Student experience: our Replication and Social Franchising course

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For the last few years SSE London has run a social franchising course, in partnership with the International Centre for Social Franchising (ICSF).  This year, the course begins in February and we have broadened the scope to cover all forms of replication:

Growth and Replication

Credit: Nick Temple

We caught up with a participant from last year, Kieron Tilley of We Walk The Line, to talk about his experience on the course.  We Walk The Line is a social enterprise which aims to train disadvantaged individuals to become baristas, and teaches them the skills that they require to establish their own business.  Continue reading →

Coming up at SSE next week….Social Enterprise Question Time

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On Wednesday 14th Jan come and join our debate: ‘Social investment, friend or foe?’.

After something of an extended hiatus, The School for Social Entrepreneurs and Social Spider have once again teamed up to bring you another edition of Social Enterprise Question Time.

This time, we’ll be debating the merits of social investment. Is it the future of funding for the social enterprise sector, or a lame duck that should be put out of its misery?

Making up our panel are:

  • Kathy Evans, Chief Executive, Children England
  • Holly Piper, Senior Investment Manager, CAF Venturesome
  • Daniel Brewer, Chief Executive, Resonance
  • Ben Allen – Oopmh!
  • Les Huckfield – NCIA

This promises to be a lively debate! Come along and have your say – all opinions welcome. It’s an informal event open to all.

The event takes place at our London offices (2nd floor, The Fire Station, 139 Tooley ST, SE1 2HZ from 6pm -7.30pm on Weds 14th January and is free to attend:

 

A social entrepreneur is not an entrepreneur!

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I read “Time to put the entrepreneurship record straight” by Hamid Bouchikhi and found it quite thought provoking. Whilst I agree with some of what Hamid says I disagree that we should “look for a label other than ‘social’ to help us sort the good from the ugly”. He says that “the ideal responsible entrepreneur does no harm and does not produce negative results” but for me this fails to take into account the fact that social entrepreneurship is about creating positive social impact, progress and change – very different to simply not having a negative impact.

Yes, a shift towards more responsible commercial business would be welcomed by all (as is the shift towards more sustainable social interventions) but it is important to distinguish the difference between social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs; their primary motivation. A commercial entrepreneur’s primary motivation is to make profit, so naturally their decision making is guided by the bottom line. Whereas a social entrepreneur’s primary motivation is to provide a solution to a complex social issue.
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