CROWDFUNDING AS A SOURCE FOR SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FINANCING Advantages and Disadvantages Experienced by Social Entrepreneurs Authors: Diana Hazam Dijana Karimova Magnus Gabriel Olsson
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Bachelor Thesis within: Business Administration Tutor: Number of credits: 15 ECTS Mark Edwards, Associate Professor Programme of study: International Management
[email protected] Jönköping, May 2017. Acknowledgements During the past four months, a significant share of our time has been spent on researching and writing our thesis. We have had the privilege to immerse ourselves into two very exciting and emerging topics, crowdfunding and social enterprising. We are now happy to finally deliver our finished work. Specifically, we would like to express our gratitude towards our tutor, Mark Edwards. His support during this journey has been of decisive importance, and we are very thankful for his effort and guidance. We would also like to thank the participating companies who, despite hectic time schedules, were able to give us interviews. The insights obtained from the interviews are very highly valued. Finally, we thank our seminar opponents Josefin Davidsson and Hanna Jonsson for giving us insightful comments. Thank you, Mark Edwards, Josefin Davidsson, Hanna Jonsson, Abundance Investment, Ari.Farm, Big Heart Sweden, Röstånga Utvecklings AB, TRINE and Uniti Sweden! Diana Hazam Dijana Karimova Magnus Gabriel Olsson i Abstract Social Enterprises face funding challenges. As investors focus too narrowly on risk and return, social enterprises may struggle to compete with commercial enterprises for investment capital. In this context, lending and equity crowdfunding have not been sufficiently examined, and its growing importance for business financing makes it valuable to understand its implications for social enterprises.