Many people would like to satisfy their social, environmental or ethical concerns in everyday life, whether at work or at home. Ways to do so can include supporting a social enterprise, buying goods or services from a social enterprise, or even starting one up. This kind of activity might interest employees who want to 'put something back' into the community through volunteering, health workers with new ideas about how to better serve their communities or individual professionals who would prefer to use their skills to better social purpose.

To harness this wave of social awareness, we have proposed the develop of a new Social Enterprise Framework that will offer brokerage of skills and support to and from the social enterprise sector, training in partnership planning, more cross-sectoral networking opportunities and a structure for promoting co-operative success. The framework will add value to existing support providers, focusing on ‘partnership planning’ to complement support for business planning.

• For businesses, supporting social enterprises with staff release time or expertise can bring benefits including higher retention rates of staff who are better motivated from experiencing collaborative working, or marketing opportunities from improved local reputation and recognition.

• Public sector bodies can benefit in similar ways to the private sector. In return for management, administration or volunteer time, they can benefit from improved motivation and communications.

• Social enterprises, can attract resources ranging from volunteer support to free professional skills and advice and spare equipment.

• This can lead to a self-sustaining culture of social enterprise – fuelled by lasting co-operative relationships built on the trust established by needs being met on both sides.

We envisage that this Framework could eventually become financially sustainable in its own right.

Click here to read more background information on Strategic Priority 3

We have prepared some questions around this Strategic Priority to help you consider your contribution to this conversation:

• What do you think are the advantages of co-operative partnerships for a) start up social enterprises b) established and growing social enterprises c) organisations that want to support social enterprises?

• What do you feel is needed within the framework to support partnerships and networking between social enterprises and other organisations?

• What role does or might your organisation play in such a framework?

• What benefit might such a framework bring to your organisation?

• What would you like to see us achieve in this priority area as a result of this strategy?

• What other observations or ideas do you have about this strategic priority that we have not covered?