The first annual meeting of the Pink Shoe Club, was, says founder Helene Martin Gee, a bit like a “children’s birthday party”. Martin Gee, who has been described as a serial entrepreneur, is referring to the gingerbread women with pink icing shoes that were served, rather than the level of the discourse on offer at the women’s networking, policy and peer group.

In 2004, Martin Gee, the chief policy adviser to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship, founded a healthy eating social enterprise Eat:Fit, and she has carried her social entrepreneurship values with her to the Pink Shoe Club.

Although described as a group for high profile women, the club has several student interns and offers them as many opportunities as possible. “We are trying to change lives in our own small way,” says Martin Gee.

According to a Delta Economics survey released earlier this year, men are twice as likely to be mainstream entrepreneurs than women. But social enterprises - profit-making organisations established to tackle social or environmental issues – attract almost equal numbers of men and women. And in some UK regions, women’s involvement in the sector outstrips that of men. In both the east of England and the South West, there are four female social entrepreneurs for every three male social entrepreneurs, for example.

“Social enterprise with women changes communities,” says Martin Gee. “With women, what you tend to find is they spread out their learning. For instance if you look at micro finance in India and Africa, if you give that money to women they then empower those around them – they educate their children, they feed their communities.”

As part of mid November's Enterprise Week, the Pink Shoe Club's second annual meeting took the form of ten simultaneous discussions all over London and beyond. Martin Gee spent the day dropping in on discussions and organising the evening’s events – a mass meeting in the House of Commons followed by a reception where the principles of social enterprise were reflected in the choice of the small, local food and drink producers providing refreshments.

“It does tend to be the case that more women [than men] are drawn to social enterprise,” she says, citing passion and courage as key attributes needed in the sector. “All social enterprises take risks,” she says. “I think we [as women] follow our passions, we follow our hearts.”

Karen Mattison, the co-founder of Women Like Us, is a case in point. The social enterprise was set up in 2005 to champion flexible working. It’s an employment agency with a difference – one that helps women with children find part time work that fits around family life, and one that consults employers, helping them create flexible working structures.

Mattison, previously the chief executive of a small charity, came up with the idea when, as a mother of three, she began looking for part time work herself.

“I found myself at school a lot more than usual and all the mums were looking for flexible jobs. At the school gates, literally, was a mass of talent, and in the world of work you’ve got employers who don’t know where to go to get that talent.”

Mattison and her business partner Emma Stewart started informally telling women about jobs, but, seeing a gap in the market, set up Women Like Us.

“Commercial recruitment agencies are not interested in part time work,” she says. And unlike most agencies where consultants are motivated by commission, WLU consultants receive salaries. “It’s a bespoke service,” says Mattison, who points out that women who have been out of the workforce often lack confidence. WLU offer career coaching and advice and run workshops including one on successful networking and another on starting your own business. “We support women,” says Mattison.