Whilst I had heard of social businesses before, I only recently heard the expression “community interest companies”. Roger Pekin used it while talking about Food Connect.

Interestingly, the UK has a regulator for community interest companies (CIC’s).

It describes CIC’s as follows:

Community Interest Companies (CICS) are limited companies, with special additional features, created for the use of people who want to conduct a business or other activity for community benefit, and not purely for private advantage. This is achieved by a “community interest test” and “asset lock”, which ensure that the CIC is established for community purposes and the assets and profits are dedicated to these purposes. Registration of a company as a CIC has to be approved by the Regulator who also has a continuing monitoring and enforcement role.