Our Policy & Influence team convenes the Manchester Social Economy Alliance (MSEA) – a growing network of organisations and changemakers who are part of Manchester’s vibrant social economy.
Please use our language translator in the top right hand side of our website to translate this page into different languages.
Organisations operating for public benefit are often described as being one of two categories – either a charity or a social enterprise. However, these definitions are broad and within each there are many variations of form and structure, and confusingly these often overlap too!
This document aims to briefly summarise the two types of organisation and some of the differences between them.
Please use our language translator in the top right hand side of our website to translate this page into different languages.
Process overview
For an overview of the forms and guidance available, start at the home page for the Office of the CIC Regulator
Resources on this page include:
Please use our language translator in the top right hand side of our website to translate this page into different languages.
“Social enterprises exist in the space between traditional charity and mainstream business.” Social Enterprise UK 2017
Social enterprises are businesses which have a clear social and/or environmental mission, which generates the majority of their income through trade and reinvest the most of their profits to tackle the problems they were set up to address.