the study raises further questions on social enterprise funding in general and the issues that obstructs these organisations from introducing innovation and growth to underdeveloped markets.

Many leaders of nonprofit organizations are challenged by limited and declining financial resources from government grants, while being asked by funders and their constituent base to provide better quality services to a larger population. Nonprofit leaders are exploring strategies to reduce their reliance on government grants by diversifying and growing alternative funding sources. The purpose of this single case study was to explore, through the conceptual lens of the balanced scorecard theory, strategies used by 4 leaders of a nonprofit organization in southern California who have experience managing and growing alternative revenue sources by creating a social enterprise. Semistructured interviews were used to collect data and organizational documents were reviewed. The data were manually coded, and mind mapping was used to identify common themes. Thematic data analysis showed 5 themes: lack of a systematic approach to processes, lack of defined SMART processes, lack of integrating results into the organization's key performance indicators (KPI), lack of defined measurable goals and objectives related to the KPIs in the business models of these organizations, and lack of defined sustainability plan. Nonprofit leaders may benefit from a systematic strategic approach to guide their organization. Nonprofit leaders need to understand how these systematic strategic approaches may impact their organization and how to integrate such opportunities into their organization. The implications for positive social change include the potential to fulfill the missions, strengthen the overall funding sources, and serve the local communities of nonprofit organizations by learning how to use the strategic planning processes.

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Empresas e organizações sociais têm um papel cada vez mais importante no mercado brasileiro. Essas organizações - sejam elas com ou sem fins lucrativos –têm como objetivocausar um profundo e positivo impacto social.Ambas enfrentamtambém o mesmo desafio: financiar as suas operações. Recentemente, dois modelos inovadores de financiamento, o fundo de venture capitalVox Capital e o fundo de empréstimo social SITAWI, entraram no mercado brasileiro para solucionar esse desafio. Este estudo analisa ambos os fundos,associando o problema do financiamento de empresas e organizações sociais às teorias tradicionais de negócio. Mais especificamente, por meio de um estudo de caso,é avaliado se o risco de agência (agency risk) explica as práticas e o designcontratual utilizados pelos fundos. A pesquisa é baseada num estudo de Alemany e Scarlata (2010) sobre a estruturação dos negócios de fundos filantrópicos de capital empreendedor (PhVC, na sigla em inglês) na América do Norte e na Europa. Uma definição chave desse estudo é que organizações sem fins lucrativos, ao contrário daquelas com fins lucrativos, estão sujeitas a uma restrição de distribuição de lucros. Embora Alemany e Scarlata (2010) tivessem descobertoque parceria (stewardship), mais do que o problema de agência (agency problem), explica a estrutura dos negócios dos fundos PhVC, as implicações do presente estudo de caso para o Brasil são diferentes. Os resultados sugerem que o problema de agência,mais do que a parceria,descreve adequadamente os contratos analisados de financiamento. Detectou-seque cláusulas contratuais não foram apenas usadas para mitigar o risco de agênciaresultanteda ausência de uma restrição de distribuição de lucros, mas também para reger as estruturas cooperativas com organizações sem fins lucrativos. No caso de SITAWI, a restrição dos destinatários de fundos de distribuir lucros provou-se uma ferramenta efetiva para alinhar os interesses entre os financiadores e os destinatários dos fundos. Apesar daimplicação da presença de parceria, os contratos do fundo social contiveram cláusulas geralmente usadas para reduzir o risco de agência. No caso de Vox Capital, os destinatários dos fundos eram empresas com fins lucrativos, portanto não sujeitas à restrição de distribuição de lucros. O modelo de negócio de Vox Capital é organizado para impedir qualquer incidência potencial do problema de agência. Ambos os fundos, independentemente da estrutura jurídica dos beneficiários destes fundos, evidenciaram o intuito de garantir a aplicação de práticas de negócio utilizadas pelas empresas tradicionais do setor corporativo em vez daquelas utilizadas no setor social.

Funding strategy has often been the determinant factor in the level of success for social entrepreneurships. The strategy could be a preference for internally generated revenue, externally generated revenue or a combination of the two. Interestingly, scarcity of resources has always been ‘a clog in the wheel’ of meaningful execution of projects irrespective of the funding model a social entrepreneur chooses. Through a review of existing literatures, this paper weighs the implications of choosing either externally generated revenue or internally generated revenue; specifically contextualizing the study to US. More so, it attempts to find out which of the two models would ensure optimum productivity, given that scarcity of resources would hamper the chances of effectively running the two models simultaneously. To arrive at a ‘plausible’ response, principles of resource valuation become vital in determining the costs and benefits associated with each model of funding. Consequently, the findings show that though both internally and externally generated revenue are sine qua non to an effective and efficient production of social values, internally generated revenue ensures better optimum production than externally generated revenue.

Titel: Sociala företags finansieringsproblematik: En litteraturstudie om bidragande faktorer till finansieringsgapet mellan sociala företag och dess finansiärer. Författare: Jeanette Koznar, Håkan Lindgren och Sandra Nilsson Handledare: Anders Wrenne Institution: Managementhögskolan, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola   Kurs: Kandidatarbete i Företagsekonomi, 15 högskolepoäng Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att identifiera det befintliga kunskapsläget för hur fem utvalda faktorerna påverkar finansiärers benägenhet att investera i sociala företag, för att därefter urskönja mönster mellan dessa fem faktorerna och diskutera hur ett samspelande kan minska finansieringsgapet. Metod:  Vi valde att använda oss av en explorativ litteraturstudie som metod då denna karaktäriseras av att fördjupa förståelsen för ett forskningsproblem.   Slutsatser: Vi fann att genom att se sambanden mellan de faktorer som påverkar finansieringsgapet, mellan sociala företag och finansiärer, kan flera faktorers inverkan på finansieringsgapet minskas framförallt genom att attackera en av dessa faktorer: de organisatoriska färdigheterna.
Title: The financial problem for social enterprises: A literature review on contributing factors to the funding gap between social enterprises and its financiers. Authors: Jeanette Koznar, Håkan Lindgren och Sandra Nilsson Supervisor: Anders Wrenne Department: School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology  Course: Bachelor’s thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to identify the existing level of knowledge for how the five specifically chosen factors affect financiers' propensity to invest in social enterprises, and descry patterns between these five factors and discuss how an interaction between them can reduce the funding gap.   Method: We chose an exploratory literature review as a method to conduct this study based on that it is characterized by further deepening the understandings of a specific research problem.   Results: We found that by investigating the connection between the factors that contribute to the funding gap between social enterprises and financiers, the impact on the funding gap can be reduced primarily by attacking one of these factors: the organizational skills.

Title: How Do Social Enterprises Access Funding? RAPATAC In Gävle Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Peiying Kuang and Zhonglv Song Supervisor: Dr. Maria Fregidou-Malama Examiner: Jonas Kågström  Date: 2013 May Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence social enterprises to access funding. Method: This study has chosen a social enterprise as a single case study. We design the questions and collect the data based on five assessment factors from both the social enterprise and funders’ perspective. We use interview and questionnaires to investigate whether these five assessment factors influence funders’ decision.      Result and Conclusions: In our study, we found that five assessment factors could influence the funders’ decision. Social mission and the qualities of the leader are crucial factors influencing funding decisions. The performance of SE, financing sustainability and communication transparence influence social enterprise to maintain a long-term relationship with funders.  Suggestion for further studies: This investigation based on a single case study in Gavle, and we have collected data from a limited number of responders. Thus, we suggest using multiple case studies and collecting data from more responders. The further study should not be limited to one city. Contribution of the thesis: Our theoretical contribution is providing a model to complete theory. This model includes five factors which affecting funding of social enterprise. In managerial aspect, both current and potential social entrepreneurs can refer to these five assessment factors to improve their competence to attract funders. For the societal implication, this study shows the value and challenge of social enterprise to people and government, which enhance the public recognition of the social enterprise. Key words: Funders, social mission, qualities of leader, performance of SE, financing sustainability, communication transparence.

Social entrepreneurship and related concepts have received an increasing amount of attention during the last years. Social entrepreneurship is characterized by ventures with a social mission, seeking to address societal challenges and needs. The social goal is the primary goal of the business activities whereas generating economic profit is not the main objective, yet still possible. Social entrepreneurship is often seen as a powerful tool for creating sustainable development, a fundamental goal of many businesses, countries and organizations today. Just like any other firm, social entrepreneurs need finance in order to exist. This thesis seeks to examine how Swedish social entrepreneurs finance their businesses. A questionnaire was sent out to Swedish social entrepreneurs and the results suggest that Swedish social entrepreneurs to a large extent rely on governmental funds and support, personal resources and internally generated capital. Access to the traditional banking system seems to be limited compared to traditional entrepreneurs. There seems to be a gap between the demand and supply of external capital since the majority of the respondents believe that they have a limited access to external capital. 60 per cent of the respondents reported a positive economic result in the last fiscal year. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents want to expand their businesses in the future but the largest obstacles seem to be lack of financing and political aspects. The respondents hope for, among other things, an improved attitude towards social entrepreneurship in general, more financing and increased collaboration with Swedish municipalities. Altogether the results highlight the role of the government in supporting and promoting this type of firms in Sweden.

Aim: There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of Social Enterprises (SE) to improve the welfare of society. Few empirical studies have attempted to investigate what are the challenges SEs face and how they manage them. A number of researchers have reported that SEs often have a negative connotation. The aim of this study is to investigate challenges social enterprises face in Sweden.Method: The study adopted a Qualitative approach. Primary data is gathered by interviewing 10 managers of social enterprise from 5 different SEs in Sweden. The interview was made in three different locations, Gävle, Uppsala and Tierp. De-coding the qualitative research data through content analysis, an interpretive analysis was used classifying the data concerning responses by highlighting important messages.Findings and Conclusion: SEs face diverse challenges: Funding, Public Image, Sales, Network and Cooperation, Governance/Structure, Leadership and Management. One of the more significant finding to emerge from this study is that, the foundations-access to finance is one of the critical challenges on which the fate of each SE depends. Most of the times, societies do not acknowledge the role of social enterprises and the values they bring to the society. From this, SEs cannot attract support of any kind. SEs lack the understanding and significance of marketing. Making people understanding SEs’s role, would provide them with a positive public image and thereafter support.Suggestions for future research: The study has a small sample size and results cannot be generalizable. A natural progression of this work is to analyse: Challenges on SEs with focus on Society, The impact of Society on SEs, Public identity of SEs and importance of Society.Contribution of the thesis: Dependency on fundraising, grants and donations are heavily connected with widespread lack of understanding the impact of SEs on society. SEs managers should apply different marketing tactics to communicate their role in welfare of the community.

La tesis consta de tres partes. La primera se inicia partiendo de una visión global del sector financiero de la economia y en ella se estudia la evolución de que el mismo ha sido objeto para centrar nuestro tema de estudio: los mercados de valores en general y los "segundos mercados" en particular. Con la iniciativa de su creación se consigue el eslabón necesario para disponer de un sistema financiero capaz de responder adecuadamente a todas las necesidades sentidas de manera eficiente y sin incurrir en agravios comparativos. En España, también se han organizado este tipo de mercados, pero la experiencia demuestra que, hoy por hoy, no son excesivamente exitosos. Para averiguar las causas de esta situación, la segunda parte de la tesis aborda un estudio empírico realizado en base a una población de empresas de tamaño diverso ubicadas en Cataluña cuyo denominador común es la no participación en el mercado de valores y además en base a aquellas empresas que ya están cotizando en el segundo mercado de valores de la Bolsa de Barcelona, sin restricciones de territorialidad; los resultados obtenidos dan paso a la tercera parte del estudios y demuestran que, en primer lugar, no se conoce suficientemente bien el mercado de valores; en consecuencia, existe cierto recelo por parte de las empresas en valorar sus ventajas, y en segundo lugar, el "segundo mercado" es un perfecto desconocido, no tanto para los expertos financieros, pero sí para los potenciales inversores. Por todo ello se sugiere una campaña de información y realizar algunos ajustes de tipo fiscal que permitan potenciar su ulterior desarrollo.

Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon of increasing economic and cultural importance. A key challenge for social enterprises is resource acquisition. However, how social entrepreneurs acquire the resources needed to grow their ventures is not clear. Moreover, social enterprises differ from traditional ventures in several key ways which suggest that research developed from studying traditional entrepreneurs does not fully apply to social entrepreneurs. The focus of this dissertation is how social entrepreneurs use narratives to gather resources. This topic is examined using a multi-study, inductive, theory-building design based on 121 interviews, observation, and archival data. In Study 1, I interview 75 entrepreneurs, investors, and ancillary participants in the social enterprise sector. In Study 2, I construct case studies of eight technology-focused social ventures. The result is a framework explaining how differences in entrepreneurs' narrative tactics and characteristics are associated with differences in their resource acquisition success. Specifically, from Study 1 I develop a typology of social enterprise narratives, identify three narrative-types (personal, social-good, and business), and show that they possess unique elements. Findings from Study 2 demonstrate that the three narrative-types serve as the building blocks for communication with external stakeholders, particularly investors and the media. I find that successful social entrepreneurs used narratives to engage in two tactics -- tailoring and linking -- and constructed narratives with a unique characteristic: multiplexity. These findings contribute to three literatures that formed the basis of the study -- social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial resource acquisition, and organizational narrative theory -- and have implications for work on competing institutional logics and emotion in stakeholder evaluations.
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Dissertation is concerned on sustainability of social enterprise, which has started its business thanks to EU funding during the period 2007 - 2013. Social enterprises as social economy subjects make up an important part of national economy and extend possibilities to obtain financial sources for nonprofit operation. EU funding reflects the importance of social enterprises in promoting level of employment. The aim of the research is to get a complex description of surveyed case with a special emphasis on social and financial sustainability in the the situation after project's completion date. Sustainability of the social enterprise is described with help of The SEED Initiative approach. The SEED Initiative has defined success factors and key indicators of performance of social enterprise sustainability. Dissertation is conceived as a single case study.

Thesis focus on funding possibilities of social enterprises in Czech Republic, different ways of funding from various sources and the ability of enterprises to reach these resources. Work has theoretical and empirical character. The theoretical part comes with overview of the history of social enterprises in Europe and in the Czech Republic, their development and legislative framework. Part of the work is devoted to theories of civic sector organizations, on the basis of which I am trying to point out the factors that might have an impact on financing social enterprises. Social enterprises tend to have other sources of funding than those that are available for commercial business. In connection with these sources, the common term to describe it, is multi-source or hybrid financing. Empirical part is preceded by an analysis of hybrid financial instruments that are available in the Czech Republic and which are designed specifically for social enterprises. Empirical part is composed of analysis of financial reports from selected social enterprises and demonstrates the true structure of financial resources for the studied period. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This diploma thesis is focused on the contribution and importance of financial resources of social entrepreneurship for nonprofit organizations. The main goal is to analyze the evolution of nonprofit organization's funding from Czech public funds and to identify benefits and importance of financial resources of social entrepreneurship for nonprofit organizations. The theoretical part brings description of financial resources for nonprofit organizations and explanation of social entrepreneurship concept and social enterprise definition. The research of diploma thesis brings the analysis of evolution of nonprofit organization's funding from Czech public funds from 1999 to 2009 and the identification of benefits, importance and share of financial resources of social entrepreneurship in specific nonprofit organization - Domov Sue Ryder, o.p.s. The identification of benefits and importance of financial resources of social entrepreneurship is based on the analysis of evolution of sources, costs and own revenues (sources) from 2001 to 2010 in selected nonprofit organization. The output of this diploma thesis is the evaluation of benefits and importance of financial resources of social entrepreneurship for nonprofit organizations.

SYNOPSIS This thesis covers partial universe of civic society organizations that provide social services in Pardubice region. The primary goal of the thesis is to explore, through a questionnaire research, whether the income generated by these organizations is a determining factor in their association with the concept of social economy and social enterprise. The secondary goal is to identify, using semi-structured interviews with the representatives of civic society organizations, how they fulfill principles of social enterprise based to the "softer definition" developed by EMES. The first two chapters introduce concepts of public sector and social economy as well as identify their similarities and differences. It is followed by a description of social services and support of civic society organizations from the view point of several parties. The third chapter is dedicated to the actual research.

The European Union has been increasingly investing in innovation, through the allocation of grants to SME’s and Startups with new and social impactful business ideas. This paper aims to assess the financial impact of the SME Instrument(SMEI) grant in its recipients, whenthe EU is discussing the transitionfromthe SMEI tothe “Accelerator”, under the new Horizon Europe. The effects of the SMEI were found statisticallysignificantin the volume of Assets and number of Employees, when compared to the control group, while no evidence was found ofthe effect ofthis grant on theperformanceofP&Land Revenues. Additionally, moreasset intense industrieswere found to tend to be more impacted by the grant than themoreintense onesand there was nostrong relation foundbetween the propensity of private investors to invest in a specific industry and the impact of the grant in that industry.

The purpose of the study is to determine the effectiveness of the interventions used by the South African Breweries (SAB) KickStart Programme to establish and grow entrepreneurial small businesses among young South Africans. South Africa has an extremely high unemployment rate, low economic growth and a dismal Total (early-stage) Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). With regard to established businesses (older than three-and-a-half years), the GEM report of 2005 ranked South Africa the lowest of all the countries surveyed. The SAB KickStart Programme comprises five phases: an awareness campaign, recruitment and training, a business plan competition for grants, success enhancement and national awards. The following interventions form part of the programme: the General Enterprising Tendency (GET) test; two-week live-in business management training; funding and mentoring; and a national competition for prize money. At every stage, adjudication is based on business plans and presentations. The evaluation of the effectiveness of an existing entrepreneurship programme, the SAB KickStart Programme, has several advantages, in so far as it determines whether the programme does indeed attain its objectives, and could help to improve the structuring of such programmes for future use by other corporations in South Africa. The population for the study comprised all the participants of the SAB KickStart Programme, from 2001 to 2006. A questionnaire was developed and a response rate of 28.5% was realised. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to the turnover and percentage profit figures of respondents to investigate the significance of the type of SAB KickStart support afforded. The results were confirmed by the Bonferroni multiple comparison of means test. The deduction is that funding and mentoring, after training, adds value to the programme. Eighty per cent of the SAB KickStarters were still operating their initial businesses, which they owned when they started on the programme, while a further six per cent had started another business, hence a "failure" rate of only 14 per cent. Many other meaningful findings emerged. In conclusion, it can be said that the SAB KickStart Programme adds value and advances entrepreneurship, and could possibly be applied by other large institutions in South Africa In conclusion, it can be said that the SAB KickStart programme adds value and advances entrepreneurship, and can be elevated to other large institutions in South Africa.
Business Management
D.Comm. (Business Management)