Italian Voluntary Organizations as Social Enterprises? Empirical Evidence from Tuscany

The aim of this article is to illustrate the business model adopted by central Italian Voluntary Organizations (VOs), in order to point out a clear contradiction between the institutional structure and the activities actually performed, and consequently the social enterprise nature of the organizations. With this purpose in mind, a collective analysis of the 2004 and 2005 activity statements of VOs in Tuscany (a region in central Italy) was carried out, in which the type and origin of their revenues as well as the nature of their expenses were identified. The results show that VOs have features of social enterprises due to a high incidence of revenues from commercial contracts within the total income. In comparison, typical revenues of nonprofit organizations, such as those derived from fund-raising activities or the management of assets conferred by the founders, take on a lesser importance. The interpretation of these data might change radically if the financial value of the donation of services (volunteer work) was assessed in the statement of activities. However, this assessment of value, although recommended by the national accounting procedure, is hardly ever done in Italian VOs.