Abstract:

Social cooperatives in the function of social enterprises are classified as a group of employers of the open labour market. In view of their specific functioning they prepare and offer some work places to people being away from the labour market. The article attempts to characterize and evaluate the existing funding opportunities for social economy enterprises in Poland on the example of social cooperatives of legal entities in the context of the development of social economy in the area of social policy understood as one of the components of public policy. This article is a review of the current scientific literature in the field of social entrepreneurship and current legislation on social cooperatives. The presented data suggests that currently, social cooperatives have various forms and sources of financing for their activities. They operate in the sphere of public utilities, filling the gap in the provision of publicly available services which cannot be filled by free market entities or state institutions. Their activity is financed mainly from own funds, which can be supplemented with financial support from the state budget or a local government unit as well as bank loans and the European Union fund.

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