Susan Smith explains why summer is a good excuse to celebrate social enterprises with its #SocEntSummer campaign
Summer is here, MSPs have packed their suitcases and head off to the Secyhelles or Skye, schools have closed their doors and the sun is peaking through the clouds a little more than usual.
In honour of our favourite time of year, TFN launched its Social Enterprise Summer campaign this week. Over the course of July and August, we’ll be talking up Scotland’s amazing social enterprises in our print publication, online and on our social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – using #SocEntSummer.
From community cafes to security companies, employment agencies to media companies, Scotland’s social enterprises are filling up every part of the economy. Every year more and more open and public awareness of social enterprise grows. TFN thinks this is worth celebrating.
If you know people whose life has been changed for the better through working in a social enterprise, why not tweet a picture and quote from them
The success of initiative’s like Social Bite, which set up as a high-street café in the centre of Edinburgh, have seen growing numbers of the public chose to turn to social enterprise over traditional for-profit businesses. TFN will be talking to some of these customers about what they love about social enterprise, so please use Twitter or Instagram to highlight pictures of customers and encourage them to support the #SocEntSummer campaign.
Social enterprises are also major employers in Scotland, often giving jobs to people who would otherwise struggle to find work. If you know people whose life has been changed for the better through working in a social enterprise, why not tweet a picture and quote from them.
As traditional charities vie for dwindling funds, they are also increasingly opening social businesses to create incomes to support their services. We will be featuring some of these alongside stand-alone social businesses. So, if you’re a traditional charity with a new social business, let us know.
TFN is using this campaign to grow its own knowledge of social enterprise in Scotland, so as well as talking about social enterprise on social media we’ll be using what we learn to write features, profiles, news stories and lists, like the Days out that Do Good list we published last week. Feed in ideas for via social media and don’t forget to use #SocEntSummer.
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Susan Smith is editor of Third Force News
