A Social Enterprise is business whose core objective is to achieve a social or environmental impact. Like other businesses, they pursue their objectives by trading in goods and services on an ongoing basis. However, surpluses generated by social enterprises are re-invested into achieving the core social objectives.
The COVID-19 crisis has had a dramatic effect on most sectors in Ireland, including social enterprises. In the majority of cases social enterprises are micro or small to medium businesses. Many deliver services to vulnerable groups of people and depend on the income generated from these services.
The Department has engaged on a continuous basis with social enterprises throughout the country and is aware of the significant impact the crisis is having. To ensure we have a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of these impacts the Department is seeking the views of the sector.
We are asking all social enterprises, and social enterprise networks and support groups to complete this short survey which should only take about 10 minutes.