About us
SEWF’s goal is to strengthen the global social enterprise movement to accelerate our transition to a new economy.
Our purpose statement
Why: SEWF is at the forefront of a global movement to transform business and co-create a new economy that enables all people to thrive within the means of our living planet.
How: The SEWF community takes a network of networks approach to bring together enterprises that put purpose first and use self-sustaining revenue models to unlock social and environmental solutions.
What: SEWF champions, connects and supports these enterprises through locally-led initiatives that follow a partnership approach. This means SEWF’s activities are always grounded in local knowledge and experience. Through cooperation and partnerships, we work together to accelerate positive and sustainable change.
History and foundation
In 2008, more than 400 delegates from 29 countries congregated in Edinburgh, Scotland with one goal: to raise awareness of social enterprise as an expanding global mechanism for social change.
The Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) was the first event of its kind. SEWF provided an opportunity for social enterprise leaders and practitioners from around the world to network and exchange ideas.
Spurred by the first event’s success, a steering group was quickly convened where it was agreed that there was potential beyond the initial experiment. They decided to hold an event on each continent before reviewing the need and value of SEWF to promote social enterprise internationally.
About the new economy
The concept of a new economy represents a shift away from the traditional focus on profit maximisation alone. It envisions a world where businesses prioritise social and environmental impact, using self-sustaining revenue models to unlock solutions that bring equitable economic growth.
Shared values and principles
While SEWF uses ‘social enterprise’ in our communications, we recognise that this enterprise model has deep roots in Indigenous and traditional communities and exists under many names and legal structures around the world. The global movement is much broader than the enterprises and networks currently using the term ‘social enterprise.’ SEWF partners with ecosystem builders around the world that work according to the shared values and principles below.
Purpose first
There are allies across many movements that focus on increasing social and environmental responsibility and impact within conventional business models. Many of these businesses are still under pressure to extract profit for private investors and priorities may shift during economic downturns, periods of rapid growth, changes in leadership or ownership or other transitions. Social enterprises are designed to ensure they always put their purpose first. At SEWF, we focus on enterprises and ecosystem builders that put purpose first in all operational decisions and actively embed and protect their purpose in their enterprise design. Social enterprises ensure that the majority of surpluses are also used to pursue social or environmental purposes. And this further helps to ensure the enterprise always puts its purpose first.
Self-sustaining
Social enterprises are businesses that generate income from the sale of product or services. Earned income reduces the competition and dependency created by restricted funding. It creates more space for innovative, transformative approaches and opens new opportunities for collaboration and collective action. We are committed to a self-sustaining revenue model. We focus on enterprises and ecosystem builders with the same commitment.
Active inclusion
We recognise that some of the greatest energy and innovation in the new economy movement comes from youth, Indigenous people, rural areas and communities that benefit the least from the current economic system. We actively engage enterprises and networks in marginalised communities and countries and we work to increase their voice and influence.
Locally-led
We recognise that people living in the community have the best knowledge of their own local context, challenges and systems. We follow the ‘nothing about us without us’ principle. Any initiative in a particular geography is carried out through local partnerships and in a way that strengthens local networks and ecosystem builders.
Horizontal scaling
The current economic system prioritises growth, encourages concentration of power and resources and measures organisational success based on traditional metrics like number of employees, number of offices, membership or budget size. We recognise that each enterprise in the new economy movement has its own unique niche, and we value and celebrate enterprises and networks of all sizes. We catalyse change by building the ecosystem and increasing opportunities for trade, collaboration and collective action.
Culturally-grounded
SEWF recognises that the term ‘social enterprise’ is often a modern way of describing the core nature of trading activities in Indigenous, First Nations and other traditional cultures around the world: purpose-driven enterprises that exist to benefit the community in a way that respects the natural environment.
Many Indigenous people live in countries where they have become a minority ethnic group and continue to face threats to their sovereignty, economic wellbeing, cultural capital and deep inequity and discrimination in relation to opportunities. When working locally, we always seek to understand the cultural context of countries and communities we work with. Through our work with local partners, we aim to raise awareness of cultural inequalities and discrimination, and we strive to use social enterprise as a lever to tackle these issues.
SEWF is committed to working in a way that deeply respects and enhances the cultural heritage of the places we work. In practice, this means ensuring culturally diverse participation in projects that we lead or co-lead and designing culturally relevant and culturally meaningful processes.
Going global and online
In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we held the first SEWF Digital event. Despite having just a few months to pivot our plans, we organised our biggest global event to date, with over 5,000 reserved places from participants across 100 countries. The week-long programme followed the sun across all time zones, starting each day in Oceania and moving west to Asia, Africa and Europe before finishing in the Americas. A total of 234 speakers participated in 94 sessions and 83% of participants said they were inspired by the content.
Today, SEWF continues to be a global network with deep connections with frontline social enterprises and intermediaries. We have engaged with thousands of social enterprise leaders and practitioners worldwide, holding forums in cities as diverse as Rio de Janeiro, Addis Ababa, Seoul, San Francisco and Christchurch. SEWF was created by the social enterprise movement, with a mandate to share, collaborate, support and influence on behalf of those who could not. This community has at its heart, hundreds of thousands of purpose-led enterprises addressing social and environmental challenges in more than 130 countries. The SEWF community includes enterprises dedicated to rural resilience and local communities. We embrace diversity in terms of enterprise (from small to large, local to international, rural to urban). We also work to promote inclusion and diversity in all that we do including the communities and individuals we work with.
Beyond the annual event
SEWF is much more than a single annual event: we work throughout the year to support the global social enterprise movement, including through our policy, social procurement and social enterprise verification programme. We also hold separate events for young people and policymakers. In 2023, all our events will have options to participate digitally to address barriers to access, reduce carbon footprint and increase the overall impact of our events. Through all our activities, we continue to work to grow the social enterprise movement globally, evolving the legacy from each Social Enterprise World Forum and meeting the needs of the rapidly increasing number of social enterprise practitioners around the world.
Want to be part of our story?
Our network is made up of social enterprises, policymakers, academics, corporate partners and more. Find out how you can get involved with our mission to champion the social enterprise sector and accelerate the creation of a global impact economy.
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