Community-based Social Entrepreneurship in Rural Villages

Social enterprises can be defined as businesses that trade for societal or environmental goals. Community-based social entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is a form of social entrepreneurship that trades for the benefit of its local community. Community-based social enterprise can also be seen as a form of active citizenship aiming to develop the wellbeing of local community and its residents by improving the supply of local services and supporting employment. In recent years it has become the focus of interest in many countries as a possibility to improve the livelihood and vitality especially in rural areas. A great example of community-based social enterprise is for instance local village associations that provide local services.

Many rural village associations are interested in the possibilities of community-based social entrepreneurship, but do not necessarily know how to take the idea forward. This seems to be one of the most substantial bottlenecks in promoting community-based social enterprise in rural village associations at the moment.

Due to this, the aim of the project is to carry out a practical planning and development process together with selected pilot villages interested in community-based service production. The project aims to identify the key elements that are essential in developing a community-based social enterprise and focus on these issues rural communities need especially help with.

To achieve these aims the project provides guidance, training and information to carry on the community-based social entrepreneurship process in villages and supports peer learning and the exchange of experiences and good practices between pilot villages. The project also seeks to engage important stakeholders to support the local service production and to promote social entrepreneurship in the region by partnership tables.

The project is funded by Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment South Ostrobothnia from the Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland.