Guest blog by Dr. Julia Fursova, Assistant Professor, Renaissance College, Interdisciplinary Leadership Studies Program, UNB

In this research update, we present initial insights into the challenges that social enterprise founders experience and the types of support they seek from funders, policymakers, and allies.

Challenges

For analyzing data grouped into categories of challenges, we applied the ‘Gender as a Social Structure’ framework (Risman, 2018) to understand how challenges experienced at different levels – individual, interactional and systemic, or macro-level – interact as a system. According to Risman’s framework, we grouped the challenges into two key categories of challenges: material and cultural.

Material challenges are presented as a combination of access to funding, access to networking and appropriate training and programs, as well as operational challenges. Material challenges are influenced by cultural-level systems challenges related to organizational identity struggle, as well as gender-specific and intersectional barriers women and non-binary founders experience.

The diagram below illustrates how both system-level material and cultural challenges intersect with and influence one another. Of the social enterprises participating in the research, half are at their ‘emerging’ stage and are less than 5 years old. Another half are more established social enterprises with over 5 years in existence.

Material Challenges

Access to funding emerged as one of the key themes in this category. Within the access to funding theme, the following sub-themes emerged:

• Complexity of navigating the funding system: 50% of participants made a reference describing their difficulties navigating the funding landscape.
• Balancing privacy and visibility when applying for funding: Not all founders wanted to pursue ‘target group’ specific funding, e.g., “LGBTQ2A+ specific funding” especially within a close-knit context of Atlantic Canada, even though the founders may identify with the ‘target group’.
• ‘Low trust in social enterprises’ and ‘mismatch between the need and the amount of funding available’ was also noted.

Operational challenges are directly connected to funding challenges and include day-to-day costs such as utilities, space, as well as organizational demands for managing HR, legal and accounting aspects of running an organization. The theme was present among emerging social enterprises in their ‘emerging’ stage, as well as among more established nonprofits.

Access to networks and access to relevant training and programs are other sub-themes contributing to systems level material challenges. Social enterprise founders talked about difficulties finding professional networks in which they feel like they belong, as well as difficulties with finding trainings and programs that are relevant to their unique position in the marketplace, as well as their needs as women founders.

Cultural challenges are comprised of ‘organizational identity struggle’ and ‘gender-specific and intersectional challenges’.

Organizational identity struggle is an important theme under the systems level cultural challenges umbrella. We want to emphasize that ‘struggle’ is different from ‘identity crisis’. Social enterprises know who they are, but they collectively struggle with the question of where they belong. By trying to fit into one of the boxes, ‘for-profit’ or ‘non-profit’, they risk losing an important part of their identity as well as access to available resources, including funding.

Gender-specific and intersectional challenges are comprised of cultural barriers women and non-binary founders experience at an individual and interactional level. Such barriers relate to internalized sexism and sexism experienced in their interactions with males in positions of influence and power, as well as racial bias experienced by founders who identify as Black, Asian, or Of Colour.

Often women and non-binary founders begin their social enterprise journey as “labour of love,” motivated by their deep sense of responsibility and the desire to foster positive social change. Yet founders experience multiple responsibilities related to societal gender-based expectations and biases. Gender-specific challenges often coincide with racism and ageism, thus creating intersectional barriers. Under systemic pressures—including funding gaps, cultural biases, and the over-extraction of their caring capacities—this “labour of love” can become a “burden of care,” leading to burnout. Women and non-binary founders need more targeted and tailored resources to support their leadership in social enterprise.

Cultural Challenges

Cultural challenges are comprised of ‘organizational identity struggle’ and ‘gender-specific and intersectional challenges’.

Organizational identity struggle is an important theme under the systems level cultural challenges umbrella. We want to emphasize that ‘struggle’ is different from ‘identity crisis’. Social enterprises know who they are, but they collectively struggle with the question of where they belong. By trying to fit into one of the boxes of ‘for-profit’ or ‘non-profit’, they risk losing an important part of their identity, as well as access to available resources, including funding.

Gender-specific and intersectional challenges are comprised of cultural barriers women and non-binary founders experience at an individual and interactional level. Such barriers relate to internalized sexism and sexism experienced in their interactions with males in positions of influence and power, as well as racial bias experienced by founders who identify as Black, Asian, or Of Colour.

Often women and non-binary founders begin their social enterprise journey as “labour of love,” motivated by their deep sense of responsibility and the desire to foster positive social change. Yet founders experience multiple responsibilities related to societal gender-based expectations and biases. Gender-specific challenges often coincide with racism and ageism, thus creating intersectional barriers. Under systemic pressures—including funding gaps, cultural biases, and the over-extraction of their caring capacities—this “labour of love” can become a “burden of care,” leading to burnout. Women and non-binary founders need more targeted and tailored resources to support their leadership in social enterprise.

Supports

Amidst multiple challenges they experience, social enterprise founders continue finding ways to stay resilient and thrive in their role as trailblazers in transforming the economy. The next set of data addresses the kinds of support founders have been able to leverage and what additional resources they need.

Community building emerged as an important theme under both categories: support that social enterprise founders already received and found useful; and as the kind of support they seek and desire.

The need for a ‘Community of Practice’ for social entrepreneurs emerged as the founders discussed the importance of peer support, mentorship, appropriate programming and training, stand-alone workshops, and coaching.

Below are paraphrased and summarized quotes from interviews with founders that further unpack what they mean by ‘targeted support’ for women and non-binary founders in social enterprise:

• Coaching and mentorship from ‘outside’ experts, in some cases more formalized as a ‘training program’.
• Coaching and mentorship from peers in the SE sector, less formalized, and tailored to the needs of SE depending on their location on the SE spectrum and their maturity, e.g., ‘emerging’ or ‘established’.
• Easily available online tools and services to help access funding programs.
• Operational support – accessible accounting and legal services perhaps at a discounted rate for new and emerging SEs.
• Support with increasing SE presence on social media.
• Accessible targeted support for Francophone communities.

Next Steps

To further refine these findings and shape potential recommendations, we invited research participants and partners to a “data party”—a collaborative data analysis session. Stay tuned for our next blogpost in which we will share the insights from our first ‘data party’!

]The Women and Non-Binary Leadership in Social Enterprise Research Team:

• Dr. Julia Fursova, Research Lead, School of Leadership Studies, UNB
• Ryca McCullough, BPhil., Data Collection
• Ellie Petersen, BPhil., Data Collection and Analysis
• Hillary Russell, BPhil., Knowledge Mobilization