Social enterprises are commercially viable businesses existing to benefit the public and the community, rather than shareholders and owners.
Social enterprise is a descriptive term for a range of businesses prioritising social goals, rather than a legal form in itself. In the Australian context, social enterprises take on a range of organisational legal structures, making it difficult to distinguish them from other organisations. Social Traders has developed a definition based on Australia’s landmark research Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector (FASES) conducted in 2010 and 2016 and benchmarked against international standards: