I’ve recently been asked for help by someone who is running a (sort of) social enterprise. He’s been running a business, and on the side of this he’s been doing all sorts of community projects. All brilliant stuff, getting young people involved, providing services to the community - I’m not going to be specific in case you recognise him, but there were lots of great ideas for wonderful things.

This guy had not planned things out, and unfortunately had started a business which was failing. So none of the lovely things could happen, because there was no profit to recycle into the community benefits.

In order to run a social enterprise you need to put the enterprise bit first. You have to run a business, sell things, make money and deal with all of the things that every other entrepreneur has to deal with.

I tell people all the time that making money is a good thing, because money gives you options. For some (non social) entrepreneurs, these are options to make the business bigger, have lovely holidays, do more aggressive marketing or feel secure for once. Social enterprises have a different set of goals - they need to make money to make a contribution to the community.

So making money, and lots of it, is even more important for social enterprises than your regular businesses. If you’re not making a profit you’re just a loss making business, just like all the other failing businesses, but you’re going to feel worse because you’ve set yourself these community goals as well as business goals.