A social enterprise is a corporation that uses commercial strategies to achieve a primary social, environmental, or cultural mission, reinvesting most profits back into that mission rather than maximizing shareholder wealth, blending business with purpose to create sustainable change. They operate like regular businesses, selling goods or services, but their core goal is community well-being, addressing issues like poverty, unemployment, or environmental protection.

Social enterprises such as cooperatives and Indigenous community-owned for-profit entities are considered potentially eligible under the Community Enhancement Program where the following is demonstrated:

• The cooperative is established without the ability to flow dividends to individual members of the cooperative limiting the benefit of NOHFC support to the benefit of the non-profit.
• The Indigenous for-profit entity is 100% owned by the Indigenous community or by a number of Indigenous communities with 100% of the profits being reinvested back into the community(ies), excluding revenues reinvested back into the business.