Working with social enterprises

September 2008

PwC has a commitment to work more closely with social enterprises around the UK.

Social enterprises are businesses that have a strong social mission at their core.  A well known example in the UK is The ‘Big Issue’ which is a business set up to help the homeless earn a legal living by re-selling copies of The Big Issue magazine that they buy from The Big Issue.  Social enterprises aim to achieve social objectives through the way they operate and by using their profits for social good.

Waking up to social enterprise?

Click here to see a short video of a debate hosted by PwC discussing whether business and government are waking up to social enterprise.

PwC sees our relationship with the social enterprise sector as being mutually beneficial.  We want to contribute to the social enterprise sector through our extensive commercial skills and experience.  At the same time we believe that there is a lot that PwC can learn from the passion and innovation that many social enterprises bring to their businesses.

Last year 3,500 of our people dedicated around 37,000 hours of their time to social enterprise and community issues

Where we’re involved

PwC is working with the School for Social Entrepreneurs , providing bursaries and mentoring to a number of up-and-coming social entrepreneurs.

We have developed a long term relationship with Big Issue Invest .  Big Issue Invest finances social enterprises that are creating social and environmental change.

PwC was a lead corporate sponsor and provided in-kind support for Spark, an innovative investment project to develop new social enterprise activity to prevent homelessness.

As Ian Powell, the UK Firm’s Chairman and Senior Partner stated “What we don’t want to do is to just dip our toe into the water, where we use our resource to just help with one project. We’re really looking for deep relationships”.