2 services are land surveying, document archiving and storage, sign manufacturing, and a hotel and conference centre. The businesses are structured in a variety of ways, from being 100% selfsupporting through earned income, to having a substantial subsidy that recognises that some employees require more intensive support to reach their full potential. They all share a firm belief that everyone should have an opportunity to be employed and a passion for providing that opportunity to as many individuals as possible. Some businesses described in this report focus on providing that opportunity to people from one specific job-disadvantaged group, for example, those with ill mental health, and others are structured to offer jobs and training to individuals with a mixed or multiple job disadvantage. These include a physical or learning disability, offenders and ex-offenders, those with a background in homelessness or substance addiction, or are from a group which is excluded from opportunity through ethnic background or HIV status. The case studies are a resource of ideas for developing employment and employability social enterprises. They inform the reader of the range of products and services sold by the enterprises, and how they have been developed. They offer an insight into the markets that social enterprises can target, and touch on the kinds of marketing used to reach those customers. The social enterprise managers have been generous enough to present their challenges – some of these will chime with mainstream business managers, and some are specific to the issues experienced by social enterprises. What does shine through all the case studies is the passion and determination of the social enterprise managers to maintain and grow their businesses – not for the sake of their own careers, but to ensure that individuals excluded from the mainstream labour market will find fulfilling work and through that, a level of inclusion in society that is otherwise difficult to achieve.
The views expressed in these case studies are those of the respective organisations. The data and statistics presented within the case studies have been provided directly by the social enterprises and reflect their priorities and methodology. The data cannot be verified by Well Organised Biz or CEFEC, and should not be interpreted as a comparison between individual social enterprises.