The Social Enterprise Monitor 2019 (English)

Characteristics social enterprises  

>  Social enterprises pursue different social missions. Increasing the participation of vulnerable groups in the labour market is the most mentioned mission (48%).

>  Substantial variation in revenue –  35% has an annual turnover of more than one million euros, 24% has a turnover of 100.000 euros per year.

>  ‘Collaborating with the municipality’ and ‘Classic entrepreneurial issues’ are the most important obstacles for growth.

>  Most social entrepreneurs start their enterprise because of their feeling of involvement with society.

>  Social enterprises are SME’s, relatively young and are mostly private companies.  
 

Entrepreneurship - finance, growth and customers

>  Most of the social enterprises are profitable (42%) and/or break-even  (22%) – mature social enterprises are more often profitable.

>  Social enterprises contribute annually to the growth the labour market (increased between 2018 and 2019 with an average of 14%).

>  Social enterprises are successful in attracting capital  (88% success rate) – most enterprises searched for grow capital (62%) and work capital (42%).

>  Multinationals are interested in the products and service of social enterprises: 29% of social enterprises have multinationals as their customers.

>  More than half of social enterprises is searching for an international market or has this ambition (32%, respectively 24%), with a focus on countries that are close to the Netherlands (Belgium, Germany, France, and Scandinavia).

Make, increase and measure impact

>  About three quarters of the social enterprises increase their impact by influencing others. They realise that they need other organisations to achieve their impact. 70% of the enterprises that do not do that yet, do have that ambition.

>  Collaboration with multinationals is seen as promising and positive: 44% of the social enterprises have a relationship with multinationals. Among the enterprises that do not have a collaboration yet, the ambition level is high.  

>  A large part of the social enterprises has executed an impact measurement in 2018 or intends to do this in 2019 (74%).

>  Social entrepreneurs are intrinsically motivated to measure their impact: 56% measures their impact, while none of their stakeholders asks for it.

>  54% indicates that stakeholders require an impact measurement, specifically  financiers and governments.

The government - from obstacle to partner

>  71% works together with the municipality. These social enterprises have a high appreciation for this collaboration (47% see this relationship as “good” or “very good”).

>  Although only few social enterprises are involved in government procurement processes (27%), there is a lot of ambition (48% of the enterprises that are not involved yet, would like to be involved).

>  There is a high ambition among the enterprises that do not have a collaboration with the municipality yet (61% would like such a collaboration).

>  Growing attention from municipalities for social entrepreneurship leads to purchasing of goods and services from social enterprises: 39% of the social enterprises have municipalities as their customer.