The Social Enterprise
A Social Enterprise Promotes the Common Good
A social enterprise promotes the common good, not its own interests, and acts according to objective principles of efficiency. It can be considered successful, then, if it reaches its expressed goals in a way that is sustainable and optimizes the social benefit.
The social enterprise is, first of all, a non-profit organization which works for the common good and not its own particular interests. The non-profit organization, however, becomes a social enterprise when it consciously strives for an optimization of social benefit in all its philanthropic activities. The specific characteristic of a social enterprise is accordingly the idea of social benefit, that is, an improvement in the situation of its beneficiaries aimed for by and directly ascribable to the social project. This too holds for the social enterprise: the more efficiently a social enterprise functions, the better it attains its ends and the easier it earns the trust of future donors. A social enterprise is always concerned with an optimization of social benefit, and in a way that places individual persons, their needs and their rights at the center of its activity.
Social Benefit - Social Enterprise, Juan J. Alarcon, Annual Report 1999, Limmat Siftung, Juni 2000.
The goal of the social enterprise is the optimisation of the social benefit generated through its social projects.
Priorities and Optimization in Development Cooperation, Juan J. Alarcon - Editorial Annual Report 1994, Limmat Siftung, June 1995.
A social enterprise is an non-profit organisation which promotes the common good, without pursuing its own interests, acting according to principles of efficiency.
