Author Archives: sse

Innovation Exchange launch

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SSE was just at the Innovation Exchange launch (website launches for real on Friday) which was at NESTA. NESTA have decided to stump up £200k development cash for the InnovEx programme as well, which was announced at the event by their chief exec Jonathan Kestenbaum.

He was followed by Glenys Thornton, who talked of "relating ambition to the lived experience" and said many a thank you, as befitted her role as chair of the exchange.

Next up was Valerie Hannon, Director of the Innovation Unit (who, along with ACEVO and Headshift, are the three constituent partners). She explained the nuts and bolts of the approach and how it would work…namely 2 Innovation Networks (to start with) around particular themes (living independently and excluded young people) followed by 2 Next Practice Programmes to further develop ideas / projects. With a mix of investment, development, advice, challenge etc. One key point is the emphasis on the supply as well as the demand side (aka commissioners and funders). The two themes were selected because they were a) high up in public priorities b) had high innovation potential in the 3rd sector and c) had the potential for investment.

We then heard from 4 individual innovators.

Julie Dent talked about her work within and without the NHS (including, memorably, kimono-style gowns to ensure "old men’s bottoms" aren’t on full display). Her tips for success included the question of ownership and that more money may not be the answer.

Colin Crooks, of Green Works, discussed how they’d addressed market failure and how "accidental networking" had helped them achieve what they had. in classic entrepreneurial style, he also put a call out to invest in a new strand of work….

Hilary Simon, of the Southwark Pensioners Centre, emphasised the need for long-term planning and sustainability, and how a people-centred approach could help develop services from the bottom-up.

Then Neil McIntosh of CfBT explored the difficulties of remaining innovative whilst selling services to government. The answer? Being true to your mission (and, crucially, having the resources to allow you to stay true, scale up, be bold, and do research). He also had a direct message for government to get their people moving in the right direction…

Which led neatly on to Phil Hope, Minister for the Third Sector, who I found quite engaging (first time I’d seen him speak) and sound. He had a nice line about having spent the weekend delivering 6,000 leaflets, "somewhat unnecessarily as it turned out" to open, and then continued from there. Nothing revelatory, but detailed various policies and programmes (social investment bank, 3 yr contracts, full cost recovery) and drew attention to the 3rd sector’s history of innovation, which he put down to its independence of mind, value-driven purpose, and dogged optimism. He ended by saying that 3rd sector orgs could now choose to be a campaigner, a deliverer or an innovator….or a combination of all three.

It’s an exciting initiative, but everyone was keenly aware that everything seems exciting at this point…the devil will be in the detail of the delivery. It was a good turnout, with a good mix of people (government, funders, support agencies, second tier policy networks, think tanks etc), so join the website on Friday (no doubt a link will appear on the blog) and watch the space….

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Friday round-up: Give Big, play Footsey, scale up, drink Fairtrade McDonald’s coffee…

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As the champagne corks pop for the weekend, here’s the round-up of news and links:

– Bill Clinton’s been in town promoting his book, Giving, but of equal interest might be The Big Give website for potential donors….

– Social enterprise is on the curriculum in schools from September 2008. Those of you who did Business Studies at school will no doubt have your own opinions about whether this is a good or bad thing….

– SSE is heading up to Footsey later in October: see you there, people….CAN are also having a ‘Scaling Social Enterprise‘ event on October 30th; we’re on our residential, but looks like a good event

– The evening before Footsey is the Enterprising Solutions Awards, which should mean a few hangovers on the train to York. Word on the street is that it’s ‘cocktail dress’ (!), so look forward to the great and good being suited and booted.

– The 3rd Sector Minister has been out and about visiting two well-known social enterprises in the East Midlands.

– Get Sustainable Funding in Wales

–  Fairtrade in NY Times and (coffee-wise) used by McDonalds…

Have a good weekend…..

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The Ernst and Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 is…

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…Brett Wigdortz of Teach First. Congratulations to Brett and his team for the award….which you can read more about here on the Business In The Community website. Brett had the misfortune to sit next to me on a plane to a conference once, when I got to know him, and we chatted a lot about Teach First, SSE, replication within the UK, and replication internationally. It was interesting to hear which aspects of his management consultancy background were most useful to his new role, and to hear how the organisation came about. It’s now been going for 5 years, and has certainly played a part (alongside various government-backed salary increases, golden handshakes, advertising) in changing the attitude towards teaching as a profession. Framing it as leadership development, rather than teacher training, and encouraging a collective sense of belonging amongst those who work on the programmes are keys to its success (and reasons why it is likely to endure).

You can read about all the Entrepreneurs of the Year on the E&Y website. I love the headline "Lord Harris of Carpetright is UK Overall Entrepreneur of the Year"…giving the impression that Carpetright is a town or region (arise, Lord Harris of Carpetright). He’s actually Lord Harris of Peckham, and congrats to him as well.

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Do you do the green thing?

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I met up the other day with Rod Schwartz of Catalyst to chat about social entrepreneurs, his trip to the Balkans and SSE. Having taught in a school for the blind in Bulgaria back in the dim and distant past, I was interested to hear about social business / social entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe, and the potential for the movement over there.

In the course of our discussions, Rod mentioned that he was involved with an initiative called ‘Do the Green Thing‘, and that it was launching today….I vaguely remembered signing up to something and, sure enough, got an e-mail through today encouraging me to, well, do the green thing. Which this month is: walk more, drive less. It’s kind of a We Are What We Do meets iCount meets GlobalCool meets TipThePlanet. With extra advertising savvy and web (2.0)-usability thrown in.

They describe it as: "a not-for-profit online community uniting people to act against climate
change. Green Thing’s basic principle is to tempt people to do one
delightful thing a month and so build up a programme of green behaviour
one easy step at a time".

I like it, mostly because it has a sense of humour, a bit of personality and engaging content. Whether it gets (drum roll) critical mass and really takes off remains to be seen, but there’s some smart, plugged-in people behind it. And good use of the blogs/videos/podcasts/audio/wiki stuff out there, without it seeming chaotic (a challenge in itself).

Worth a bit of your valuable time.

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Friday round-up: flavours, Bill Clinton, social networking, and more.

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It’s that time again: Friday’s round-up of news and views…

– First off, nothing riled me more this week than this article in Third Sector magazine…if I had a pound for every time I read the phrase "Social enterprise is flavour of the month", then suffice to say we would have another revenue stream. Grrrr. You can see my rant underneath the article, but the end of it demonstrates the problem: what’s needed is to "provid[e] a clearer explanation of what exactly a social enterprise is
supposed to be and how third sector organisations can take up this model". First of all, we’ve spent years arguing over definitions…there is a government definition which is widely used, and an understanding that social enterprises trade and earn to a greater degree, utilise different legal structures (CIC, Coop, etc) and have differnet governance (often, not trustees). Secondly, social enterprises are part of the third sector: they are third sector organisations themselves. Thirdly, there are a spectrum of choices, structures and legal models for organisations to choose from (or develop into), so why phrase it in such ‘them’ and ‘us’ terms?  Cliched articles written from people who don’t understand the wider sector, or even the terms they’re using, are really not going to help in explaining things clearly, are they?

– OK, rant over, on to more interesting things; Bill Clinton’s been all over the news re. his philanthropic initiatives. Lucy Bernholz has probably given the best summaries: on Clinton Bookbay and Mycommitment.org . Check out this bit in the Guardian as well (on Clinton’s rich mates…)

– YouTube have launched a  Non-Profit channel (also related to Clinton Global Initiative).

– Social enterprise: examples and links (US)

– Another potential revenue stream (see above) is the "if I had a pound for every time someone has told me about a new social networking site…." . All of them should read this article: Building a Social Networking Site is Not an Outreach Strategy. Go Laura at Idealware; I’m with you all the way.

– Too late for some, though: "What is Razoo? Social networking for changemakers…."

– Can’t find time to blog? [via Beth’s blog] Read How to blog without the time sink? (and use it as your back-up brain)

– UK-wise, Philanthropy UK have a new website, and it was good to stumble across Sal La Spada and the Institute for Philanthropy in an Observer supplement (a book on Money) recently.

– The Academy of Sustainable Communities have released their "Mind the Skills Gap" report about what skills are needed for sustainable communities. Worth a read.

– Heard of the World Entrepreneurship Summit? You have now.

Have a great weekend….

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