Community social innovation: taking a long view on community enterprise

Abstract

Communities are increasingly turning to social innovation to address challenges that impact them such as climate change, deindustrialization (or industrialization in the global south) and exclusion due to poverty, race or gender. Social innovation refers to the use of novel organizational vehicles, activities and strategies to facilitate change. Place-based community enterprises (an organizational form predating social enterprise) have been engaged in social innovation for over a century. In this way, community enterprises have attempted to build organizational models that emphasize the inclusion of people and places excluded from opportunities, resources or power. In this chapter, we explore the role of community enterprise in social innovation.