Summary article ‘Conceptualizing the health and well-
being impacts of social enterprise: a UK-based study’ –
Macaulay, Roy, Donaldson, Teasdale, & Kay (2017)
Summary: This study examines how social enterprises portray their
impact, and how such impacts may be considered in health and well-being
terms.
Introduction
Social enterprise is a business with social objectives, where surpluses
are reinvested in social purposes, rather than for distribution to
shareholders or investors. Most of them are small in scale, owned and
operated by, and for the benefit of, local communities.
Background
Organisations led by social entrepreneurs may have a vital role to play in
the development of health promotion through community-based action on
the social determinants of health.
Mason et al.: social enterprise within a wider context as a form of ‘social
innovation’, attempts to assess its ability to address health equity.
Roy et al.: all social enterprises considered as a complex form of public
health ‘intervention’ since they work to address aspects of social
vulnerability at the local level, irrespective of whether they explicitly
intend to have a health impact.
Social impact measurement is a method of gaining an insight into the
various ways in which practitioners explain their impact is through an
assessment of reports developed specifically for such purposes.
- SAA= audited
- SROI= assured
- Reports are valuable insights into the intentions, activities and
perceived outcomes of social enterprise practitioners analysed in
terms of potential health and well-being impacts.
Findings
Context
One of the most common challenges cited was that of unemployment,
with recognition that that areas that experience high levels of
unemployment don’t only suffer economic consequences, but are more
likely to experience other negative impacts (incl. poor physical and mental
health). Financial exclusion, income deprivation and fuel poverty were
contributing factors to the social disadvantage associated with a lack of
financial means
- Knock-on effect on communities and the demand to live there
decreased, often due to community disrepair resulting from
inadequate physical amenities (housing, community space,
, surrounding environment) and a lack of community spirit or
responsibility for the upkeep of the community.
- Other elements associated with poverty in a community were the
levels of drug and alcohol abuse and high crime rates.
- Lack of provision of services to support various ‘target groups’ like
homeless, disabled and other vulnerable individuals, lone parents,
ex-offenders and asylum seekers.
Social isolation, especially in the growing elderly population, meant that
people struggled to get out and about and build a social network
negative impact on confidence, independence and health.
- Often limited skills and capabilities held within communities.
In order to mitigate these conditions, some organisations directly targeted
these vulnerabilities, while others sought a more indirect route on other
elements in the community.
Social enterprises stimulated:
- Employment
- Volunteering
- Formal education
- Vocational training
Maximising economic returns individuals and communities
Developing soft skills
Harnessing those strengths so that individuals and communities
could play a role in their own development
- Pleasant social environment with community support network to:
o Protect against social isolation
o Enhance community spirit
o Address social stigma
o Role in management and ownership of the social enterprise
o Role in delivering services
o Role in influencing policy and policy makers
- Improvements to physical environment:
o Regenerating buildings and pieces of land
o Providing care
o Recreation
o Housing
o Financial services
- Ambitions in terms of continued funding and expansion:
o Broadening the services
o Incorporating new services
- Change environmental behaviour within the community
o Minimise environmental impact
