The 2017 report focuses on the financial needs and evolutionary prospects of two groups that make up Italian social entrepreneurship: on the one hand, in fact, the survey is aimed at exploring the revenue forecasts for 2018, relations with banks and future prospects in terms of financial needs of social cooperatives, historical component of this world and, thanks to the reform of the third sector and social enterprises (law n. 106/2016), subjects of social enterprises "by right"; on the other hand, the same analysis was carried out on the innovative startups with a social vocation (SIAVS), that nucleus of innovative startups (ln 221/2012) operating in the social enterprise sectors ex lege and pursue purposes aimed at producing a social impact.
Main evidence relating to social cooperatives:
- Growth prospects of social cooperation they are mainly related to the sale of goods and services on the market (+10,0%); the relations with the Public Administration they remain very significant even if expectations photograph relationships stable(+ 7,6%)
- The use of digital services is still growing (96,0%, +4,4% on 2016), as well as the request to develop customer loyalty services stakeholder (+ 1,1%)
- Increase the use of the funding obtained by lenders to cover investments (+3,0%); 1 out of 2 cooperative plans to carry out new investments (54%)
- For the coverage of investments, the traditional mix of resources made by is confirmed Self-financing, which continues to grow(45,4%; +4,5%) e di recourse to banks (35,3%; + 4,3 %). Public funding drops significantly (-10,7%) to leave room for the resources of private entities (equal to 6,6%)
- 1 cooperative out of 3 is a knowledge of the tools social impact finance; of these, 72,4% declare their willingness to use these tools
Main evidence relating to innovative startups with a social vocation:
- The survey confirms the diversity of motivations and entrepreneurial choices of SIAVS compared to social cooperatives. The survey sample reveals that the exchange of goods and services is the market core in which they operate (+51,2% on social cooperatives)
- The use of digital services is high (86,0%) and significant results the request for financing for investments (+13,6% compared to social cooperation)
- In the start-up phase, the SIAVS mainly resorted to resources grant (34,0%) vs Finance ed equity (18,0% for both types of resources). Within the sample, among the SIAVS with legal form Srl, the appeal to the grant (39,5%), while among the realities with a cooperative form, instruments of nature were mainly used Finance (28,6%)
- The SIAVS indicate the capacity building (managerial support) as the main tool for their development (36,0%); to follow the seed and preseed financing (30,0%). Very significant is the indication of the networking as a lever of scaling up (28,0%).
