Hybrid Coping: The Impact of Covid‐19 on Social Enterprise Resilience

ABSTRACT

This article explores the impact of Covid‐19 on nonprofit resilience, utilizing the UK social enterprise ecosystem as the area of focus. The article engages the theoretical concepts of organizational resilience and community engagement; specifically, how these are impacted by exogenous shocks that change ecosystem dynamics. The article focuses in particular on financial resilience within the context of social enterprises in the United Kingdom both before and during the Covid‐19 pandemic, explored through a grant funding program delivered between 2021 and 2023. The research utilizes quantitative financial and organizational data gathered from 1507 social enterprise applicants to this grant fund, based upon the period 2019–2022. This is supplemented by qualitative data in the form of interviews and focus groups held with social entrepreneurs (N = 17) and key ecosystem support stakeholders (N = 16), as well as researcher observations of discussions of social enterprise applications from the grant fund panel meetings. The research demonstrates how Covid‐19 impacted organizations' resilience over time, illustrating financial and social resilience among the social enterprise sample engaged during the period 2019–2022. The paper posits that this financial and social resilience is grounded within social enterprises' focus on their communities and their hybrid missions. The findings are useful to policy‐makers and practitioners looking to understand and support third‐sector resilience in the post‐pandemic world.