Social Enterprise Case Study Analysis

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Social Enterprise a case study of Potluck Café and Catering
A social enterprise is an organization that is nongovernmental in nature formed for the purpose of addressing social issues affecting a community. Social enterprises are becoming the norm for many countries since they have become an increasingly popular means of funding and supplying social initiatives in regions (Kerlin1).
Potluck Café and Catering is one such facility that is located in the core of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), Canada’s poorest postal code stricken with extreme poverty and homelessness, drug use and addiction, mental health issues, high HIV and AIDS rates and crime. The enterprise provides professional catering services to corporate, government and non profit clients. It was founded in 2000 when three DTES non profit organizations wanted to build a program for preparing meals for people who collected bottles from the streets and garbage bins. The organizations put a café at the ground floor of the Portland hotel providing meals to hotel residents while serving food to the general public, with their key mission to hire neighbourhood residents with barriers to employment and train them to move in to permanent mainstream jobs.
Through its business activities, it contributes to a better quality life of the DTES residents while enriching community economic development by providing employment, increasing life skills and improving health through its nutritious and wholesome food.
Potluck Café and Catering like all organizations regardless of their nature undergoes some certain business risks which affect their running and performance. This study is meant to highlight five risks which are faced by Potluck Café and Catering and come up with ways in which the management can follow so as to cushion the organization from these threats.
RISKS
A risk is a normal phenomenon in the business world regardless of it’s nature be it a social or profit one. A risk is defined as the potential that a chosen activity may lead to a loss. In the social enterprise world however risk can be said as having two basic components which allow one to determine the potential severity of the risk 1) the potential magnitude of undesirable outcome if they occur and 2) the possibility that these undesirable outcomes will actually occur. Therefore the product of the magnitude and possibility is the risk inherent in any given opportunity (Emerson 126). In our case we will look at five risks that threaten the existence of Potluck Café and Catering and the ways to reduce them.
Market Risk this is the risk that is associated with the  HYPERLINK "/5209/value.html" value of  HYPERLINK "/2599/investment.html" investments which may  HYPERLINK "/1335/decline.html" decline over a given time  HYPERLINK "/3669/period.html" period simply because of  HYPERLINK "/1639/economic.html" economic  HYPERLINK "/7046/change.html" changes or other events that impact large portions of the  HYPERLINK "/2962/market.html" market. In the case of Potluck Café and Catering this risk has been seen coming from the fact that it being a non profit venture it was not meant to do business for the sake of the money but the mission of helping the community, this however did not stop their customers from demanding quality products and services that were competitive in the market.
The other issues arising was that despite their good relationship with the executives of all the sectors they still did not generate what they expected from the catering business since the decision makers were not the executives but the office managers and the executive assistants.
To ensure that they avoid any future issues the management will ensure that they need to improve their product and service quality by training their residents who do not have the right qualifications for the job. The management will also ensure that before starting or creating any business relationships they will do so with all executives who will have the greatest impact on the organization.
Construction Risk this is the risk that is associated with probability of  HYPERLINK "/definition/capital-gain-loss-holding-period.html" loss associated with t...