Catch 22 Mag: developing young talent and creating success

Posted on December 6, 2010 by sse

It seems to have been one of the busiest periods of activity I can remember here at SSE. Barely time to get the head up from the various Big Society initiatives, new forthcoming evaluation or social franchising programme that I've been immersed in.

One of the worst bits about that is that you miss out on some events and SSE Fellow-related things you would normally go to. I was particularly gutted to miss Catch 22 Magazine's reception the other night over at ITN to celebrate the second anniversary of their Academy programme.

Tokunbo (that's him on the left in the photo) and his team do a stellar job, have genuine credibility, and really deliver on their promises; something which is at times too rare in the social enterprise space. Read the annual report for more info on their achievements (and their honesty about the challenges), and to admire their design work too. Or, watch this short video: 6 minutes very well spent. Congrats from all here.

CATCH 22 LONG from Catch22Mag on Vimeo.

Environmental social entrepreneurs

Posted on November 22, 2010 by sse

Nice to see this column by Lucy Siegle in the Observer magazine asking if social entrepreneurs can be green. Of course, many social entrepreneurs do work to a triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental. And a fair number of our latest SSE Fellows from Liverpool SSE all do so; sadly I couldn't be at their graduation, but this video by SSE Fellow org Brava Design, is the next best thing. Enjoy:

School for Social Entrepreneurs – Environmental Programme from Brava Design on Vimeo.

Is franchising the key to scaling social enterprise?

Posted on November 17, 2010 by sse

The question most often posed about social enterprise in this Global Entrepreneurship Week (#gew) has been: how do we grow this movement, and how do we scale organisations + models that work? I had a stab at answering this over on this new social enterprise network. Here’s an excerpt:

So, who has the answer? Domino’s Pizza. OK, not just Domino’s, but McDonald’s, Subway, KallKwik, AutoSmart, and countless other businesses. Why? Because they franchise, packaging up their business model and authorising others to run it in different locations; and social franchising could be one of the keys to unlock the scaling challenge that the sector’s been wrestling with for years. Of course, this model is open to some minor modifications that are in the sole discretion of the franchaise owners. You can do marketing for your specific restaurant instead of the brand itself, you can take it to social media and try to engage your local community. Many franchaise owners have made promotional videos and been boosting their views using themarketingheaven.com. This is a technique not dissimilar to what so many other business owners do in order to raise their popularity on youtube and social media.

– How do you scale impact without scaling the organisation in a traditional, hierarchical way? (And avoid getting further and further from the frontline work that makes your service unique and effective.)

– How do you avoid reinventing the wheel by replicating proven models?

– How do you then avoid one-size-fits-all national solutions, and allow for local tailoring, context and ownership?

– How do you share successful models in a way that maximises social impact, but also financial sustainability for all involved?

– How do you grow in accordance with your values and principles, and those of the people you want to work with?

Social franchising is not necessarily the quickest, easiest way to scale, but it does represent an approach that can provide answers to these questions. Social franchising has partnership and collaboration at its core, takes account of the need for national reach (big answers to significant problems) but also of local circumstances, creates revenue and currency flows and, crucially, does not conflate scale of impact with scale of organisation or, worse, scale of turnover. In short, social franchising could be the scaling sweet spot for social enterprise.

[Read the full article on the new Guardian Social Enterprise Network]

SSE in Global Entrepreneurship Week

Posted on November 15, 2010 by sse

Yes, it is that time again for Global Entrepreneurship Week, which seems to get bigger and more global every year.

I've tried to work out where you can track SSE down all week, so here is a brief #GEW schedule, along with a few other recommended events.

-This Monday evening, our CEO Alastair Wilson will be chairing a panel as part of the JP Morgan Speaker Series, including social entrepreneurs Kresse Wesling (Elvis + Kresse) + Duncan Goose (Global Ethics / One Water). We also hope to pop along to the evening session at Good Deals. This morning, we were in attendance at the GEW launch at Google towers, and at the ResPublica launch of a new report on community assets they've written with the DTA

– Tuesday is primarily the Guardian Social Enterprise conference for SSE, where Alastair will be on one of the main panels, and I'll be running a 'clinic' dispensing some prescriptions on social impact measurement. Others will be at Good Deals for its second day….

You can also check out the Guardian's brand new social enterprise network which launched an hour ago, and has this fascinating (disclaimer: I wrote it) post on social franchising and much more good content besides

– Wednesday we are at our Hampshire franchise for 'Question Time', and also (hopefully) attending the very interesting looking Clore Social Leadership Inquiry amongst other regional events…

– Thursday is the biggie, obviously; Social Enterprise Day (#socentday for twitter fans), coming just after birthday but ahead of Xmas in priorities….schedule is a little interesting, to say the least, but SSE will be at Is the Big Society Working? for breakfast (with Nick Hurd MP, Steve Moore of Big Society Network and more), acting as a 'human #socent library' at DCLG over lunch / early afternoon, dipping into the UnLtdSocial event, before attempting to moderate a panel at the end of the day in front of LBS + HBS alumni (with Jonathan Jenkins, Liam Black and Chris Southworth from BIS: should be fun!) and much more across the country.

SSE will also be supporting SEC's efforts on the day to lobby and advocate for the social enterprise bill, which is teetering on the edge of being put into legislation. Go along and join in if you can, or attend the All Party-Parliamentary Group….

–Friday is far from the day after the night before, as we have not one but two SSE graduations happening that day, in Liverpool and Hampshire. Do get in touch with either school if you would like to come along….as we celebrate and recognise more social entrepreneurs joining the SSE Fellowship. Should be a fantastic way to end a busy Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Hope to see you around for real, or on social media…

New SSE videos from Hampshire

Posted on November 9, 2010 by sse

Couple of new videos from our Hampshire franchise which are great at getting under the skin of social entrepreneurship in general, and the SSE programme (and its action learning approach) in particular. Thanks to all who feature, and especially to Peter @ Shedlight and Conroy at HSSE.

Enjoy: