The first time social enterprises faced great difficulties was in 2020–2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study conducted by Impact Hub Moscow in partnership with experts from the Graduate School of Management at St. Petersburg State University and the University of Massachusetts Boston, 10 % of social entrepreneurs surveyed have experienced a reduction in external funding. 82 % of innovations in this area were implemented mainly with their own funds, the efforts of their employees and internal developments. Commercial and hybrid organizations during the pandemic focused on strategies to improve efficiency – optimizing costs and business processes. Non-profit organizations, in turn, placed greater emphasis on attracting non-profit funding.
In 2022, social entrepreneurs face new challenges: 11 % of the 518 SEs surveyed in March 2022 said they felt the impact of sanctions on their business. 84 % found this question hard to answer, and 5 % said they did not feel any effect of the sanctions. About 60 % of the respondents decided to look for new channels to promote their goods and services. More than a third of the social entrepreneurs surveyed are in search of investment and affordable loans; about the same number of businessmen are quickly developing new marketing mechanisms, such as discounts, deferred payment programs, bonus programs for their businesses[15].
Clearly, the teams and leaders of many social enterprises have been in a position of survival rather than rapid growth for many years. At the same time, according to the “Social Entrepreneurship in Russia: Prospects for Development” study, hopes for the further development of social entrepreneurship are pinned not only on external stakeholders – government, big business, private foundations, but also on the consumers of their services and social effect – also known as impact, or social impact.
The teams and leaders of many social enterprises have been in a position of survival rather than rapid growth for many years. Hopes are pinned, including on the consumers of their services.
For the consumer, of course, it is of primary importance that the consumer’s problem is solved in the quickest and most efficient way possible. And identifying this way, among other things, includes the need to evaluate one’s activities: the emergence of in-demand goods and services is based on the needs of the target audience. Actively working with consumers to identify their “pains” and requests and creating new goods and services based on them is the driving force of social entrepreneurship development.