As many countries rural areas are facing the same contemporary societal challenges, such as a tightening economy and diminishing local services, there is a need to find new tools for rural communities to cope with the future. One possible solution is the development of locally based social enterprise (SE). Social entrepreneurship can be defined as entrepreneurship that has a strong social goal where profits are reinvested back into the local community, the concept is, however, relatively novel in rural development across much of Europe. There is much local potential, embedded knowledge and skill in rural communities to improve local service provision and employment, but the people usually do not recognize this or know how to make full use of it. This is why there is a need to raise the capacity of local people to better address the community potential and needs by increasing their knowledge and skills of community activation, partnerships and networking, business thinking and recognizing the social impacts of social entrepreneurship in local communities. The project aims to enhance the ideas and methods to promote and support social entrepreneurship in rural areas by offering evaluated and piloted online learning material and to further support the development of rural social entrepreneurship by setting up an international network of rural social enterprises to exchange experiences, good practices and disseminate learning material created. The experiences gained through the project will also be written into an e-guidebook of good practices for further use targeted at both learners and educators as well as policy makers. The target groups of the project are individuals who are interested in developing and sustaining their rural communities, who are willing to consider socially enterprising solutions to assist their rural areas or individuals who already have an idea for social enterprise in rural areas, as well as individuals already engaged in social enterprise activity but wish to gain new skills, knowledge and expertise to assist them in their venture. Nearly 300 participants will be engaged in learning while participating in the actions of the project. The learning material created will consist of three modules: 1/ Community Activation and Participation Methods in Rural Areas, 2/ Partnerships and Networking of Social Entrepreneurs and 3/ Social Enterprise Solutions for Sustaining Rural Communities and Measuring Social Impact. Each module is designed by project partners in multidisciplinary deliberative evaluative work-group meetings based on good practices and experiences. The key elements of success identified in the learning modules of activation, networking and ways of operating as social entrepreneurs in rural contexts will offer rural communities learning material with the framework of practice that existing materials are normally missing. The methodology aims facilitate the search for new information in promoting and developing communities, challenge the normative ways of doing things and increase the understanding of the mechanisms of knowledge transference in communities and to help the learners better apply these procedures in their communities by giving concrete examples and models of actions. Results of the project will be shared through disseminating the three outputs created in the project: Open Access Learning Material, The Network of Rural Social Enterprises and Guide Book of Good Practices. In addition to the main outputs, there will be other material created during the project, such as summaries of piloting reports, these will be published in the open access format. All products and materials will be made available and accessible online to all who are interested in social entrepreneurship and community development e.g. through the links to the Wikiversity website created which will also be available after the project's life span. As a result of the project, the community representatives and other learners participating in the pilot modules are expected to further develop the competences related to social entrepreneurship development, most of which are likely to have a positive influence on their effectiveness in community development, social entrepreneurship and/or employability and finally the potential longer-term benefits. The project will also build the competence and knowhow of innovative community solutions based on social business principles, in addition to the target groups also for the staff of partner organisations, and build institutional links to local/regional and European practitioners in social entrepreneurship. Supporting the development of SE's in rural areas will enhance active citizenship and helps better to address the future challenges (e.g. lack of skills, jobs, services and social exclusion in rural context). Learning material and piloted methods suitable for rural areas encourage communities to develop SE's and share their experiences with others.
As in many countries rural areas are facing the same contemporary societal challenges, such as a tightening economy and diminishing local services, there is a need to find new tools for rural communities to cope with the future. One possible solution is the development of rural social enterprise (SE). Social enterprises can be defined as businesses where the social impact of activities is prioritized to an equal or greater extent than making a profit. The concept is, however, a relatively novel in the rural development across much of Europe. There is much local potential, embedded knowledge, and skill in rural communities to improve local service provision and employment, but the people usually do not recognize this or know how to make full use of it. Therefore, there is a need to raise the capacity of the local people to better address the community potential and needs by increasing their knowledge and skills of community activation, partnerships and networking, business thinking and recognizing the social impacts of social entrepreneurship in local communities. Although there is much learning material available for entrepreneurship and start-ups, they usually do not consider the social, cultural, political, or environmental factors related to rural social entrepreneurship, or the interaction and management skills needed in rural communities. The ViSEnet-project aimed to meet this challenge by creating learning material to enhance the ideas and methods for promoting and supporting social entrepreneurship in rural areas by offering evaluated and piloted online learning material and to further support the development of rural social entrepreneurship, and encouraging people interested in rural social entrepreneurship to join in an international network of rural social enterprises to exchange experiences, good practices and disseminate learning material created. Experiences gained through the project have been written into a Guidebook of Good Practice for further use targeted at both learners and educators as well as policymakers. Therefore, the project brought together a strategic partnership of expertise of four universities: the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute (Finland), the Estonian University of Life Sciences (Estonia), The Nürtingen-Geislingen University (Germany), The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania) and Inspiralba, a social enterprise from Scotland. The open access ViSEnet Online Learning Resources consists of three modules: 1/ Community Involvement, 2/ Networking and Partnerships and 3/ Social Enterprise Solutions. Modules are designed by identifying key elements and good practices and piloted with rural communities for feedback. Learning material is practice oriented and meant for self-study or used in teaching. It is also easy to share, reproduce and use within a community context. Networking is continued in the Rural Social Enterprise Hub, a networking platform for collaboration, peer to peer learning, and knowledge exchange, that is welcoming all the people interested in rural social enterprises to join in. The Rural Social Enterprise Guidebook of Good Practice: Experience from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Romania and Scotland, brings together the main experiences gained during the project and provides practical guidance and advice on how to avoid the main pitfalls of a community-based social enterprise. In addition, the guide presents the examples of social entrepreneurship in rural areas, information about the key stakeholders and provides policy-based policy recommendations to promote social entrepreneurship. As a result of the project, the rural communities and other learners have new tools and methods to develop their communities and build the competence and know-how of innovative community solutions based on social business principles. Supporting the development of SEs in rural areas will enhance active citizenship and helps better to address the future challenges (e.g., lack of skills, jobs, services, and social exclusion in rural context). Encouraging people interested in social entrepreneurship to join in the Rural Social Enterprise Hub enables rural communities to access peer support and learn from others after the project.