On September 4, 2014, Bogdan Prokopovych and Davis Plotnieks from Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), Stockholm School of Economics delivered a presentation of the SEFORIS project in International Summer School on Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in Emerging Markets, Tbilisi State University, Georgia. Presentation explained aims and benefits of SEFORIS project, research trends in social entrepreneurship and an integrated framework of research for social entrepreneurship and its financing modes. Bogdan and Davis presented examples how academic research can help practitioners and researchers understand the complex field of social entrepreneurship and social finance. International Summer School was dedicated to social entrepreneurship topics where students from 18 different countries from Europe, Asia and North America acquired knowledge on social entrepreneurship, social finance and social innovation. Participants also discussed different business models and case studies of social entrepreneurship from their countries. During International Summer School students worked as business consultants for Georgian social entrepreneurs providing them recommendations for their business model improvement. The SEFORIS project is a multi-disciplinary, multi-method international research project on social enterprise funded by the European Commission. SEFORIS aims to better understand the role that social enterprises play in the EU and beyond in the development of and evolution towards inclusive and innovative societies. SITE is a leading research and policy center on transition in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. In SEFORIS project SITE is responsible of different funding and financing mode research of social entrepreneurship.

1. SEFORIS Project
Lessons from Research of Social Entrepreneurship Financing
Bogdan Prokopovych and Davis Plotnieks,
SITE, Stockholm School of Economics

2. Contents
• What is project SEFORIS?
• How does current state
of research looks like?
• What are the examples from the field
that we can learn from?

3. Challenge?
Despite increasing popularity of term social entrepreneurship there was
lack of comparable data on social enterprises in Europe

4. Challenge Accepted!
SELUSI project – research and data collection on Social Enterprises
Political?
Voice and
recognition
WHAT?
Macro-perspective
HOW?
Micro-perspective
Social Entrepreneurship
Dynamics?
What and
how over
time

5. SELUSI Project Aims
SELUSI project – research and data collection on Social Enterprises
WHAT?
Macro-perspective
What are the dominant social and industry sectors within which
we see social enterprise activity across the 5 EU member state
(Age, size, employment configurations, geography, etc..)?
How does the phenomenon of social enterprises compare
across different Member State countries?
How does the phenomenon of social enterprises look like in any
specific Member State?

6. SELUSI Project Aims
SELUSI project – research and data collection on Social Enterprises
HOW?
Micro-perspective
How do social entrepreneurs configure their
resources to influence policies?
How do their values affect
management practices and through
this overall performance?
Identity, market creation, strategic
entrepreneurial orientation, risk
preferences, human capital, personnel
practices, finances, etc.?

7. SELUSI Project Aims
SELUSI project – research and data collection on Social Enterprises
How does this phenomenon actually evolve over time?
How big is failure and start-up rates?
What are the evidence of the effects of specific policy
measures introduced at nation-state levels?
Dynamics?
What and
how over
time

8. SELUSI Project Aims
SELUSI project – research and data collection on Social Enterprises
Political?
Voice and
recognition
Can we give a better voice to all social
enterprises (not only the big, traditional
or best networked ventures) through
our project?

9. Results
SELUSI project results
Policy and Business Reports
Seminars and Teaching materials
about Social Entrepreneurship
Large data set about social
entrepreneurship in Europe

10. Next Steps
SEFORIS project
SELUSI project research continues in its successive project
SEFORIS
SEFORIS project aims to understand individual social
enterprise market and organization-level behaviours over
time
SEFORIS combines both qualitative and quantitative data
on social enterprises (soon across the globe) at an unusual
large scale

11. SEFORIS

12. SEFORIS Project Team

13. SEFORIS Project Team
More than 50 experts with different educational
and professional background
SEFORIS team experts represents more than 10
different countries

14. SEFORIS Purpose
Primary data collection (2015) about social
enterprises
Case studies of social enterprises
Network of 50+ social entrepreneurship
experts
Ambition to operate 50-100 countries
Longitudinal data on minimum 100 social
enterprise per country studied
Ambition
for 2025
Ambition
for 2025

15. Available Resources
SEFORIS project website: seforis.eu

16. Contents
• What is project SEFORIS?
• How does current state
of research looks like?
• What are the examples from the field
that we can learn from?

17. Complexity of Social
Entrepreneurship Literature
The extant Social Entrepreneurship (SE) literature
definitions set boundaries for the review: social-mission-based,
innovative use of resources, create social value
(Dees, 1998; Austin, Stevenson, and Wei-Skillern, 2006; Mair
and Marti, 2006)
The SE literature offers a variety of typologies of social
entrepreneurs, ventures, organizational models, and
social investment
(e.g. Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum, and Shulman, 2009;
Dorado, 2006; Battilana, Mair, and Cardenas, 2012; Nicholls,
2010)

18. Current State of Research
of social entrepreneurship financing
Individual level
Individual motivation
Organisational level
Social impact, its measurement, social
mission, its drift according to funding
sources
Macro level
Impact of institutions, Scaling up

19. Contents
• What is project SEFORIS?
• How does current state
of research looks like?
• What are the examples from the field
that we can learn from?

20. Individual
Motivation for social entrepreneurship
Social/ Environmental Blended Value Financial
Nicholls, A. (2010). The institutionalization of social investment: The interplay of investment logics and investor rationalities. Journal of social
entrepreneurship, 1(1), 70-100.

21. Individual
Motivation for social entrepreneurship
Social/ Environmental Blended Value Financial
Nicholls, A. (2010). The institutionalization of social investment: The interplay of investment logics and investor rationalities. Journal of social
entrepreneurship, 1(1), 70-100.

22. Organisational
Social impact and its measurement
1. Kaplan, R. S., & Grossman, A. S. (2010). The emerging capital market for nonprofits. Harvard business review, 88(10), 110-118.
2. Nicholls, A. (2009). ‘We do good things, don’t we?’:‘Blended Value Accounting’ in social entrepreneurship. Accounting,
organizations and society,34(6), 755-769.
3. Saltuk, Y., Idrissi, A.E., Bouri, A., Mudaliar, A., & Schiff, H. (2014). Spotlight on the Market. The Impact Investor Survey. Global Social
Finance. J.P.Morgan
Social ventures without their impact measurement will less
likely be able to attract investors1
Blended value accounting allows social entrepreneur to
access resources and build organisational legitimacy2
Survey data from impact investors show that 98% of
investors consider important social impact measurement3

23. Organisational
Social impact and its measurement
IRIS Social impact measurement standards http://iris.thegiin.org/guides/getting-started-guide
Social impact
measurement standards
that can be adjusted
for different industries
and size social ventures

24. Organisational
Attracting crowd funding
Social ventures that has been funded are linked with
project quality and how this quality is being
communicated1
Data suggests that nature of population in what founders
operate matters1
1. Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study.Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 1-16.

25. Regular customer updates
and information about
product development
progress
Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-first-auto-follow-action-sports-dron?ref=nav_search

26. Effective and
targeted
communication
Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-first-auto-follow-action-sports-dron?ref=nav_search

27. Society and field level
Institutional level
Partnering with other organizations with compatible goals
can also support earnings-generation1
Collaboration with other organizations can help scaling
up social impact2
Absence of regulation is an opportunity for social
entrepreneurs3
1. Bloom, P. N., & Chatterji, A. K. (2009). Scaling social entrepreneurial impact.California management review, 51(3), 114-133.
2. Austin, J., Stevenson, H., & Wei‐Skillern, J. (2006). Social and commercial entrepreneurship: same, different, or both?. Entrepreneurship
theory and practice, 30(1), 1-22.
3. Mair, J., & Marti, I. (2006). Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight. Journal of world
business, 41(1), 36-44.

28. Thank you
SEFORIS project: www.seforis.eu