Information about the Results of the Investigation «Social Entrepreneurship Models in Russia».

Russian Microfinance Center in cooperation with the Institute for Social Development Studies of the State University - Higher School of Economics have delivered an innovative project – first in Russia pilot investigation of the social entrepreneurship models. The British Foundation OXFAM provided financial support for this project.

The investigations of the Social Entrepreneurship is the new direction of the social science even on the West, where such investigations has begun to be actively developed approximately since the middle of the 1990-s. Due to the variety of the phenomenon and its models in various countries, the researchers have not yet developed consistent criteria and analysis tool for social entrepreneurship. In Russia this problem is complicated by the fact that the clear notion of social entrepreneurship is yet established neither in the practicians' field, nor in the researchers' field, as a consequence, social entrepreneurs may not identify themselves as such. Therefore, the investigation had the following tasks: a) search and selection of organizations implementing various models of social entrepreneurship, b) development of the toolkit for social entrepreneurship entreprises investigation delivery, c) pilot sociological investigation delivery with validation of the elaborated toolkit, d) analysis of the peculiar features of the social entrepreneurship practice in Russia, basic mechanisms and barriers in its development.

During the investigation ten cases were chosen and surveyed – the organizations implementing the social entrepreneurship principles, relating to various regions, forms of ownership, and directions of activities. The special feature of this project is that together with the target social entrepreneurships, their independent partners – stakeholders were questioned. The project's results are yet to be analyzed in details, unique material, numbering hundreds of interview pages, and also quantitative data about the results of the enterprises performance was gathered during the investigation.

More detailed information about the investigation is available at the RMC website at: http://www.rmcenter.ru/about/news/detail.php?ID=3233.