The role of external financing in the development of social entrepreneurship in CEE countries

Abstract

The forms and methods of financing are, in general, crucial for the development of social-enterprise initiatives. Social entrepreneurship is characterised by hybridity, which means that it relies on a resource mix including different types of financing: beyond market-based income, public funding stemming from international, national and/or local levels and different types of investments and donations are also important. International aid supported the re-emergence of civil society, which had been oppressed during state socialism. The methodological approach used in this study relied on desk research and country summaries. Desk research included a collection of secondary data based on available documents, reports, studies, strategies and other relevant documents regarding social entrepreneurship in the researched countries. In most of the countries studied, the first “footprints” of social enterprise can be found in state socialism, in the form of cooperatives, or even long before that, during World War II, in the form of voluntary engagement and cooperatives.