The Business Model Canvas (BMC) was developed by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, and co-created with an array of 470 practitioners from around the world. It offers a simple, visual, one-page canvas on which entrepreneurs can design, innovate and dialogue about their business models. It is not the only framework that has been developed to articulate business models but like many of the frameworks this one was built out of careful research. However, unlike many others, it has also been tested and enhanced through the input of many practitioners.
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In addition, the BMC itself sits inside a very innovative business model, including licensing under Creative Commons and a commitment to co-creative innovation within the methods around the BMC. Business Model Canvas and Business Model Generation book written by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur can be found here: www.businessmodelgeneration.com
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Working with the Business Model Canvas in and around the social enterprise sector Ingrid Burkett Knode realized that there were some ‘special’ things about social enterprises that could easily be reflected in the BMC using a few simple adaptations.
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Ingrid Burkett Knode has used the BMC to work in the social enterprise sector and has found the canvas to be very helpful, particularly in early exploratory stages of development and in relation to growth and innovation stages. She has documented her knowledge on the BMC in the material: "Using the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design".

What she concluded was that there are three basic different ways in which social enterprises organize themselves in achieving the goals:
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1. They may directly support, train and employ people who are experiencing some form of exclusion and disadvantage (for example, a social enterprise cafe may employ people who have been homeless and unemployed);
2. They may provide services or products to directly meet a social need or achieve a social impact (for example, a community supported agriculture enterprise may make fresh, local produce available whilst also supporting smaller, local farmers); or
3. They may generate income for a charitable or social purpose (for example, an op shop may generate income to support a larger charity deliver other social purpose programs). 

​Many social enterprises find it difficult to explain their business models, and that many start working on their business plans before understanding their business models thoroughly.


Author
Partners @BASET
KISMC & CABAN
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As we have realized and already shared in the blog article 'Why Social Business Modelling is Important for Social Entrepreneurship' managing a social business is not about just adding business skills to the realm of social impact! Balancing a social mission with an intention to trade and manage a business requires a blending of skills which is greater than the sum of each set of skills alone.

​The social impact inside a business operation is not cost neutral - so both the skills needed to deliver on a social impact and the costs involved in doing so need to be considered in designing a viable and sustainable business model. Therefore, business modelling is crucial for social entrepreneurs and for that reason, we are clarifying a few important points regarding business modelling in social entrepreneurship.
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A business model (BM) is more than the product or service an entrepreneur or a company offers. It is a logic description of how businesses make money. It is a tool that helps stakeholders understand and clearly articulate how the entrepreneur (company) creates, delivers and captures value for itself as well as the customers at an appropriate cost.

From the management point of view BM is a step-by-step plan for generating revenues and making a profit in a specific marketplace. It explains what products or services to produce and market, and how it plans to do so, including what expenses it will incur. The business models differ from each other depending on the nature of the business. To put together a good business model, one needs to know what to offer in the form of goods or services that is of value to potential customers or clients, ideally in a way that differentiates the entrepreneur (company) from its competitors (it is called value proposition). A successful business model just needs to collect more money from customers than it costs to make the product.
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In their simplest forms, business models (BMs) can be broken into three parts:

1. Somebody makes useful something: design, raw materials, manufacturing, labour, and so on.
2. Somebody sells that thing to those who need it: marketing, distribution, delivering a service, and processing the sale.
3. Those who need it pays to have it: pricing strategy, payment methods, payment timing, and so on.

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So, a BM is simply an exploration of what costs and expenses the entrepreneurs (companies) have and how much they can charge for the products or services they generate. New business models can refine and improve any of these three components. 
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Many authors (D. Mills-Scofield) state that every business is (or should be) social business and there is no significant difference in the business models themselves. However, we need to recognize that social enterprises have business models that can be a little different from an ordinary business - indeed social enterprises are special business! In fact, social businesses are a powerful way to increase social impact.

The Social Business Model (SBM) differs from the classical business model, as aside from showing a road map how to generate economic value, it has to show also how to create social value in a measurable way. In other words, social impact also has to be a part of a business model. The process of building SBM relies on some strategic moves as the conventional business model innovation. However, one specificity of the social business model is the need to consider all stakeholders, not only shareholders, and the need to define the social profit that is the aim of the social business.
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The purpose of every one SBM is the social entrepreneurs and the supporting professionals to understand how the enterprise generate both financial and social value, and what the relationship is between the two types of value in the enterprise. It should be able to be focused on how a social entrepreneur does business, how that business generates revenue, what value a business offers to whom, who the customers are, and why customers would keep coming back to the entrepreneurs.

The social business model can help the entrepreneurs understand how and why their business works, and it can help them to design and innovate their business and how to make and increase social impact.

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Author
Coordinator @BASET
KISMC

In Europe the interest about social entrepreneurship is strongly driven by the growing recognition of the role social enterprises can play in fostering social inclusion and inclusive growth. How to design, start, manage and lead businesses that benefit people and the society in a financially sustainable way. This question makes the business modelling in social entrepreneurship one of the key topics for people that help, support and facilitate the social entrepreneurs.
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We realized that managing a social business is not about just adding business skills to the realm of social impact! Balancing a social mission with an intention to trade and manage a business requires a blending of skills which is greater than the sum of each set of skills alone. The social impact inside a business operation is not cost neutral - so both the skills needed to deliver on a social impact and the costs involved in doing so need to be considered in designing a viable and sustainable business model. 

These findings were made during the work on the “Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training” project, funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission under KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices, KA204 - Strategic Partnerships for adult education. The project was motivated by the fact that in Europe the interest about social entrepreneurship is growing and many young people recognize themselves as social entrepreneurs. On the other hand, teachers, trainers and mentors on the classical entrepreneurship discipline have growing number of business cases, that are directly related to the social entrepreneurship.

So, we had to pay attention to the methodological tools of those professionals who have to support and train the people who create from scratch or develop already existing social enterprises. 

If you are interested to read more about the article:
BUSINESS MODELLING IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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Author 
Coordinator @BASET
KISMC
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The UK is viewed by many other countries as a pioneer of social enterprise and the associated practices of social investment and social value. Government statistics identify around 70,000 social enterprises in the UK, contributing £24 billion to the economy and employing nearly a million people.

​In "The Future of Business (State of Social Enterprise Survey 2017)" report the Chair of Social Enterprise UK (the national body for social enterprises in the UK) – Lord Victor Adebowale summarizes that in the last ten years there has been a wave of start-up dynamism with a new generation of businesses choosing the social enterprise approach: “embedding a social purpose in their DNA, acting commercially, and reinvesting their profits to create a more positive change”. Lord Victor also highlights that the social enterprises’ landscape in 2017 looks very different compared to the year of 2007 – pre-2008 crash, pre-austerity, pre-Brexit – and concludes that social enterprises represent the future of how everyone should be doing business. More precisely - by having a sustainable business model with a clear social purpose, working and employing in the most challenging areas and doing so in an accountable, fair and inclusive way.

The report “Social Enterprise in the UK” by the British Council also confirms the significant evolution in the social enterprise sector in the UK such as changes in the government’s approaches, increase in the number of incubators, a new focus on social investment and an enhanced emphasis on measuring social value.  

​It is pivotal to state that based on a national representative sample by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 4.2% of the UK adult working population is estimated to be actively involved in socially entrepreneurial start-up activities whereas the RBS Enterprise Tracker survey in association with UnLtd (the leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in the UK offering the largest such network in the world) suggests a fifth (19%) of aspiring entrepreneurs would choose to start a social enterprise. That would be highly needed considering the top societal challenges in the UK are poverty and financial insecurity, aging population, youth unemployment and health inequality.

According to the SEFORÏS Country Report “The State of Social Entrepreneurship in the UK” - written by a consortium of 12 organisations from 10 countries including Belgium, China, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK - social enterprises are more involved in innovative activities such as creating new or significantly improved products, services and processes, compared to commercial enterprises. The report identifies that the main driver for innovation among social enterprises in the UK is to achieve social and environmental goals such as increasing the quality of social impact, spreading social impact or reducing environmental impact. 

Also, as revealed in the SEFORÏS report, UK social enterprises create and catalyse inclusion and innovation by addressing social issues embedded within their mission and operational model, by employing individuals experiencing barriers of entering the labour market, by attracting population segments less likely to participate in commercial entrepreneurship (e.g. disabled individuals), by being inclusive in their ownership, governance, management and innovation practices.

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Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital
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What actually inspires social entrepreneurs? You are probably wondering why all those people are so much concentrated on devoting their time to create positive impact. Of course, social entrepreneurs are, first of all, focused on running their organisation in order to be able to contribute to either the environment or the society.

Social entrepreneurs use innovative and creative approaches to tackle community, national and international issues. Their approaches are sustainable and practical which benefit society. They aim at financially stable activities to be able to make an impact and reach their social mission. Of course like any entrepreneur, the social entrepreneur needs to have that inspiration and motivation to be able to keep their operations alive and to be sustainable.
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Social entrepreneurs have user-friendly and ethical ideas engaging as many people as possible in order to influence the number of citizens who will grasp the idea and to act on it for impacting others. In other words, social entrepreneurs are not only role models but also change makers, change agents who create new approaches and solutions to change the society and our planet for the better.    

As you can see from all these 12 cases of inspiration of social entrepreneurs, inspiration comes in different forms for each individual. However, they all have something in common: they are striving towards providing positive change for the society or for the environment. They were all inspired from their personal experiences with reality resulting in either their frustration from the status quo and from consumerism, or by simply getting inspired by passion, positive energy and bravery. 

Additionally, all those social entrepreneurs keep themselves constantly inspired by their surroundings, i.e. the team they work with, by the support they get from their friends and family, by the community and most importantly by the impact they create.


​Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital

Each partner had the chance to talk about the social entrepreneurship environment in their country whereas many case studies encouraged interesting discussions comparing the ecosystems in a variety of European regions. Furthermore, the main topic that everyone provided feedback was on the SEDM progress - such as results from the focus group that took place in Sofia, framework and suggestions for the content of the model and the main concepts, existing models and frameworks for social and business enterprises were analyzed together with previous and ongoing Erasmus+ projects on Social entrepreneurship.

The project meeting helped the entire project team sync their efforts in a direction that would be beneficial to all stakeholders in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. ​The meeting was also focused on discussions about the project activities, dissemination strategy, financial and administration details. All partners agreed on next steps and the evaluation and quality assurance framework for the project.

Author
Partners @BASET

Before introducing a few examples of social innovation, it's important to actually understand what social innovation really is. As the European Commission has simply defined it "social innovations are new ideas that meet social needs, create social relationships and form new collaborations." To complement this definition, a NESTA's report focused on social innovation outlines very well that "social innovations are modest and incremental; others are systemic and fundamental".

1. BAKEYS - an Indian company that manufactures edible cutlery. This startup produces eco-friendly cutlery instead of plastic ones. Their substitution to plastic is not only delicious cutlery in various flavours but helps cut the quantity of plastic ending up in the ocean and into landfills. 

Moreover, Bakeys produces more environmentally friendly than biodegradable plastic utensils made from corn plastics. They also raised funding through a Kickstarter campaign back in 2016 which was more than 10 times from what they were looking to get.

To sum up again what social innovation is, this video - developed by Social Innovation Generation, provides a quick overview, which has been exploring the various qualities and elements that support successful social innovation.

On 31 January a group of stakeholders in social entrepreneurship gathered together with the teams of the project coordinator KISMC and the project partner CEED Bulgaria in Sofia, Bulgaria. The group gathering took place as part of the main project objective of BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training which is to establish and maintain a well-developed and a more effective the process of training the trainers of social entrepreneurs (SE).

During the focus group day all stakeholders participated in clarifying the training needs of the educators and the elaborated model for training. Also, three reference points regarding the training of SE trainers were propose:
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• Train the trainers' process
• The framework of the Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM) and the content of the training (modules)
• The instruments

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​The focus groups was created to ensure a common understanding on attractiveness, usability, ergonomics and functionality that the BASET project should have. Hence, the focus group supported the early validation of the users of the model as well as helped in understanding their profiles and characteristics in terms of what information was of their interest, which channels were more appropriate for reaching them, etc. These activities as part of the Intellectual Output 1 defined and clarified the necessary skills, knowledge and competences for further outputs and final project results.

Moreover, all participants exchanged views on the framework of SEDM or more precisely on the following related to its structure:

• Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise basics 
• Marketing Social Ventures models 
• Coaching Social Entrepreneurs models 

Author 
Partners @BASET
KISMC & CEED Bulgaria

​Social entrepreneurship usually emerges when companies, charities and governments fail in their attempts to correct social dysfunction. In Europe the interest in the topic of social entrepreneurship is strongly driven by the growing recognition of the role social enterprises play in fostering social inclusion, inclusive growth and environmental or economic impact.

Social entrepreneurship is at the intersection of social inclusion, market orientation and innovation. It encompasses the activities and processes undertaken to discover, define and exploit opportunities in order to enhance social wealth by creating new ventures or managing existing organizations in an innovative manner. Moreover, social entrepreneurship has attracted an increasing attention because of its potential to tackle crucial societal issues and achieve a wider social impact.

In the meantime, environmental and welfare issues, an increasing economic inequality and lack of basic healthcare, energy or clean water in different parts of the world have triggered an enormous social entrepreneurship wave to discover new ways of finding a solution to all these global problems including hunger, access to education and combating climate change.

According to the Millenial Impact Report, 94% of the millennials are interested in using their skills to benefit a cause and they appreciate the power of making choices focused on finding value. Social consciousness and responsibility are obviously on the rise and companies that support causes are gaining traction with the Millennial customer.

​To briefly summarize, an article of Harvard Business Review describes very well what business models actually are and why they matter. They outline the simplicity of what a business model is, that it actually is a story explaining how an enterprise works and that a good business model answers Peter Drucker’s questions such as: who is the customer; what does the customer value;  how do we make money in this business; what is the underlying economic logic that explains how we can deliver value to customers at an appropriate cost. Therefore, put in a short sentence: a 'business model' describes how a company creates and captures value.

Additionally, after reviewing an article by Forbes about 5 reasons why social entrepreneurship is the new business model, we would like to summarize them briefly below:

• It connects you to your life purpose
• It keeps you motivated
• It brings you lasting happiness
• It helps you help others discover their life purpose
• It is what today's consumers want

The difference between business models and social entrepreneurship business models is that those of the social entrepreneurs serve to tackle environmental, societal, economical and other issues that we face nowadays. As Forbes states the new business models have a higher purpose than just making profit. Rather, social entrepreneurs find motivation to help others and connect to the purpose of their living.

​People are generally more interested in making a positive impact on the world and social entrepreneurship is taking off as a success formula. Social entrepreneurship offers insights stimulating ideas for more sustainable business strategies, which contribute directly to sustainable development and greater social responsibility.


Author
Partners @BASET
KISMC & CABAN
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​On 26 October 2017 the BASET project kicked off with a meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria where all partners – the project coordinator Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) and the project partners CEED Bulgaria, IDEC, Caban Capital and Creative District – launched BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training [Project No. 2017-1-BG01-KA204-036360].

The project has been successful in the Erasmus+ call in 2017 and consequently co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union for its 2-years' implementation. Erasmus+ is the European Union’s (EU) programme for education, training, youth and sport, with the EU committing £12 billion to the programme between 2014 and 2020. By 2020 it is expected that over 800,000 education and training staff and youth workers will teach or train abroad across Europe with Erasmus+. Projects provide opportunities for learners and staff to improve their skills, enhance their employability and gain cultural awareness.

During the kick off meeting in Sofia all partners discussed their previous experience in social entrepreneurship and agreed on an agenda that would focus on producing quality intellectual outputs that would assist all stakeholders in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. 
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No matter that we have already mentioned what BASET stands for here’s a quick preview: ‘Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training’. The project duration is 2 years and will continue running until August 2019 which will end in Sofia with an insightful conference about the produced results for social entrepreneurship in Europe.

Although the project has a set end date for its implementation under the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, we are firmly willing to continue contributing to this topic by using BASET as an already established network and community to create social value and assist finding solutions to the world’s problem our society faces.

In order to understand more about what the project is about, keep reading below...

We could easily sum up the answer in one sentence but it would hardly cover all. However, let’s sum it up in a sentence:

“We kicked off BASET because we believe that social entrepreneurs can solve crucial problems that we all face.”

But let’s dig in deeper.

After extensive research and looking back at our joint partners’ experience in social entreprneurship we discovered that specialist support for social enterprises is largely absent and where it exists it is often limited or fragmented. There is lack of mentoring and training schemes as well as investment support corresponding to the specific features of social enterprises.

The main objective of the project is to foster social entrepreneurship in Europe through elaborating, testing and providing a set of learning and training instruments to educators.

​All instruments will be tested whereas a group of educators will be trained to offer a set of resources such as training in entrepreneurial skills, mentoring focussed on designing business models and business plans, networking within the broader social entrepreneurship ecosystem and access to grants or seed capital.
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For the execution of BASET our activities will concentrate on the preparation of two methodologies and their testing:

1. Through a 5 days’ course for educators (trainers and mentors)
2. Through a 5 days’ course for investors

The methodology concentrates on a collaborative approach based on commonly accepted rules, preliminary defined tasks and critical milestones, strict reporting and effective control through an online project management platform. We believe that communication is key, therefore we have decided to work with cloud integrated platforms to enhance and ease up the collaboration among the whole consortium.
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The project outcome is a clarified learning model for training educators to contribute to the success of social entrepreneurs. The model consists of three main outputs

• Social Entrepreneurship Development model – a very practical and easy-to-use handbook for educators to understand the needs of social ventures and hands-on guidance that helps entrepreneurs carry out their social missions more effectively
• Train the Trainers Toolkit – providing educators with background knowledge, skills and practical experience, virtual space to provide Social Entrepreneurship Training and technical assistance to social entrepreneurs’ communities
• Train the Investors Handbook – equipping investors-mentors with practical knowledge and model of working with social entrepreneurs at risk

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The methods and the achieved results will contribute to the understanding of the process of social enterprise management through the eyes of the educators in Europe who are involved in the entrepreneurship development and will be able to advance to specificity of the social entrepreneurship in a long-term scale.

With the outcome of the BASET project the educators will be armed with a set of resources that will make the process of training, mentoring and networking for social entrepreneurs sustainable while facilitating their access to effective services and capital.
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In order to have longer-term benefits the project presumes creating a sustainable network of stakeholders and selection processes open to a broader number of trainers and social business cases.
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The project consortium comprises of 5 partners from 4 countries:

• Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) – Bulgaria
  An NGO focusing on developing competences for adults in innovation management, creativity and entrepreneurship
• CEED – Bulgaria
  An experienced business support organisation in the entrepreneurship development in Bulgaria
• IDEC – Greece
  A consultancy with an accredited lifelong learning centre in Greece and organizing in-service training courses for teachers and trainers, informal learning and vocational training
• Caban Capital – UK
  A fund manager providing opportunities for investors to invest in entrepreneurs through services each business requires to be successful
• Creative District – Belgium
  ​A Brussels-based organisation supporting initiatives in the creative and cultural industries for societal impact through providing innovation spaces for guidance and support to entrepreneurs

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