We want to embed a social enterprise culture across Dublin South City and support Social Enterprises/Social Entrepreneurs in achieving their goals and social impact. Dublin South City Partnership is committed to increasing awareness of the potential of social enterprises in our communities and encouraging local community leaders, organisations, individuals and residents to explore setting up a social enterprise and supporting local social enterprises that are already established. 

Social enterprises:

• Provide income generation opportunities that meet the basic needs of people who live in poverty. 
• Are sustainable. Earned income from sales is reinvested in their mission. They do not depend on philanthropy and can sustain themselves over the long term. 
• Are scalable. Their models can be expanded or replicated to other communities to generate more impact. 

Social enterprises are known by many names: social businesses, social-purpose businesses, mission-driven businesses, social ventures, etc. Whatever the name, social enterprises operate with a double bottom-line of generating financial return while simultaneously advancing a social mission. The triple bottom line (or otherwise noted as TBL or 3BL) is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. Some organisations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. 

Social enterprises can be both non-profit and for-profit in form. Some social enterprises are created, operated or owned by non-profit charitable organizations as a means of generating income or to otherwise further their social mission. Other social enterprises are incorporated as a for-profit entity but the business strategy is designed to achieve a social objective. 

The persistent problems of unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, poor social services, and environmental degradation – even in fast-growing emerging market economies – call for new, innovative solutions. Neither pure market-based nor pure public sector approaches have effectively confronted these problems. 

Social enterprises offer a hybrid response to complex social problems. Social enterprises address the social and economic barriers that face marginalized or disadvantage communities, and attempt to tackle them using a market-based approach. They are often best positioned to respond to critical social problems, as most often they originate as community-based initiatives, close to the problems and with a stake in the outcome. They frequently introduce new products and services to the market, and build market demand by raising awareness around the issues that these are addressing.