Social innovation is a concept which develops with the emergence of new social problems and risks in the process of post-industrialization. Although it was created earlier, it has received significant attention since 2010 with the publication of the BEPA report on social innovations. The European Union encourages and promotes the concept of social innovation, seeing the potential for new and innovative solutions. Social innovations serve as a solution in situations where new problems appear or when old patterns no longer produce the expected results, and mostly related to social problems such as social exclusion, alienation, deprivation, lack of well-being etc. Social innovations are applicable in different areas but the most significant are in the area of ​​social care, because their role is to solve social problems. Regardless of their importance, the concept is still not fully rooted in the social care system in a large number of European countries, and numerous obstacles can often appear in their application or implementation, which in most cases is caused by fear of change or the unknown or poor knowledge. Great emphasis and importance is placed on the organization of civil society as the most potential actor for the implementation of innovations. In this paper, we will use a comparative analysis to study the situation in Croatia and Germany in order to gain insight into the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of social innovation, especially focused on the field of social care. This will give us insight into possible changes for the future.