Here at Redefine Alliance, we know that the most valuable lessons we can learn are ones that incorporate the insights and lived expertise of our Community members.

And where we can, we strive to be a connecting point between data we collect and the perspective from the leaders we back. Shared knowledge drives collective progress!

Last fall, Redefine Alliance’s Learning & Evidence and Community teams hosted a virtual collaborative learning session.

Our goal with this event: to deepen our collective understanding of the employment social enterprise (ESE) field. Together, we explored key data, insights, and trends we’ve collected from observations in our ESE community, and solicited feedback and discussion amongst leaders who attended.

We’ll use these insights to refine our programming, share learnings across the ESE community, and advocate for increased investment by demonstrating the field’s performance, evolution, and impact.

The Details: Attendees & Topics

Over 50 ESE leaders and several Redefine Alliance staff members joined for this session, with nearly half of attendees identifying as BIPOC, and 47% as having lived expertise.

In this session, we explored the economic and social impact of ESEs.

Topics included:

• the breadth and scale of the Redefine Alliance ESE network
• organizational and leadership insights
• operational challenges and successes
• ESE worker outcomes such as employment, wages, and retention post-ESE

To set the scene, we shared data that we’ve compiled from our Community members on each of these topics, before moving into discussion groups, both in breakout rooms and all together.

3 Key Insights From This Session

As we talked, we collected feedback from attendees, which fell roughly into three buckets:

1. ESEs have a lot in common, particularly around intersectionality, business structure, and the core challenge of supporting people with high barriers: Participants highlighted surprising insights, such as the prevalence of for-profit ESEs, diversity in ESE sizes, the challenge to improve exit rates, varied revenue sources, the rise of food service ESEs, and post-placement support efforts. ESE leaders aligned on the recognition of intersectional barriers and ESEs’ vital role in supporting individuals facing multiple challenges.
2. ESE leaders want to connect and work collaboratively to achieve more: Opportunities in the ESE field include cross-sector engagement, expansion into industries offering ESE workers pathways to career growth and professional advancement, increased public awareness, and leveraging visibility for funding. However, challenges remain, such as the benefits cliff from rising wages, high operational costs, restrictive public funding, difficulties in tracking participant outcomes, and the ongoing housing crisis.
3. There’s broad agreement around terminology: Generally speaking, ESEs agree on terms — including what “success” means for ESE program participants, and what constitutes “essential” support. Success for ESE participants extends beyond employment and includes future-focused skills, financial and life stability, reduced recidivism, social inclusion, tangible assets like housing and transportation, and intangible outcomes such as resilience and happiness. Critical supports for ESE workers include case management, trauma-informed care, housing, financial literacy, mental health services, strong community systems, and healthy work environments that foster career readiness and stability.

Where do we go from here?

With these insights, learnings, and feedback in hand, we’ll refine our programming to better meet the evolving needs of ESEs and ensure our support is grounded in the lived experiences and operational realities of the field. These learnings will also be used as evidence to demonstrate how the ESE field is evolving and performing — helping to surface promising practices, inform future research, and guide strategic support. 

We plan to continue sharing these insights with the broader ESE community to support peer learning and inform fundraising, advocacy, and partnership development. Additionally, Redefine Alliance will use this information to advocate to funders, policymakers, and other key stakeholders for increased investment in the ESE field and the critical work ESEs do to drive economic mobility and equity.

All in all, this event was a great success for us, and we heard great feedback from attendees that there was much they learned, as well. As we work to open up further opportunities to share knowledge and strengthen the ESE field, stay tuned to the blog to hear more (and join future collaborative learning sessions!).

Many thanks to all the collaborators who made this event possible, including former Farber Juan Saldana, the Redefine Alliance Community team, and Carrie Rosales. And of course, thank you to all ESE leaders who participated and shared their perspectives! Your contributions enrich our community immeasurably.