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South Africa’s local communities experience a myriad of social issues, because of this, social entrepreneurs take interest in understanding the “problem” and introducing innovative solutions to tackle them, this could be through (but not limited to) the launch of a social enterprise(s).  While proving the impact of a social enterprise is essential for its sustainability, not all social enterprises can/are able to measure and communicate their impact clearly. In this paper, we have explored the interventions used by different social entrepreneurs to address local problems and how the social impact of the interventions was tracked. Purposive sampling was used to identify the social entrepreneurs suitable for this study. The social entrepreneurs identified were engaged through semi-structured interviews, and the generated data was analysed through the thematic analysis technique. The findings of the study show that most of the social entrepreneurs that were engaged do not track the social impact of their interventions at all. Those that do track their social impact do not use any formal or consistent social impact measurement tools, and have shared their interest in receiving formal social impact measurement training. In conclusion, it is important for social entrepreneurs to measure their social impact, this ensures that they are accountable in their work and improves the sustainability of their interventions.    

The aim of this paper is to explore the influence of society’s perception, social networking and social impact measurement on access to finance for social enterprises’ activities. It broadens the theoretical understanding from the perspective of resource dependence theory. The study tested hypotheses to asertain the impact of society’s perception, social networking and social impact measurement on access to finance that enhances social enterprises’ activities.  A quantitative research approach was adopted, using a snowball sampling technique to identify 90 owners/managers of social enterprises from three communities in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The data was examined with Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling. The study revealed that social impact measurement has a positive, but statistically insignificant impact on access to finance; there is a positive and statistically significant impact of social networking on access to finance; also, society’s perception has a positive and statistically significant impact on access to finance. The result does not support the moderation effect of society’s perception on social networking and access to finance. Therefore, this study recommends that government educate the society on the importance of social entreprise activities in KZN communities, which will enhance members of the societys’ willingness to provide financial assistance. In addition, there should be great emphasis on social networking among social enterprises as it provides crucial platforms to share relevant information on access to finance, which is essential in addressing sociatal challenges.