In this lesson you test how business can serve a place, not only a shareholder.

You have already sorted enterprises by form using the ownership-and-surplus test: who owns it, and where leftover money goes. If you still have the sheet or the portfolio note you made when you did that sorting, open it beside you now. Today you go deeper on the line between a for-profit business and a community enterprise: who owns it, where the money goes, and what local life would look like if it disappeared.

By the end you will hold a half-page investigation of one real Irish community enterprise, ready for your Digital Portfolio.

Three terms you will use in today’s investigation. Read the middle column carefully: that is what you will actually write into your portfolio.

You will do two linked pieces of work. Three real Irish organisations are set out below, with the facts you need. Work from one community enterprise and one for-profit, or from a local example you know well enough to defend.

• Cloughjordan Ecovillage (community enterprise, Co. Tipperary) - owned by its members through a co-operative. Revenue from site fees, an enterprise centre and a community farm. Any surplus goes back into the site; nobody takes a dividend out.
• Dublin Food Co-op (community enterprise) - member-owned, one member one vote. Revenue from retail trading. Surplus is reinvested or returned to members as lower prices, not paid to outside shareholders.
• A national supermarket chain (for-profit) - owned by shareholders. Revenue from retail trading. Surplus is profit, distributed to those shareholders, and decisions are made to serve them.

For the first twelve minutes or so you fill the comparator, where Option A is a for-profit business with a local presence and Option B is the community enterprise you have chosen. Aim to fill all five rows for Option B from something you can point to, and if research time is tight fill at least three rows for Option A. Then set the weights for what matters most to you and watch how the readout moves.

For roughly twenty minutes after that, create or open Community Enterprise Investigation (doc or slides) in your Strand 2.1 portfolio folder and title it with the enterprise name. Write roughly 150–200 words on the community enterprise only (Option B), using these headings:

• What it does: day-to-day activity
• How it earns: revenue mechanism (trade, fees, grants, membership; be specific)
• Local impact: one concrete fact, not a slogan
• Surplus line: where leftover money is meant to go, and what that buys for the place

Here is the shape to aim for, not a finished answer. A revenue line might read “Most income comes from café sales and room hire, with a smaller grant for the community programme.” An impact line might read “It keeps a weekday counter service open so older residents do not travel to the next town for basic errands.”

Before you leave this write-up, check: activity described; revenue as a mechanism; one evidenced local impact; a clear surplus or ownership line.

This document feeds later enterprise work in the strand, including the social-enterprise comparison that follows.

Talk these through with the person beside you, then decide what you would add to your investigation if you had five more minutes.

• Which of the two organisations would you rather give a Saturday to, and why? Say it in plain terms before you dress it up as “values”.
• Where did money and mission sit together most clearly in the community enterprise you studied, and where did they pull apart?
• If the surplus from that enterprise were taken out as private profit tomorrow, what local outcome would be the first to weaken? Name a service, job, or facility, not only “community spirit”.

Optional Digital Portfolio note in the same Community Enterprise Investigation document: one short paragraph on whether you would rather work in the for-profit or the community enterprise you compared, and what that choice says about your own priorities right now.

Today you ran a real enterprise investigation. You should now be able to:

• explain how a community enterprise uses business activity for local benefit
• tell surplus from private profit using ownership and where leftover money goes
• compare a for-profit business and a community enterprise on ownership, revenue, decisions, and impact
• write a half-page investigation covering activity, revenue, and local impact for one real Irish community enterprise

Before you close the document: check activity, revenue mechanism, one evidenced local impact, and a surplus or ownership line are all present.

Your Community Enterprise Investigation document in the Strand 2.1 folder is the artefact that carries forward. Next you will set a community enterprise beside a social enterprise and judge which does more for its community, and on what basis.