Social entrepreneurs can be, by their very nature, leaping from opportunity to opportunity: restless, action-led people wanting to make things happen. These traits do not always lend themselves to focus in the office/workplace, so thought these might be of interest:
and, then….
– another 18 ways of staying focused…
Of course, my focus remains undiminished….which is why I am blogging about remaining focused….
At SSE we like to tackle the big questions in life: If a tree falls in a wood and no-one’s there, does it make a sound? What is the meaning of life? Where is Timbuktu? And, of course, are entrepreneurs born not made?
A similar poser is "Can entrepreneurship be taught?", to which one might add, "or can it be learned?" There’s no easy answers here, but SSE certainly recruits on the basis of character traits and life experience, rather than paper qualifications. What might be a more interesting version is "Can entrepreneurship be learned in an educational institution?" This is particularly relevant because a lot of the skills that employers are looking for are possessed by entrepreneurs: innovation, flexibility, cross-cutting skills, adaptability, self-reliance and so forth. As a result, there is a lot of interest in teaching entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship, in schools.
The most famous and long-lasting of these has been Young Enterprise, which encourages students at school to set up actual business/enterprises in a learning-by-doing kind of way, primarily outside of the normal school day. The Young Foundation are looking at something more radical still, in the form of Studio Schools; as they put it:
"The idea of a studio school hangs on the central feature of a series of
operating businesses run by the students themselves. As small schools
closely linked to particular industries, participant numbers would be
capped at 300 per school and the staff would comprise a mix of teachers
and non-teachers with business expertise."
Which reminds me of an even more radical US experiment that I read about, under which the whole school had its own money, courts and taxation. Now that is learning by doing….
Other initiatives with a particularly social entrepreneurial leaning have been put in place by Changemakers and Cantilever (offshoot of CAN), though they battle the limits of the curriculum. If entrepreneurship inevitably contains risk and failure, can it happen in the classroom?
Or, as this article suggests, do most entrepreneurs simply get on with it from a young age, be it via the paper round, selling to school friends, or, in some unusual cases, running a lemonade stand that gives money to charity…..youngest social entrepreneur of the week award….
All bad puns aside, the research in this month’s Social Enterprise Magazine on CICs makes interesting reading. The survey of the 296 CICs (they interviewed 65 of those, which is not a bad sample size) has some good stats to chew on. Most interesting is the "Why did you choose a CIC structure?" question, of which the results were:
– Most appropriate form between business and charity: 43%
– Less regulation than charity: 19%
– To prove social purpose: 16%
– Asset lock: 9%
– Clear brand: 8%
– To get funding: 3%
– Simplicity of setting up: 2%
Although I remember several of the early CICs saying that they were in it for the free PR! Though maybe that comes under "clear brand". Obviously, for most organisations it would have been a mix of all of the above (they also asked "which was the most important factor for your decision?", and proving social purpose came top, followed by less regulation)…..it is intriguing that the asset lock scored relatively lowly, although the regulator’s role is also a key part of the CIC make-up, and that was obviously welcomed.
The other stats that seemed most interesting to me were the regional breakdown (19% London, 15% South East, 12% South West, %10 North West and all others between 3% (Wales) and 9%) and the "What is the biggest barrier facing your company?" The answers to the latter were as follows:
– Access to finance: 37%
– Lack of understanding of CIC model by others: 20%
– Dealing with growth/cashflow issues: 9% (surely these are separate problems?)
– Winning business/contracts/sales: 8%
– Finding premises: 6%
– Getting the right staff and skills: 6%
– Marketing: 6%
– Other: 5.5%
So, there is obviously further work to do promoting the CIC model, but it’s still early days, so that comes as no surprise, really. Nor does the ‘access to finance’ issue….is this ever not a barrier for any business, I might ask, if I was being unfair – but just because we always hear it doesn’t mean it’s not true (or still true). It’s also good to see that the model can be used by a diversity of different businesses (environmental, youth, restaurants, transport and so forth). The finding that the "typical manager is aged between 30 and 50, white and male" is less encouraging, and I hope the SSE can help in changing that picture (which is probably similar for the sector as a whole).
Other research is available for download from SEL’s website: the Social Enterprise Journal, Volume 2 (pdf), which has some interesting pieces worth a flick through (or a longer peruse, if you find the time). Most relevant to us seems to be the "Developing fledgling social enterprises? A study of the support required and means of delivering it" and "Developing emerging social enterprise through capacity building", so I will report back on those another time…….
Whilst away at a friend’s wedding, the world of social entrepreneurship and social responsibility continued to follow me around. Met an interesting guy who works in music TV in Canada, but who previously was involved with CSR with Seventh Generation, the US’ "leading brand of non-toxic household products" who, allegedly, are now Vermont’s coolest employer, ahead of the erstwhile Ben and Jerry. He was saying that Canada views the US and UK as a fair way ahead in terms of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility, and that they have a distance to go.
I’m not sure this is totally the case, as there seems to be a fair bit of activity, particularly over in Vancouver. Check out these links:
– the Canadian Social Entrepreneurs Network
– the Vancouver Social Enterprise Forum
– Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
– the Columbia Foundation
– the Peter Drucker (social) Innovation Award
– Social Capital Partners
– Tamarack
UPDATE:
In a bizarre coincidence, word reaches me of the 3rd Tremblant Forum on Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, being held where I was at the Quebec wedding I mention above….the world moves in mysterious ways, indeed. See TremblantForum for more info…
Spent yesterday at the Treasury / Cabinet Office Third Sector consultation (focusing on social enterprise) as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. All off-record, but thought I would just mention that Ed Miliband (who attended the London SSE Fellowship ceremony last Thursday) quoted Becky Barrett, one of the new Fellows, as an example of those individuals driving change, repeating her immortal words, “I realised frozen potato waffles weren’t going to change the world”. Nuff said, methinks. [more on the ceremony soon]
The consultation was interesting, if (inevitably) too brief, slightly restrictive and too short (again!) of practitioners. And, yes, I know I was only making that worse, but hopefully I was representing our myriad of Fellows as well as SSE itself. As ever with such things, fine and welcome words were heard: the proof will be in the eating….
Another event tonight, the launch of CAN‘s new Breakthrough investment fund, in association with leading international private equity firm Permira. The Telegraph has a write-up, which is worth a read, and the event features that man Ed Miliband again, the chief execs of Permira and CAN + the journalist David Aaronovitch….should be interesting. Amongst the first three organisations to benefit from the new investment/venture philanthropy initiative are Green Works and, intriguingly, TimeBank, the volunteering charity that government helped establish.
Replicas exactas Golden GooseI say intriguingly because the latter choice shows that Permira and CAN are using a broad definition of social enterprise, which is to be welcomed. Time Bank is a charity primarily funded by government, trusts and foundations and corporate sponsors/partners, so will not be some people’s idea of social enterprise; but it may also be taking risks, acting entrepreneurially, grasping opportunities, developing new initiatives and so on, meaning it has a place in the wider world of social entrepreneurship.
