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 PrintableVersion Faith in social enterprisesA call to the churches and the nationA Christian responsibility?FAITH IN SOCIAL ENTERPRISES This pamphlet is published to explain the social enterprise movement to churches in Britain and encourage them to greater participation in it. It identifies widespread support for social enterprise, particularly within the Government (foremost among them is Gordon Brown), but also across the political spectrum. It avoids giving a definition of social enterprise but does describe a range of social enterprises both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. In effect, social enterprises are business-like organisations intended to be run efficiently and re-invest all their profits. They provide socially-valuable goods or services and are generally embedded within the communities (real or virtual) that they serve. Social enterprise is put forward as a dynamic and innovative alternative to both capitalism and ‘mass-produced social welfare’, and is very much seen as the ‘cutting edge’ of responsible economics. Three arguments‘Faith communities’ abroad have been at the forefront of social enterprise and the pamphlet calls for much greater involvement by British churches. The arguments for doing so are three-fold: it adds value to resources already available, it opens up opportunity to engage people in developing energetic new institutions that embody Christian principles and it encourages more flexible and non-hierarchic approaches to social, welfare and economic development. Social enterprise is presented as an attractive alternative to the traditional Christian approaches to social need — blunt public policy, paternalistic charity and slow, long-term community development. To achieve this requires new approaches to leadership, a willingness to learn lessons from elsewhere in the world and inter-denominational approaches to developing funding. Government, too, is called to action, specifically to match funding raised by churches, give equal tax breaks to individuals looking to invest in social enterprises rather than corporate ‘start-ups’, provide educational and other initiatives to support social innovation and ensure social enterprise can compete on a level playing field for government contracts. The pamphlet does provide encouragement for churches and other bodies to take seriously their responsibilities to the wider community, and to look at and support new ways of doing things that avoid the pitfalls of both pure ‘enterprise’ models and the dead hand of state welfare. However, it would benefit from a wider perspective (for example, what about the activities of the often reviled ‘mega-churches’ in America?) and any church looking to develop social enterprises will clearly need to give serious thought to the potential pitfalls of balancing economic effectiveness with social responsibility, and to the realistic potential for raising significant amounts of funding, and the necessary business expertise, at reasonable cost. Mick Mellows,
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