Social Entrepreneurship Across Generations: Observations on Founder Age Among Social Enterprises in Europe

The European Commission is proud to support this year’s European Social Enterprise Monitor (ESEM) thematic report, under the theme of Social Entrepreneurship Across Generations: Observations on Founder Age Among Social Enterprises in Europe. This second ESEM thematic report, explores the 2023-2024 ESEM data from the perspective of current (2024) founder age, and seeks to illustrate the particular experiences and perspectives of ESEM social enterprises (SEs) with either young (<35) or more senior (55-64 and 65+) founders. At the time of founding, at least 19% of ESEM SEs had young founders (<35), while only 3% had founders aged 55+. Currently, while 7% of ESEM SEs have founders who are young, 15% are aged 55+ (including 4% aged 65+).