GREATER POLAND SOCIAL ECONOMY CENTER

In Human Capital Operational Programme (HCOP) social economy sector is one of the key elements for socially excluded people support.  Through the realized projects the support is addressed directly to those in need but also to social economy subjects which are the major employer of this working class. It is essential for full usage of social economy subjects’ potential to provide both technical and financial support allowing socially excluded people to gain knowledge and resources to start a social enterprise. Most social economy subjects need financial support- according to Association’s research ca. 20% of social cooperatives in Greater Poland had been using the District Employment Office supplies due to lack of separate finances for social enterprises and requirements for securing the grants. Limiting the resources by State Fund of Rehabilitation for Disabled Persons and Labor Fund in 2011r. decided that only HCOP projects could support financially establishing new social cooperatives in the future, especially those started by legal entities.
Our Association actively supports social economy progress in Greater Poland; since 04.2010 to 03.2012 we have been running “Greater Poland Social Economy Center” and during this time we educated 272 people (151 women and 39 men, including 19 social enterprises) and registered 19 new social cooperatives, which makes 60% of all social cooperatives in our region. We organized 655h of workshops, 340h counseling, two Greater Poland Social Economy Forums for 149 people, cooperated with 27 local governments and 19 enterprises (CSR).
According to our knowledge the biggest problems slowing down social economy progress are:

• registration issues
• insufficient knowledge of registering and running social economy subjects
• lack of knowledge and managment skills
• ignorance of the law 
• low resources for hiring experts in accounting, law and market investments
• no partnerships with business sector

Counteracting all of those problems would be much easier with support of an experienced TNC Partner, which could present:    

1.  the EU good practices during Experience Exchange Workshops, through a research among EU social cooperatives for most innovative business idea, while showing the benefits of implementing new solutions, by cooperating with business sector, explaining how to create a strong brand in local communities and how to deliver high quality services on local market (especially for enterprises specializing in nursing elder people and children)
2. the business perspective which polish social economy model lacks; professional business plan and analysis of possibilities of adapting foreign technologies in local environments are the core milestones for EU know-how transfer to Poland;
3. proposal for local strategy on social policy including an analysis of a few local strategies on implementing social policy and social economy in EU and Poland.