Research report: Home is where the heart is

With this publication, a project team of LSA bewoners, DOEN Foundation and Social Enterprise NL invite you te read along with our search for suitable finance for the purchase of real estate by community based social enterprises. Because: having one’s own place is fundamental for cbse’s.

The world of cbse’s
An abandoned school converted into a meeting place where everyone from the neighbourhood can learn, do business and meet. An old church transformed into a multifunctional centre in order to retain facilities in the neighbourhood. Or an urban neighbourhood farm where residents get to meet, learn about nature and where people in a reintegration programme work as volunteers. Perhaps you know of such a place in your neighbourhood. Or you may have a neighbour committed to improving the neighbourhood? How can we describe this phenomenon?

These are called community based social enterprises: organisations where neighbourhood residents unite to address social issues based on the wishes and needs of the local community. Community based social enterprises focus on areas such as strengthening social cohesion in the neighbourhood, facilitating meetings between residents or improving the quality of life by building more greenery in the neighbourhood.

Join us in our search for suitable finance 
Community based social enterprises make up an entire world. A world where a lot is happening, where friction and frustration with traditional public and social organisations and the market may exist. But above all, it is a world where wonderful things happen. We, a project team of LSA bewoners (National Active Residents’ Partnership), DOEN Foundation, KNHM Foundation and Social Enterprise NL, invite you to immerse yourself in this world and let us tell you all about our project ‘Social finance for community based social enterprises’.

We will describe our search for an important aspect of a thriving sector of community based social enterprises: appropriate financing for an enterprise to purchase its own real estate or lease it on a long-term basis. Our journey lasted two years and mainly provides insights into the success factors and obstacles to such financing. We hope others can build on our insights and together with anyone willing to commit to it, we can improve the accessibility of financing. This makes the project a starting point rather than an end point. Enjoy the read and we hope it will open up a new world for you.