EIRC Foundation European Integration and Regional Competitiveness Social Economy as a way to social inclusion Sofia 4-5 October 2010

Social Innovation in a Post-Crisis World What we need now is entrepreneurship that creates greater long-term value while drawing on fewer resources and generating fewer destructive consequences. We also need more social entrepreneurship.

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION RECOGNIZING THAT SOCIAL PROBLEMS ARE MORE PRESSING THEN EVER FOSTERING A VIBRANT SOCIAL LEARNING LABORATORY SCALING IMPACT AND SHARING KNOWLEDGE TAKING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SERIOUSLY

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION While it is essential to support the early-stage innovations that make up the learning laboratory of social entrepreneurship, the real value comes in what society does with the results of that learning laboratory. Value is created when successful innovations are identified and then scaled or replicated to maximize their impact.

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION Because of their local knowledge and motivation to find solutions to social problems, social entrepreneurs see and construct opportunities that governments, corporations, and profit-seeking business entrepreneurs miss. The current financial crisis will force us to be smart about our investments in social change. Leaders in any society have much to gain from taking the concept of social entrepreneurship seriously and providing social entrepreneurs with the same kind of disciplined strategic support that they provide for innovation in business.

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION Promoting the cooperation of social firms and private enterprises has proven to be a possible strategy for facilitating integration (the creation and securing of jobs for disadvantaged and marginalized people). Specifically, social firms and their cooperation partners within the regional economies are testing various kinds of cooperative models in this current phase of project implementation which carry varying thematic focal points.

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION Cooperation contents can be grouped according to the following thematic points:

PRIORITIES FOR ACTION The EXPERIENCES presented are not recipes, and this is not a cookbook. But we do hope that you could find in these days some insights that you will savor and share, narratives that will give you a taste for social innovation, and a stock of knowledge that will inspire you to envision creative solutions to global challenges, to fight poverty and that will have an impact on our collective efforts to address social issues

: Production communities (the joint creation of products) Exchange of information (the mutually beneficial exchange of know-how) Qualification (of social firm employees, associated with the increased acceptance of disabled employees in cooperating enterprises) Buying syndicate (to achieve lower purchase prices and increase economical advantages on both sides) Exchange of personnel and joint use of machinery (to enable more flexible responses to market demands) Further complementary effects (e.g. marketing strategies)

Whishes for the next steps... Our belief in the power of social innovators lies not only in the direct impact of the goods and services their organizations deliver, but particularly in the role they play as catalysts for broader social transformation Because many social and environment issues are time sensitive, failure to recognize the importance of social entrepreneurship and provide adequate support for such efforts during this downturn would be a serious mistake