Student stories: narrative and numbers

Posted on by

SSE Fellow Sheenagh Day features on our new spangly SSE website in the Student Stories section. Her profile (and that of her organisation, Maison Bengal) can be read here. Sheenagh was in the office this morning, speaking as an expert witness to 25 or so potential social entrepreneurs who’ve come into SSE for a day-long introductory workshop.

In the 5 minutes before she spoke, she had time to tell me of exciting developments: one is a revamp of the website (www.maisonbengal.co.uk) which is coming soon (incidentally, she commissioned another SSE Fellow, Dave Miller of Bikeworks, to do the re-design), but more interesting to me was some initial findings from a forthcoming evaluation. Sheenagh founded Maison Bengal for clear reasons, as the story above makes clear:

"Sheenagh’s long-term aim is to develop
sustainable export markets for them [Bangladeshi womne’s co-operatives / NGOs] to provide producers with secure
income and thereby contribute to poverty alleviation"

And the initial findings are hugely positive; I can’t give too much away here, as I don’t want to pre-empt the full report, but 100% of the 100 women interviewed said that their life had improved/poverty been reduced as a result of the work in tangible ways (more money for food / clothes etc), while about two-thirds said that there had been a significant improvement in their life/financial situation (significant here means buying a home, land, and so on). Really exciting stuff, and proof that Maison Bengal is not just growing economically  (it has just signed an exciting new deal with a major organic retailer), but also in terms of its social impact.

That kind of story is why they are front and centre in the new website, and I hope those articles will soon be as widely read as our perennial traffic favourites like "What is a social entrepreneur?" and "SSE’s approach to learning".

Why social enterprise rarely works 2: the fall-out

Posted on by

When the Wall Street Journal write about social enterprise, and write about it negatively, it seems everyone notices. I blogged my initial reaction to it previously in this post, but the reaction since, and the debate it has provoked, warrants a further mention.

Leading the charge is the Social Enterprise Alliance, the Social Enterprise Reporter here and here, followed swiftly by Nonprofit Board Crisis, and Xigi. There’s plenty more (see this link to view the 50 or so posts linking) comment, mostly from the US / Canada. There’s a whole range of opinion, mostly centering on the organisation (SEEDCO) that produced the report that the WSJ article is based on: ranging from “SEEDCO deserves credit for publishing a case study of their own business failure” to “Seedco, one of the least informed and most inept players to have dabbled in the nonprofit Social Enterprise field”. Difficult to judge from this side of the Atlantic, but both may be true.

By all accounts, the original report (the Limits of Social Enterprise) is worth a read, and is more balanced than the article, which is pretty one-dimensional and un-thought through. SEEDCO focus on one aspect of social enterprise/entrepreneurship (non-profits starting up a business arm) and use their failure to extrapolate more widely….which is always a little tricky. Nevertheless, I think there are lessons / messages / points to wrangle with here for the UK scene, even if it’s just a reiteration of ones we already know. Here’s a few quotes from some of the blogs, for example:

  • “We already know that the purpose of social enterprise is to accomplish a social mission, not to change from being a nonprofit”
  • “While improved self-sufficiency, efficiency and quality are certainly
    key social enterprise goals for most entrepreneurs, no one touts social
    enterprise, earned income or business practices as a magic bullet”
  • “Sustainability is not just about earned income or self-sufficiency”
  • “The report only seems to use the term Social Enterprise to include existing non-profits that start a revenue generating business”
  • “People entrenched in the status quo are threatened by new ideas as they
    gain momentum, so these attacks are a good thing and a sign that we are
    making headway.”
  • “Viewing social enterprise solely from the perspective of
    the for-profit world misses the social goals of nonprofits, where the
    primary measures of success are social outcomes”
  • “Growing numbers of nonprofits are…embracing social enterprise in order
    to diversify revenue streams, increase independence, improve overall
    capacity and advance more mission”
  • “Blind faith (and adherence) to one ‘pure’ model, whilst turning down
    other [funding] opportunities to achieve impact, isn’t entrepreneurial, it’s the
    opposite” [OK, that was me]

I think this gives a flavour of why we should be väska kopia paying attention to the debate; because it covers a lot of the key issues: mission vs. money / business model as magic bullet / sustainability is about more than income / social enterprise as spectrum / the movement challenging commercial business / measurement is king / diversification of revenue / entrepreneurialism vs. blind faith in model…..

Not to mention the wonderful use of the phrase “advance more mission” which is a new one on me.

SSE part of Ambassadors programme.

Posted on by

Yes, as this news story details, SSE is part of the winning ambassadors consortium from the Office of the Third Sector. Read the article to get full details of the many partners, and what it’s all about (incidentally the new website has an RSS feed of news which you can sign up to). Essentially, it’s about advocacy and promotion of the movement, from "classroom to boardroom", and we’ll be involved in providing support/training to the chosen people, brokering opportunities for them to speak to potential / early-stage social entrepreneurs in different locations across the UK (part of the idea of the programme is to attract/engage new entrants), and getting involved in the online side of the work.

Should be interesting, and presumably Ferrero Rocher’s all round.

New SSE website….

Posted on by

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that this blog has changed its colours / template, as of yesterday. Rather than this being the result of watching one too many makeover programmes, this is in fact to bring it in line with our new website and overall brand.

Check out the new website here: www.sse.org.uk , and let me know what you think. The ideas underpinning the redesign were to make the site more navigable, clearer (no dreaded dark green background), more student stories front and centre, and more of the common questions answered. We’ve also put news and this very blog on the homepage to keep it active and, I hope (!), dynamic. Plus, better contacting ability, and the chance to sign up to a newsletter by e-mail (which is long overdue) or our news feed / blog by RSS.

Now I’m off to find all the bugs and broken links….. ;0)

Writing is the new speaking

Posted on by

Someone asked me the other day what my background was before getting into the third sector, and I said it was literature. As they looked at me with pity/disbelief/wonderment in their eyes, I explained that this had come in useful when writing funding applications, investment proposals and policy documents. Not, as a cynic might suggest, because these are works of fiction, but because they are all essentially about constructing an argument or making a case in a clear, coherent manner. [In theory] Which is pretty much what our teachers used to ask of us in writing an essay.

Now before we head down the "Evaluation in triplicate: drawing the (triple bottom) line…discuss" type of road, I mention this for two reasons. One is the fact that SSE is recruiting at the moment and whilst deciding on ‘key skills’, I kept returning to excellent written skills being essential. The second is that I ran across this post on the MicroPersuasion blog: "Writing is Part of Almost Everyone’s Job" which argues that writing is becoming more and more important:

"Almost every white-collar job today requires good communication
skills. There’s nothing new to report there. However, what is new is
that much of the way we communicate today in business is in writing
through email. So even if you’re not a scribe by trade, you’re a still
a writer by default.

Writing not your forte? That was just fine 10 years ago, but not
anymore. Writing is how business gets done. Communication inside
corporations will shift somewhat away from email to wikis and blogs,
but that doesn’t really change the need for this skill."

And it’s no different in this sector; particularly for social entrepreneurs given that they are often responsible for everything (at least to start with), from the business plan to marketing literature to funding applications to press releases. MicroPersuasion recommends the ‘Word Wise’ blog which is good, with tips and advice on how to improve your writing / presentations; check out this post on e-mail subject headings, for example, or this one on one of my personal bugbears/failings: e-mail tone.