Author Archives: sse

Empowerment and confidence

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A couple of things stood out in the social entrepreneurship field in the past week or so. the first was the launching of the Empowerment White Paper from Department of Communities and Local Government, expertly chronicled and tracked by their secondee Simon Berry (check out the EWP Pageflake for example). Two relevant funding streams in this: a £70m Community Builders fund, which seems to be an amended, reduced version of the previously proposed ‘community anchors’ fund (a large proportion is capital). There is also a £7.5m which is a reworked version of the withdrawn Strategic Partners fund. Particularly pleased to see the emphasis here on the individual, and on practical action (one of the principles of the paper is "within the third sector, we recognise and celebrate the role of individual active citizens, social entrepreneurs, campaigners, volunteers and political activists…these people deserve the support and recognition of government").

Alongside that launch, there was the release of the new Social Entrepreneurship Monitor (as was), now simply called Social Entrepreneurship in the UK. (pdf download available from this page). In the past, the SEM has been a largely finger-in-the-air exercise in how it comes to its figures, but this report seems really well-thought through and researched. Includes case studies for the first time, and some interesting (and helpful) delineations of various terms. As with previous reports, it emphasises that "social entrepreneurs are not as confident as their mainstream counterparts….and do appear to be less confident as their activity becomes more established". This has always been something SSE has focused on (88% of SSE Fellows have an increase in skills and confidence to lead; 60% say this continues after the programme has finished), and it’s important that this is recognised from independent sources elsewhere. Also worth noting that the report underlines that "mentoring and coaching as well as access to finance through the growth process are important". Again, it’s good to see endorsement of our call for specialist support, without which all the good work on financial instruments, measurement tools and legal structures is lost.

What connects these two reports, I think, is that they both draw attention to the need to a) support and develop individuals and b) that this is not, primarily, about level 2 box-ticking audits, but about more intangible and "softer" (though harder to pin down) things like empowerment and confidence. Whilst many social entrepreneurs are driven by frustration with the status quo, or powered by personal experience, this can also become disillusioning if they are not supported on a long-term basis through the journey and if they are not genuinely able to achieve ’empowerment’. By which I mean not only in the sense of " To equip or supply with an ability" but also in the direct sense of "To invest with power", either via organisational forms they’ve established, or via genuinely representative roles within (and outwith) the political system.

If this research and this white paper can help make the case for and deliver that kind of work, then last week will have been an important one for social entrepreneurs across the UK.

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Thursday round-up: 2gether, 2 winners, 2-pennorth

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Quick round-up; am in Belfast tomorrow at SSEI so won’t be an end-of-the-week trawl.

– Enjoyed my one day at 2gether08; mixed feedback, but then that’s what you get with a mixed crowd, I guess…and a mixed line-up; networking was great, even if the social media-meets-social good crowd is a realtively small and incestuous one. Do check out the site for video of the sessions and speakers: there was a lot there….include myself and Cliff from UnLtd now in full technicolour video apparently….

– At the event last night, they announced the New Statesman New Media Award winners. Check out the list here, including two SSE Fellow-led/involved organisations, Patient Opinion and School of Everything. Congratulations to Paul Hodgkin and Andy Gibson (and the rest of Everything), as well as all the other nominees, which included SSE Fellow Nathalie McDermott for the excellent SavvyChavvy

– Am not avoiding talking about this, but easier to check out previous posts, or my comments on Rob’s blog for my two-pence worth of views….

– Doing very nicely by doing good: the Economist’s take on microfinance making macro profits

– Room to Read founder John Wood featured in the Sunday Times; interesting feature on an amazing organisation

– Lots on social enterprises in the health sphere and pensions….check it out on Third Sector et al. You’ll be glad to know you can TUPE yourself over. For nurse-led stuff, you’d do well to check out Entreprenurses (and their recent 5-part podcast), the fount of all knowledge and expertise on the subject

– Finally, self-referential link news: this blog got picked up by New Start (who also have a decent article on ‘accidental social entrepreneurs‘) and, halcyon days indeed, Social Enterprise Coalition‘s Media Monitor….

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We’re in it 2gether…

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Currently at 2gether 08, a Channel 4-backed technology-meets-social purpose type event here in East London (about 10 minutes walk, handily, from the SSE office). I’m helping out Cliff Prior from UnLtd (as I mentioned to someone earlier, the Debbie McGee to his Paul Daniels) in his mapping social entrepreneurship session(s).

The event has a nice vibe: wristbands a la festival, different spaces, plenty of coffee. I’ve only been in the session I was being scribe in, but feedback would seem to be mixed on the session content. The techies and geeks and philosophers seem to have plenty to ponder / debate / discuss; the (social) entrepreneurs seem to have less in terms of action-focused stuff or content that can help move their organisation forward….beyond the networking, which is where most value from these things come, as ever. Nice to remake connections with the social reporting team from Shine: Paul Henderson, Darragh Doyle, Ben Matthews et al

Where the event is great is the amount of interaction / material online, powered and co-ordinated by social reporter-extraordinaire David Wilcox, so would encourage you to take a look at all of that….including video etc. I’m retiring to a quiet corner to do some work before the next session…………….

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Is mission drift better for your bottom line?

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One of SSE’s strengths over the past decade or more has been its adherence to both a central mission (supporting and developing social entrepreneurs in order to etc etc) and a central product (long-term action learning, practitioner-led, and peer-networked programmes, involving a variety of different interventions). This has given the organisation clarity of focus, and a well-refined, improved and robust product offering: a proven methodology that is replicating around the UK (am just back from Penzance!).

But the flipside to that clarity and focus is that it can affect flexibility, the ability to change with the times and, to an extent, the ability to seize a varied range of opportunities. This isn’t totally the case with SSE, as our work has, if anything, become more and more relevant over time….and the programme appeals to a wide range of audiences. Nevertheless, I have been frustrated recently looking at other organisations who, seemingly, go for anything vaguely in this sector….decisions that are clearly powered by pound signs, not purpose.

When doing Myers-Briggs or Belbin-type team analysis, a key person is the ‘values holder’…the person(s) who is principled and helps keep an organisation focused on its mission. The person who will discuss and debate with those who are pushing for a more diversified / entrepreneurial route. Ideally, those debates end up at a healthy central position between the two. But there are a few organisations for whom the values holders seem to have (literally) left the building. Or whose lack of clarity about their product / specialism is actually beneficial because it means they can shape themselves (or a work programme) to fit any tender, application or proposal. And this is, arguably, particularly the case in the social enterprise / entrepreneurship world where the primacy of the financial and social missions is less evident.

I’m not normally a fan of management tools and frameworks, but I am a fan of the old mission-money matrix. The one below comes from Fieldstone Alliance’s Tools You Can Use:

06944xmissionmoney_matrix

I particularly like the imagery here….obviously the ideal is everything falls in the ‘star’ category, but the reality is often activities dotted in all three (heart, star, cash) categories. If you’re doing anything that loses you money and has nothing to do with your mission, then please stop now, as the sign suggests.

What’s important in using this simple tool to evaluate business development choices is to have clarity of mission first and, ideally, clarity about how you’re measuring that impact. Otherwise, financial sustainability can naturally become the pre-eminent force, and you end up with organisations sustaining themselves in order to….well… sustain, rather than in order to achieve the social impact / mission that prompted their establishment.

Of course, this is a balance, as I’ve discussed before. And money remains of utmost importance…….but importance as a means to achieving social change, not in and of itself. And, ultimately, drifting off mission will have medium-to-long term effects: staff leaving, internal disputes, diminution of credibility in any one field/area, reputational damage from competition at all costs and so forth. Drifting starts with rapid movement and a swirl of activity….but soon forms into a frozen, stationary mass.

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Is there a left-right divide in social enterprise?

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The rumbling debate about ECT and its takeover and its CIC status (or lack of, now its recycling arm is privately-owned) has continued over on the Society Guardian’s Joe Public blog, with Patrick Butler asking "Does it matter if a social enterprise is bought up by a big corporate?". It’s a fair question, and a pretty decent summary of what the ECT Recycling takeover looks like from an ‘outsider’ point of view.

What’s been interesting has been the comments that have followed from ‘insiders’ such as Craig Deardern-Phillips, Jim Brown and others (I’m SocEnt on there, btw). Beyond the calls for clarity on the detail of the situation, which I echo, it’s been interesting to see how have been categorised (in some cases by themselves) as on the left or right of social enterprise. In summary, this seems to mean those who are concerned with community governance / ownership / democratic accountability are on the "left", while those who are (more) comfortable with influencing, partnering and being absorbed by the mainstream are on the "right". In the case of ECT, as this illuminating post by Rod Schwartz highlights, this means it could be viewed either as a cause for jubilation or concern

As Rod (somewhat provocatively!) writes: "Readers of our blog will know that we normally applaud when successful social entrepreneurs sell out"….before going on to state that ECT maybe didn’t get as good a price as it could have: "Price is not everything but we cannot help but feel (and did ourselves
believe) that ECTR would have been worth more. I do not know if this
went to auction or not." Well, it would be nice to think that ECT was looking for a strategic partner to scale up, and that that is how this all came about. But the reality, which Rod hints at in his talk of ECT’s bankers "not being very supportive" is that this was more of a short-term solution to an imminent problem. ECT already had a relationship with May Gurney, so to that degree the partnerships were being thought about. But this wasn’t a planned auction.

This shareholder vs. stakeholder terrain is too simplistic to divide into left and right, though. Neither stance is easily applied to a political party currently….and social enterprise has always been viewed as being on that centre ground (third way territory) where economic progress meets social justice. What it might instead demonstrate are the different segments along a spectrum from voluntary and charitable through to for-profit. As we go along the spectrum (and as legal structures and investment streams / returns change), different people get more uncomfortable and draw a (personal) line. And people start on that spectrum at different ends (oh, hold on, maybe it is left and right ;0). This is why people like Rod and Nigel Kershaw have berated the CIC for not allowing large enough investment to scale up social enterprise-type organisations, whilst the ‘other camp’ have pointed to the CIC’s lack of rigour around democratic and transparent ownership, and accountability to the community. Or, as one commenter puts it on the Joe Public post:

"I see the immersion of any not-for-private-profit social enterprise into
the ‘for profit’ sector as a surrender to the very set of practices and
values which cause ingrained poverty and exclusion in the first place"

Where do we stand? Well, SSE has never backed a "legal structure" as the solution, and believe that all sorts of different organisations (charities, social enterprises, for-profits) can have positive social impact. Our belief is that it is up to the social entrepreneur to choose the ‘right’ structure for them given their proposed activities, mission, financing, governance and so on. The vast majority choose a non-profit structure (regd. charity / co. ltd by guarantee / CIC etc), but some that have had the greatest social impact have had a for-profit structure. What is definitely needed is a push for all organisations in this field to measure their social impact and communicate and report transparently to their consumers / customers / beneficiaries / community / stakeholders / funders………regardless of their structure.

A final point is that the ECT story should raise the debate about the fetishisation of scale, and the best (most sustainable and most consistent) routes to achieving that. If it’s wanted / right / needed. Because there will be more organisations coming along the ECT route over the coming years.

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