Social economy
Involve Yorkshire & Humber promotes the social economy, builds links with regional public agencies, shares good practice, highlights market opportunities and lobbies for support of this sector.
What is the social economy?
The social economy encompasses those organisations that exist between the private market and the public sector. It includes social enterprises, voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations, foundations, trade unions, religious bodies, housing associations, co-operatives and more. Social economy organisations share the following key features:
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Participation in economic activity, whether through trading, employing staff or helping people in to work.
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Clear social objectives which underpin the activities of the organisation.
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Social ownership which sees surpluses reinvested in the organisation rather than distributed as dividends to private shareholders.
With partners, we helped to establish Social Enterprise Yorkshire and the Humber, a network of support agencies and practitioners, to support social enterprise.
For many years we supported and promoted Footsey (which was the UK's biggest social economy trade fair) in partnership with locality, Social Enterprise Yorkshire & the Humber and Goodwin Development Trust. The partners reluctantly agreed, in 2011, not to run Footsey any more, due to the very difficult climate for the sector and for sponsors. We are very interested in creative suggestions for how the Footsey concept can be continued in different ways.
