Is social becoming less enterprising and more charitable?

Some people may know that I like both data and legal forms (amongst other things). I can play with both in isolation, but I particularly like combining the two because of the new insights it can offer us.

Each year I try to check in with the respective regulatory bodies who oversee the principal legal forms in use in the social economy (Charities, CICs, Companies, and Co-operative Societies), to skim through their annual reports and pull out the latest numbers on formations and dissolutions.

changing trends in who's registering what form

I share visual charts of these numbers in workshops I deliver on legal forms - not to try and influence people's choices about what they should 'be', but to offer an additional and alternative perspective that can help prompt more critical thoughts and questions so that they can ultimately be more comfortable and confident in whatever they end up being. I've been tracking this data since 2017 (nearly 10 years), and this years' spreadsheets highlight:

• the long-term trend for 'sustainability' (how likely you are to be wound up based on your legal form) shows CICs and Companies remaining roughly equal with about 12% of each being de-registered each year. This compares to charities and co-operative societies that are wound up at 3% each.

• But what's seemed to 'jump out' this year is the figures for 2025 compared to the previous trends: new CICs have been registered at a rate that's 20% higher compared to 2024, with no change in companies, (and a halving of the rate at which new co-operative societies have been registered). But the registration of new charities was double what it was in the previous year.

Which means if we're using legal forms as a proxy indicator (of sorts) to understand what social enterprises and social entrepreneurs are experiencing in their business models, this seems to suggest that there's a growing difficulty in their generating traded revenue (hence the static or reduction in the growth of 2 of the 3 legal forms that are designed to encourage trade), and a growing need for financial support in the form of maximising eligibility for grants and reducing tax liabilities (based on the doubling of new charities being registered).

less faith in the social enterprise model?

Most of us in the sector are aware of it being the worst time in living memory with regards to being successful in grant funding applications, but with wider economic pressures that we've seen growing over the last year, are we starting to also see the trading models that new social enterprises are considering reflecting this pessimism in marketplaces too? 

As always, I don't post and share these notes as a definitive position, but to offer perspectives that may hopefully help us have better conversations - and better conversations can help us create better impact (and can also include me changing my mind, as I have in the past!).