Social Enterprises

Glossary

Memorandum of Articles/Articles of Association

Service Level Agreement/Tenders

Business Plan

This is a document written by you covering all your plans for your business, it should incorporate contact details and company information, your marketing strategy, your social aims, your objectives and how you want to achieve them. You should also include information about your customers, stakeholders, and competition.

Displacement

It is important that when you plan your business you do not put another existing company in the locality at risk. Although competition is part of everyday life it is better to make links with a local company.

Incorporation

This is when you turn you organisation into a legal company, whether it is a charity, limited by guarantee or a CIC. There are lots of different legal structures for more information has a look at our information sheet.

Memorandum of Articles/Articles of Association

These are the documents that need to be completed to support the incorporation of your company to make it legal. There are template forms available on the website.

Promotional Mix

This is a marketing technique and can be used as part of your business plan and delivery. You should look at the following areas People, Place, Price, Product, Process, and Purpose.

Overheads

These are your costs that you will have to pay for to run your organisation, and will need to be taken into account when doing your financial planning.

Social Aims

Having social aims is one of the main differences between a social enterprise and a normal business. Social Aims are what you do with any profits you make and why your companies runs. Your social aim can be about people, the environment or about community regeneration.

Social Ownership

In a standard business the company is owned by the owner(s) or shareholders and profits are given to them. In a social enterprise their isn’t an owner just a board of directors who run the company and all the profits are re-invested back into the organisation or to fund the organisations social aims.

Service Level Agreement/Tenders

This is a contract with a commissioning body such as the council to deliver services or projects. A Service Level Agreement will be issued for smaller amounts of funding, usually less than £15,000. According to EU law contracts over £120,000 will have to be advertised and put out to open tender.

Stakeholders

These are any people or organisations that affect or are affected by your organisation.

SWOT analysis

This is a technique used to help business planning. It is a really good exercise to do with students too. Divide a page up into four sections; each section has a heading of Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. This allows you to focus on the best and worst aspects of your organisations.

Trading Arm

This is a term of reference regarding your school/college setting up a business. Many charities have a trading arm that generates income as another means of fundraising an example of this is the charity shops. Many social enterprises that are trading arms are separate legally incorporated businesses.