Social entrepreneurship, benefits of networking from the perspective of Croatian NGOs

The concept of social entrepreneurship has attracted a lot of attention in Croatia over the past several years. However, judging by the available information, the implementation of the concept of social entrepreneurship is still not very widespread. Social networks can provide social enterprises with information, support and access to resources. In this study we have tested the benefits of networking from the perspective of Croatian NGOs with a social component. The assumption was that presidents of NGOs in Croatia do not think that networking can help entrepreneurs to access resources that would otherwise be unavailable or costly to obtain. We also assumed a lack of knowledge about the advantages of networking such as certain legal benefits, facilitated lobbying with national institutions, and increased eligibility for government grants. Our research is based on the sample of 200 NGOs with a social component. The second purpose of this survey was to raise awareness of social entrepreneurship in Croatia and to show the importance of knowledge about network support in the process of developing social entrepreneurship.