RE: Starting a Social Enterprise
The technical answer is, it depends on the legal structure you choose for your social enterprise. For example the legal minimum for an Industrial and Provident Society is 3, the legal minimum for a company used to be 2 but now you do not legally require a company secretary so one person is able to register a company.
In Wales the definition of a social enterprise includes a number of key characteristics on of which is, “They have a legal form appropriate to ‘not for personal profit’ status and social ownership” Social Ownership suggests that a number stakeholders should have an element of ownership of the enterprise.
I would argue that the number of people needed to set up a social enterprise should be based on the skills needed to run the business; this obviously depends on the business model. Another factor should be the type of social enterprise; if it’s based around delivering a service within a community I would argue that the business should be representative of its customers and stakeholders.
Realistically most of the co-operatives and social enterprises that we work with have a core group of 4 to 9 individuals who become the first directors of the business. We always encourage this group to seek a membership so that the business can support these members to become the next generation of directors.
