The demand for the sustainability of the community and voluntary sector organisations has been around for well over a decade now, and more often than not is based on mutual deception between funders and those groups that receive grant funding. On the one hand grant applicants reassure the funding bodies that undoubtedly they will be financially viable within the next three year period through their own income generating ventures; while the funders, for their part, rarely interrogate these assurances too closely. And so things continue on their merry way.

However, one of the areas of interest that has introduced a new escape route out of this cycle is the social economy. There is of course a danger that social economy just becomes a new buzzword, and that there is an over expectation about just how much it can deliver in terms of the self-sustainability of community and voluntary organisations. Notwithstanding this there has been a tradition within the sector in Northern Ireland of being enterprising and innovative. One only has to look at the community-based cooperative development movement of the 1970s and 80s; the establishment of centres from Ebrington in the Waterside to Farset in Belfast; the diversity of rural enterprise ventures; and the contracting for the provision of services by community and voluntary groups. Whether the initiative is based on property service enterprise or simply a good idea the seeds of the social economy approach took ready root.

But what is the social economy? From the viewpoint of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland it encompasses organisations that share certain characteristics:

• They will have social goals and will have emerged to fulfil a social need
• They will be governed by an inclusive ownership structure – directed by those people that the organisation is seeking to serve, or by a non profit-taking organisation representing the interests of that group
• They will have a significant enterprise orientation

Getting the balance right between the social motivation and the economic emphasis has often proved to be tricky – but as this book shows us, it is not impossible.

Clearly the decision to become a social economy organisation – or to develop an orientation in this direction should not be taken lightly. And yet the increasing awareness of the very real long-term challenge of sustainability is encouraging an ever increasing number of organisations to explore this option. This publication will help them. As such it is to be welcomed.

Avila Kilmurray
Director
Community Foundation for Northern Ireland