Nova Scotia’s social enterprises want to grow but need more support in such tasks as getting their products to customers, says a new report by the Social Enterprise Network of Nova Scotia, or SENNS.

The network, which represents Nova Scotian companies and organizations that aim to benefit society, wildlife or the environment, just released its tri-annual report that assessed the health of its base in 2016. That base, says the report, is healthy. But its executives are doing the best they can with limited resources and need assistance in helping their organizations to grow.

“The majority of social enterprises surveyed plan to grow, and they are eager to see changes and supports emerge to better allow them to do so,” said the report.

SENNS is an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting Nova Scotia’s social enterprises, which it describes as “a business or organization operated for the purpose of addressing social, cultural or environmental challenges.”

While there are overlaps in the social enterprise and startup movements, the SENNS base is more focused on local communities. Roughly 70 percent of the 288 groups responding to the survey are not-for-profit societies, cooperatives or charities. SENNS has a catalogue of about 3,100 groups that it considers social enterprises, and 9 percent of them completed the survey.

Yet the report – the third such report conducted by SENNS – shows that they are having a significant economic impact.

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The respondents said they employ 5,600 people, and since some are part-time or contract workers it works out to 3,330 full-time equivalent positions. Some 63 percent of the respondents have fewer than five full-time employees, while 11 percent have more than 25.

About 200 respondents provided revenue data, and they produced $179 million in annual revenue, with an average of $996,000. One-third of the respondents said their annual revenues were between $100,000 and $499,999.

One hallmark of Nova Scotia’s social enterprises is that their senior executives are aging, and these organizations need succession planning. Forty-three percent of respondents who identified as senior managers were 56 years and older, with 13 percent over the age of 65.

The report noted that executives in this field do a good job at achieving a lot with few resources, but they could do more with increased resources. Only 33 percent said they now had adequate human resources and 28 percent felt they had sufficient capital.

“When respondents were asked to rank priority areas . . . that would contribute to their development, the number one priority area that emerged was expanding their organization’s access to customer markets,” said the report. “Expanding business skills of directors and managers, and expanding access to capital closely followed as the top three priorities.”