About the Target Groups of the Project

The BuCoSoMa project aims at supporting people working in or for social enterprises.

Within this group, the main focus group re employees in middle management positions. They frequently face two challenges. Firstly, they very likely lack basic business knowledge because they have a professional background in social work, psychology, education etc. The second challenge they face is that very often they were put (maybe even "pushed") into this managerial position rather than having chosen this career path. They do not always feel like they "belong" into the "business world" and all of its implications.

Above and beyond this main target groups there are two more levels employees that could benefit from this project. 

• There is the top level management in social enterprises, which sometimes faces the exact same challenges like their middle management colleagues. They may be able to compensate their disadvantages by their broad experience. However, formal business training could improve their managerial skills even further. 
• In a long term view everybody working at a social enterprise could benefit from basic business knowledge - an the enterprise as a whole from their knowledge. Once everybody working at a social enterprise knows about the basic business rules which apply. The organisation will then work more efficiently, which is the foundation of sustainability and secure workplaces. 

However, the present state of business knowledge (and lack thereof) is not limited to social enterprises. It will very likely apply to NGOs and NPOs in a similar way. Therefore we see a lot of opportunities for the project work and results to be transferred into other professional and organisatorial fields.