Social Enterprise Background

What is social enterprise?

Parramatta City Council's definition of social enterprise is a 'social business' that has the following characteristics:

• Social, environmental, cultural mission / objectives core to purpose and focus
• Limited distributions of profits – the majority of profits are reinvested in the enterprise and/or an associated social entity
• Mixture of capital inputs – the enterprise is supported through a mixture of grant income/subsidised income and trading income, but must trade
• Generation of a social return in addition to a financial return, and commitment to demonstrating this
• Favour democratic decision-making structures and seek high levels of accountability to their stakeholders, rather than just to shareholders

Social enterprises often have missions that relate to one or more of the following:

• Providing a service or product that addresses an identified social, environmental or cultural need that is not being met by the commercial market
• Creating or sustaining real employment opportunities for people with complex barriers to workforce participation
• Developing income streams that allow Not-for-profit organisations to become self-sustaining and independent over time.

PCC’s Social Enterprise program

Under its Parramatta Twenty25 strategic plan PCC has committed to working towards seven key destinations over the coming twenty years. The strategic plan is based on triple bottom line principles and therefore provides strategies designed to positively impact the wellbeing of Parramatta’s communities and environment. The innovative responses to service delivery and social and environmental issues that social enterprises are known to generate are likely to provide unique opportunities that work towards the Parramatta Twenty25 objectives.

PCC’s social enterprise program sits within the Community Capacity Building team, which is one of four units within the Community Library & Social Services Unit (CLASS).

Social enterprise is a key strategy area for the community capacity building program as it has been identified as a vehicle for delivering on its objectives, particularly in relation to increasing economic participation opportunities for marginalised individuals across the LGA. In addition to this primary objective, as demonstrated overseas, social enterprise initiatives also often generate social and environmental innovations.

The social enterprise program aims to ….”make a positive contribution towards improving social wellbeing”. It does this through…..”attracting, incubating and growing social enterprise opportunities to increase local sustainable employment opportunities and pathways for those experiencing social exclusion across the LGA”.

The five key strategy areas that have been developed for the social enterprise program provide the required ‘best-fit’ for a local government oriented program and also support the community capacity building strategies of the program that it sits within.

The social enterprise section organised under these headings:

• Social entrepreneur and social enterprise identification and development
• Mentoring and other business support for local social enterprises
• Seed funding local social enterprise development
• Maximising social enterprise opportunities arising from PCC procurement and assets usage
• Impact measurement and analysis

A strategic approach to the nurturing of social enterprises will deliver employment and economic participation outcomes for local individuals who face complex and often multi-faceted barriers to securing sustainable employment opportunities. Ultimately, economic participation amongst these groups should increase, and also be underpinned by more equitable access to the economic opportunities that Parramatta has to offer its residents. This will assist with the capacity building objective of contributing to more robust communities, and also has the potential to impact entrenched social issues.