Category Archives: Learning

Social enterprise and entrepreneurship links from August

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Card2028-376x230 Lots to do, lots to read, lots more to do….

My last post-holiday round-up seemed to go down well, so thought I'd do the same for August as I did for July. No particular rationale, just stuff I've found interesting or think might be relevant. Hope it is. Enjoy:

– The big hairy article of the month was in the Economist (I assume by Matthew Bishop), titled "Social innovation: let's hear those ideas" which covers how the US and UK governments are seeking to encourage social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Also includes cogent round-up of Big Society agenda to date.

– If you're interested in working out what the hell is happening with Local Enterprise Partnerships (*entire readership switches blogs*), then this round-up is the best place STILL to do so.

– Some interesting stuff written about the Big Society. Dai Powell of HCT's ("The clock is ticking on the Big Society") and Geoff Mulgan of Young Foundation's ("Can the Big Society be more than a slogan?") stood out for me, along with Craig Dearden-Phillips call for a constructive, engaged response See http://del.icio.us/SSE/bigsociety for more

– Twenty by Twenty: twenty essays on future of social enterprise, charity et al by good (as well as big) names

– Great social media decision-making guide for social entrepreneurs / non-profits from US experts Idealware

– Good piece in the New York Times about a social entrepreneur (don't be put off by the title): What Exactly Is A Social Entrepreneur?

– Giving is no longer a government preserve: interesting piece in the Telegraph touching on social entrepreneurship + big society

– Amanda Jones of RedButtonDesign in Director magazine on the trials and tribulations of raising funding/investment as a social enterprise

– Nice (Canadian) round-up of summer reading for social entrepreneurs which of course you can buy in the SSE bookstore

– Social enterprise start-up: 3 lessons to learn….by Involver

– Worry isn't work: Don't be Anxious! wise words from Dan Pallotta in Harvard Business Review; now if I could just follow his advice…

– Happy tale of a women's social enterprise (minicabs for women only) struggling, thriving and becoming the subject of a BBC comedy show

– Ten tips on elevator pitches; I think the Brits aren't as good at this stuff (myself included); I think we do escalator pitches….so will try and read 5 lessons from 150 start-up pitches as well

– Merger advice for small and medium orgs + collaboration advice from Bassac and others….

– ….and, for balance, an argument on DSC against merger: Total efficiency is the enemy of freedom

– Pollgate: the results of the storm in our own particular UK #socent teacup; but gratifying nonetheless!

– Freeing the Social Entrepreneur: a piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review well worth reading, covering founder syndrome, leadership and much more

– Great video on the Homeless World Cup and its impact: warms the cockles and all that

– The Social Intrapreneur: a field guide for corporate changemakers…. ; well, those MBA-ers had to come up with something :0)

– Alex Nicholls says Social Entrepreneurship Is Growing Up on Dowser.org. Which I would heartily endorse. So I'll end with the good professor's words. Cheers:

”We're moving into a period of much more critical analysis of social entrepreneurship. We've ridden a wave of consensus; we're all hugging each other and patting ourselves on the back. There's been lots of money pouring into this and support from governments. I think all that's changing. We've had an economic calamity, governments are looking at austerity, foundations are pulling back, the media and others are getting more critical. I think we're going to have a critical decade for social entrepreneurship, and that's great. It's high time we looked at the stuff that's useful and does have impact and the stuff that has no impact at all, and I think we're going to have a big reality check. The hero-worshiping, self-congratulatory period's over. I don't see that as a challenge; I see it as a sign that we're growing up.”

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Social entrepreneurs in Fife: Tracey, Frankie, Alfie and Kathleen

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FifeDartington It’s been a great and amazing couple of days, reaffirming why I love working in this field, and what it can achieve. Wednesday included a ‘webinar’ on using social media with Fellows dialling in from across the UK and Australia, which went well despite the expected digital glitches; and also a session with one of the new London programmes (see who are on the Block and Weekly programmes here; profiles are gradually being filled in!) on problem tree analysis….which is more interesting and practically useful than it might sound.

Today, I was invited to attend and speak at the SSE Fife graduation of their latest programme, under the banner Motivate to Innovate. Fife was our first SSE franchise, and BRAG, where it’s based, have been a trusted, committed, supportive and, at times, forgiving partner. What John, Dodie, Callum (in picture, left, with several of Fife programme) and, especially, Tracey have achieved over the years in Lochgelly, Fife, and now across other parts of Scotland, is incredibly impressive. They themselves have demonstrated so many of the characteristics the graduating students spoke about today: resilience, support, drive, persistence, commitment, determination, resourcefulness.

The social entrepreneurs graduating today were a typical SSE mix of projects, ages, genders and backgrounds; do check them out. They each spoke about the importance of the support of their peers, and of other networks they tapped into; of how this was a journey of confidence and self-awareness and belief as well as skills and knowledge; and of how hard it was, but also how rewarding. Or as Lorna, one of the new Fellows, put it, “It’s been tough; but worth it”. There were tears, laughter and a great deal of inspiration at the event today.

I also caught up with Frankie, SSE Fellow and Executive Director of Recycle Fife. He came in to support these newest Fellows, and told me that things are going well, with almost 40 staff now working at the organisation, and several potential new eco-developments coming up: he’s got countless great ideas, but he’s also proven he and the RF team can implement them. He also pointed out to me that their success is as much about the people they work with, train, and employ as it is the environmental benefits (around 1120 customers; diverts around 180 tonnes per month from landfill). He talked to me about a guy called Alfie who is now working in his first ever job, aged 48, at Recycle Fife; at first, they didn’t have the money to take him on, so he volunteered for 11 months, worked with the organisation on some of the things that had been a barrier in the past, and is now a few months into gainful employment. You can fill in the blanks on the change that brings in someone’s life.

I will finish by briefly mentioning Kathleen, one of the social entrepreneurs who graduated today. She outlined the challenges and traumas in her background, the things she had overcome, and the journey she and her kids had been on over the last 8 or 9 years. Having gone back through education, rebuilt her home life, retrained, and re-oriented herself, she is now committed to supporting and helping others: setting up an organisation that provides therapies for those going through similar experiences. I can’t really get across how powerful her presentation was, how impressive her journey is, or how the room was hanging on her every word; suffice to say that she had to ask for tissues half way through, and there were plenty of other less-than-dry eyes.

I come away inspired and humbled. As I said to the new Fellows, I’ve attended a few events recently where a mixture of management consultants, venture capitalists, MBA students and politicians have propounded their views on why social enterprise and social entrepreneurs are important, and setting forth their views on what all this stuff is about. I'm glad those conversations are happening. But today reaffirmed that, for me at least, it is at its heart about people. People like Tracey, Frankie, Alfie and Kathleen.

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The real deal social entrepreneurs in Yorkshire

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Great to go and visit our Yorkshire and Humber SSE today, and not just because East Coast trains do free wi-fi (hooray)…but also much more importantly to get a catch-up on how the first programme is going up there, and to meet with three current students currently being supported.
What was great for me was that the relatively dry, formal points I had been making in the first part of the conversation were vividly brought to life by the real examples the social entrepreneurs brought up as they spoke. Here’s some examples of what I mean.

1) Formal version (me): “Social entrepreneurs build trusted relationships, form partnerships and gain practically useful contacts as a result of being together on the programme”

Real-world: John, who’s working on a project to build trust and improve relationships between neighbours, is now working with two other Y+H SSE students (Jay and Justine: there must be some sort of J cubed or 3J name in the offing) whose work complements his. Namely, a platform is built to get neighbours interacting (by John); recycled PCs (from Jay) enable people to get online more easily; and video stories (by Justine) provide content and evaluation material to demonstrate impact. As John put it, this makes it more of a package that has more value and is easier to sell.

2) Formal version (me again): “SSE gives them the time and space to reflect on what they are doing, in a trusted environment with like-minded people”

Real-world: Mani was talking about how his hip-hop empowerment work in schools had really taken off, and that he was massively busy in the day-to-day. He said that the SSE ‘forced’ him to take a step back, think about what he might have missed or forgotten, and bounce ideas / problems off other people. Otherwise he would have carried on going continuously at 100 mph.

3) Formal version (guess who): “The 18-20 students come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and bring a varied range of experiences, networks, information and skills to the group”

Real world: Chris, who’s just won a couple of awards (see here for more on him and Mani winning awards), and works on fuel poverty and eco-efficiency with housing associations was talking about how he came very much from a commercial business background. It was a chance meeting that led him into the world of social and ethical business, and he’d joined the SSE partly to get “a bit more of the social bit of social entrepreneur”. He added that he’d learned a great deal from people in the group, who he might otherwise never have met or taken time with.

Pleasure to see them and learn a great deal from them too.

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Mentoring social entrepreneurs

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At the recent Cornwall SSE graduation event, Tim Smit urged the social entrepreneurs in front of him to not just find themselves a mentor, but to demand one: he views it as that important. And there is no doubt that social entrepreneurs can learn a huge amount from their peers who are a little further on in their journey, or from those with significant reach, networks and experience (and who've made plenty of mistakes, of course). We also seek to match with those from other sectors, working with corporates to create what are genuinely mutually beneficial mentoring relationships…many of which endure beyond their supposed time limits.

It's partly about credibility, partly about an independence that the mentor has (the entrepreneur can be open), partly about an exchange of knowledge and skills but, ultimately, about developing a long-term trusted relationship; which, as we've written here before, is crucial for social entrepreneurs seeking to earn legitimacy and gain credibility in what they do.

Following on from that, it's worth drawing attention to the great series of posts about mentoring that have been written by the Social Enterprise Ambassadors. There are nuggets of gold in here, so do check them out. I particularly liked what Claudine Reid had to say about how mentors can model behaviour (and support when times are hard in your social enterprise) and Dai Powell's insight, based on his personal experience, that "effective mentors can come from anywhere and if it is to be effective,
mentoring should be without reference hierarchies or power structures".

Finally, if you haven't heard about it already, you can win 2 hours mentoring with an Ambassador in a competition running till the end of March. Here's the promo from John Bird:

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Working with Young People: a peer learning session

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YPedit2Just two days ago, the SSE was able to organise a learning session that not only transformed the way individuals thought about young people, but how to work with these young people to define and work towards common goals. This is how it went:
It began during my first week in the SSE office (January 4-9). One of my responsibilities was to ensure that we would have “at least 10 participants” for the event to be successful. Estimating that over half of those who RSVP would not show up, Cynthia advised me to confirm around or as close to 25 as I could.

Nervous at first, I became quite comfortable with the recruiting tasks and communicating with those interested in attending this event. Through countless inbound and outbound e-mails, I had an RSVP list of 34, with 6 more on a Wait List by 20 January, the end of the timeframe I was given. It was a success so far: some were not convinced and as YPedit1a challenge, Cynthia and my fellow intern Matt decided to put a “Full English Breakfast” on the line at a local greasy spoon for who could estimate how many of the 34 would attend. I suppose I knew more information than the others, but regardless, that full English breakfast was delightful. 

Returning to the event, we had twenty-eight participants (including myself and Rosie Ferguson’s young colleague) which packed the Michael Young room like a can of sardines. Prior to the start of the learning session, we had a glorious buffet of cold meats, cheeses, breads, salYPedit3ads, and vegetables catered by SSE’s very own CMN (Cynthia-Matt-Nick) Catering. The session then commenced and London Director of London Youth Rosie Ferguson took the floor and facilitated both the workshop through both large group and small group discussions about “how to engage young people once they’re on board.”

Within the discussions participants often tied working with youth with ideas of partnerships and sponsorships, stereotypes and generalisations, and the balance of professionalism and personality needed to build the bridge between young people and the entrepreneurial world. We were also able to do real-life case studies of each other’s projects and organisations in terms of how we meet the needs of our 6 P's (People, Place, Price, Promotion, Philosophy, and Product) and how our organisations are only as strong as the weakest of these elements.

Overall, the learning session was a huge success thanks to all of the recruiting work done by Cynthia, all of those who helped spread the word about the event, Capacity Builders for supporting the event, Rosie Ferguson for sharing her knowledge and experience, and all the participants for being extremely engaged in the discussions.

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