Southern Culture
Did You Know?
Howzat!
The first and most influential cricket club in England was formed at Hambledon, Hampshire, in the 1760's.
Social Enterprise
Welcome to our cultural social enterprise pages.
We believe that cultural organisations provide a wide array of social benefits to the people who use their services. We believe that cultural organisations have a natural leaning towards entrepreneurial behaviour and creative methods of delivering what they do. We believe that social enterprise is an effective vehicle to maximise the impact of cultural activity across many themes, for instance, economic development, learning and skills and community cohesion.
Right now, the political and social climate is encouraging for cultural social enterprise to become a mainstream delivery agent. We hope these pages help you understand:
- What cultural social enterprise is
- The key organisations, policies and frameworks
- Where you can go for more information.
What is social enterprise?
There are many definitions of what a social enterprise is. Business models vary, from a fully-operational theatre, like the Leatherhead Theatre, or creative space, like the Farnham Maltings, to a cricket club that sells crisps on matchdays. Some organisations may not even realise they are social enterprises. But we believe there are four elements to a social enterprise:
- A formal constitution
- A not-for-profit ethos
- Trades commercially in an open market
- Formal social objectives
Cultural social enterprises are thus organisations which have the above elements and encompass cultural activity.
Why now?
We believe that from now on there will be more opportunity and support for cultural social enterprises to operate successfully. One reason is that the Government is focusing on the voluntary and community sector (“third sector”) and new ways of delivery of public services. Over the last year, the Government has:
- Created the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office, bringing together cross-departmental work that involves this sector. The Office of the Third Sector now includes the Social Enterprise Unit, formerly part of the Department of Trade and Industry.
- Launched a Social Enterprise Action Plan. You can respond to the plan here.
- Published an action plan to remove the barriers for third sector organisations wishing to become involved in the delivery of public servives. Click here to read more about it.
In the South East, the Cultural Shift programme , an EQUAL-funded project , is led by the South East England Development Agency and includes two developmental projects that are based on cultural activity.
Please click left for more information.
For more information about cultural social enterprise in the South East, check out SEEDA's and Culture South East's publication Social Enterprise Culture
In the New Year we’ll be bringing you more information about cultural social enterprise, but in the meantime we hope the resources on the left will help you. Also we've found the jargon-busting pages from Social Enterprise Magazine to be very helpful