A Canvas for Social Economy

Submitted by Alina Danieles… on 03 March 2020

In October 2018, during the concluding event of the European Social Economy Regions pilot, a group of policy makers and practitioners asked for more clarity on what should be considered “Social Economy”. As a response, the Social Economy Unit at DG GROW and the EU Policy Lab at DG JRC initiated a shared pilot to develop a comprehensive sense making framework for a bottom-up understanding of Social Economy,  anchoring the development of future policies to a coherent observation of the different experiences across Europe. 

The Social Economy Canvas is a method and a visual tool to comprehend the social, environmental and economic implications of any human activity by maintaining structured, strategic conversations with the ideators and with their beneficiaries.

The canvas is used both in micro/local settings by communities, entrepreneurs, support agencies and social investors to empower the design and development of social economy activities, and in macro/global settings by policymakers to contextualise different local activities and identify common challenges and opportunities for the development of new policies.

The purpose of this tool is to contribute to the development of a sound rationale and priorities for legal frameworks and public policy interventions while also helping entrepreneurs and support agencies in aligning their efforts in favour of a culturally rich and economically prosperous social ecosystem.

Join the online Community on Social Economy to download the latest version of the Canvas and to learn more. Find out how to sign up to the Social Economy Community online here and access all the material and the information on the Canvas here

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