Social Enterprises Management

<< Background >>The goal of Social Enterprises (SE) is to achieve economic equilibrium utilizing the successful combination of many sources of financing. The nature of SEs, marrying social, environmental and financial objectives, requires specific capabilities to balance these different objectives. Support for SEs needs to be tailored to their specific needs, helping them to articulate strategies for growth that are congruent with their mission and values. A difficulty in attracting talent thus contributes to a lack of professional management structure and business skills, Iow involvement in international business and collaborative networks. The Impact Hub identified SEs needs: strong access to supportive networks, community connections, knowledge and skills training, inc.lessons learned, best practices and trends, resources and finance. Needs after COVID-19 have been heightened and include help with optimizing and pivoting business models, access to financing and covid related public health issues. The most important challenges facing contemporary SEs are: demographic changes, migration, climate change and regional development, marginalization of ethnic groups etc. More than ever SEs are finding it necessary to adopt a global mindset.<< Objectives >>The objectives of SENIMA relate directly to the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action plan; “Action Pillar 1 - Entrepreneurial education and training to support growth and business creation” and “Action Pillar 2 - creating the right business environment”. SENIMA aimed to integrate the principles of Social Enterprising and Entrepreneurship in order to facilitate the creation of more social enterprises, more entrepreneurs and a better European society. Specifically, SENIMA objectives are: 1. Promote social entrepreneurship, 2. Better equip social enterprises’ participants with the skills and tools to enhance their business case. 3. Provide the necessary skills and tools for new entrepreneurs in SEs, SMEs and Start-ups to facilitate growth. 4. Develop a hands-on financial management guide. 5. Educate SEs about the benefits of governance. 6. Present the various Social Enterprises’ models and legal forms 7. Promote social innovation though the better understanding of the SEs’ sector. 8. Facilitate networking and the sharing of knowledge. 9. Develop a platform to support e- learning 10. Develop a Toolkit and applied-case study scenarios. 11. Develop a certification. 12. Provide access for the exchange of practices and knowledge. << Implementation >>The SENIMA project duration was 24 months and the implementation was as follows: 1. Initiation Stage, referred to the activities that have been undertaken during the development of the proposal. It consisted of the determination of the project objectives, assessment of project feasibility and identification of the deliverables as well as project stakeholders 2. Planning stage, referred to the milestones of the project management and procedure defined: Project tasks were broken down into smaller tasks, teams were built, schedules of completion were assigned. Specifically: Project Management Pl., Risk Management Pl., Project Work Pl., Dissemination Pl., Quality Pl., 3. Execution phase, the longest phase where the plan is turned into action. It relies on the planning phase. The methodology applied was based on the Plan-Do-Check- Cycle (PDCA) 4. Closure phase, involve project closure activities including final reporting, and guaranteeing post project developments and actions. The last stage was performing targeted dissemination via organizing national promotional events in each partner country and the final conference in Poland; planning of resources and actions to ensure sustainability of the project results after its completion.<< Results >>The SENIMA concrete outputs/results were the following: A. PR1 : SENIMA Syllabus, a training syllabus was developed comprising four modules. Module 1: Social Enterprises’ business models and legal forms. Module 2: Innovation in the Social Sector - Methods and ways to improve and apply innovation Module 3: Financial Management for Social Enterprises where useful Module 4: Governance and Social Enterprises. B. PR2: SENIMA e-platform. An e-platform was developed to enhance the learning process integrating the syllabus with tools and other resources to enhance the learning process. C. PR3: SENIMA Toolkit and Applied case study. A Toolkit is a collection of authoritative and adaptable resources and applied-case learning offers users the opportunity to acquire skills and knowledge directly from applied-case scenarios. D. PR4: SENIMA Certification The program offered participants the opportunity to obtain the “SENIMA certification” following examination on the learning areas of the program. SENIMA Dissemination Plan (SDP): To promote and display Project Results. Additionally, 5 Multiplier events were organised, one in each participating country which promoted project results as well as 5 Transnational meetings.