A third of the public has never heard of social enterprise

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 31 Jan 2012

New research for Charity Finance has found that almost one-third of the public have never heard of the term social enterprise.

YouGov, on behalf of Charity Finance, quizzed more than 2,000 people and found 30 per cent had never heard of a 'social enterprise'.

A similar amount (33 per cent) thought it meant a business that is more interested in social or environmental goals, than in making money for owners or shareholders.

Having had a general description of social enterprise explained to them, more than one in four (44 per cent) of respondents said they would be more likely to use or buy products or services from a business calling itself a social enterprise.

However, 29 per cent of respondents said they would not trust a social enterprise to run any public services.

Dr Michael Wagstaff, head of public sector consulting at YouGov, said this shows that the latent demand for products provided by social enterprises does not automatically translate into delivery of public services.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.