Collecting Data on Social Enterprises 2025

Collecting data that matters2 This playbook provides practitioners and stakeholders with guidance and tools to collect relevant and comparable social enterprise data through surveys. Figure 1 shows the five interlinked steps of data collection on social enterprises, particularly through surveys. Surveys have proved to be a very common means for collecting and reporting demographic data on social enterprises around the world over the past decade and more, and warrant particular focus. It is important to note that definitions of social enterprise vary by country and context. The term “social enterprise” is also closely linked to other concepts, including “social business,” “social entrepreneurship,” “social innovation,” “the social economy” and “the social and solidarity economy.” Individuals or organizations may identify as more than one of the above, and indeed as something else. Furthermore, some of these concepts may be formally constituted through a legal mechanism in each country. Please see Appendix 3 for an overview of related concepts. This report does not set out to adopt a particular definition or interpretation of social enterprise or any other term, or to persuade other stakeholders to do so. However, it aims to identify the characteristics commonly adopted in surveys and other research and used by national or other membership organizations. By identifying and highlighting characteristics that are important to stakeholders, this playbook can potentially bring greater consistency to research efforts in the future, facilitating greater alignment in data collection and the potential for sharing research and data across partners. The final two sections of this chapter examine the limitations of using surveys for social enterprise data collection and explore alternative methodologies that have been applied to date. Interlinked steps of data collection through surveys FIGURE 1. Purpose of data collectionThe co-design processData collection Data storage Publication 9 Collecting Data on Social Enterprises: A Playbook for Practitioners