Social business

Social entrepreneurship is one of the possible ways to run enterprise. Around the world and in Western Europe this type of enterprise is quite common and is slowly becoming familiar in the Czech Republic. A social enterprise is one of the ways to employ groups in danger of being socially excluded. It provides hope of improvement of living standard, as well as hope of reintegration for the disabled, youth, homeless individuals, individuals leaving institutional care, victims of criminal behaviour, carers looking after relatives, persons who have experienced drug addiction, the long-term unemployed and others in dangered of being socially excluded. The aim of this thesis is to provide a more comprehensive summary about the constantly developing social entrepreneurship landscape in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part of the thesis first describes social economics in general, followed by the definition of a social enterprise. This includes the listing of the major international organisations supporting social entrepreneurship. The fundamental chapters of the theoretical part address the possibility to finance social entrepreneurship through the European Union. At present there are two calls for proposals, to which applicants can respond in order to obtain the funds required to set up a social enterprise. Financing through the European Union is administered by the European social fund and its operational programme, safeguarded in the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. At the present time, the Integrated operating programme includes call for proposal no.8: Services in the social intervention scope and in the operating programme Human resources and employment call for proposals no.30: Social economics awaits its respondents. The logistics of obtaining European Union grants from the European social fund and its operational programmes through the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and its calls for proposals is very complicated. Therefore the aim of this thesis is to summarise the differences between both calls for proposals to ease the understanding of these very matters. To further my understanding of these issues I also successfully communicated directly with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior. The results of the research were not surprising for me. As expected the highest number of social enterprises in our country is in the problematic regions with the highest long-term unemployment rates or with a high proportion of the Roma ethnic minority. Furthermore, the research suggested unambiguously that, for individuals from certain groups, the highest number of social enterprises were concerned with employing the physically disabled to give them the chance to reintegrate into mainstream society. Closely following with approximately the same number of people from different socially excluded groups are enterprises that employ the long-term unemployed, the ethnic minorities or youth in difficult life circumstances. The respondents also confirmed the complicated administration of the enterprise start-up phase, as well as concerns about the future ability to finance their business. In the conclusion section of the thesis it is established that social entrepreneurship is unlikely to have an easy future as the deadline to apply for European Union grants to finance projects is in June 2013 and further support of social politics is uncertain. However, in the current uneasy times of economic crisis and rising unemployment the social entrepreneurship should be treated with high consideration as it is one of the possible ways to deal with such problems in all countries