Social Enterprise Sector Survey

This collection contains anonymized survey data collected from 1350 responding Social Enterprises in all Canadian provinces and territories, with the exception of Quebec. The surveys were conducted in 2014 and 2015. For the purposes of these surveys, social enterprises were defined as follows: "A social enterprise is a business venture owned or operated by a non-profit organization that sells goods or provides services in the market for the purpose of creating a blended return on investment, both financial and social/environmental/cultural". The purpose of the surveys, and of making the data available, is to support the development of the social enterprise sector in Canada by highlighting the size, scope and impact of social enterprises. Funding for the surveys has included the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Institute for Community Prosperity, Mount Royal University, Enterprising Non-Profits Canada, the TRICO Foundation of Calgary, and Employment and Social Development Canada, and generous local sponsors and supporters. These surveys have been undertaken with the tremendous support, dedication and enthusiasm of provincial umbrella groups that want to see social enterprises develop and flourish in Canada. Without these organizations this initiative would not have been possible. The collections consists of 11 SPSS-format Data Files, 11 excel-format Variable Keys and 10 pdf-format Questionnaires. Geographical information for each individual file can be found in item_metadata.csv. The researchers who created this dataset would be pleased to hear from you and how you have used this data ([e-mail] and [e-mail]). Software used was SPSS. Confidentiality declaration: Use of this anonymized survey microdata has been approved by the SFU Research Ethics Board. Survey respondents were assured that their names would be kept confidential, as would the individual answers they provide. Hence all identifying variables, as well as open-response text fields and almost all financial data (except total revenue and expense) have been deleted. This dataset was originally deposited in the Simon Fraser University institutional repository.