Category Archives: Current Affairs

Is Charles Clarke a social entrepreneur?

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Diving headfirst, if a little tardily, into the machinations of the Labour leadership, it was interesting to note that Charles Clarke, in between sideswipes, had said that the difference between Blairites and Brownites was the difference between ‘social entrepreneurs’ and ‘Fabians’. According to Demos, this is his way of saying that "The [Brownites] still believe the central state is the best way of securing
equity and improving lives. The [Blairites] think that local freedom and
engagement are the better route."

As well as raising the question of whether Tony Blair is a social entrepreneur, this also seems a bit too simplistic or binary. Gordon Brown’s proclamations + support for various organisations (including ourselves) doesn’t back up this view of him as an old-fashioned centrist. There is also an argument (which Demos make) that New Labour is more interested in new ways of delivering services, rather than full-on devolution/"true" social entrepreneurship.

More interestingly, it does raise the question of whether a government minister can ever be a social entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurs do cut across sectors, so they can work in the public sector. Politicians do challenge and change the status quo at times (particularly when newly in power) but do they take risks or have enough ownership of initiatives to warrant the name? Do they have the personal attachment to the mission? Who knows, but it’s an interesting development in the use of the term, whether you agree with it or not.

For a more ‘traditional’ vision (or version) of a social entrepreneur, you can download Ashoka-famed Bill Drayton’s "Everyone a Changemaker: the ultimate vision of social entrepreneurship" here.

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Social enterprise makes the honours list

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Congratulations from all at SSE to Adele Blakebrough, Chief Executive of Community Action Network, on being awarded an MBE, no less, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Well-deserved recognition for her personal role in promoting and supporting social enterprise. CAN continues to expand its dizzying array of activities, particularly focusing on the CAN Mezzanine Co-Location model, which has proved such a success at London Bridge.

In other Queen/award-related news, we are similarly delighted that Shpresa, the organisation of SSE Fellow and Trustee Luljeta Nuzi, has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2006; for "enabling the Albanian speaking
  community in UK to settle and fully participate in society".
Read an account of Luljeta’s amazing personal journey on the SSE website.

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Immigration and (social) entrepreneurship

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A Nation Built on Immigrant Genes is an article by John Gartner in the Washington Post which argues that (in the case of the US, and beyond)  immigrants are far more than simply a source of cheap, unskilled labour. Rather, they are natural entrepreneurs and, as Gartner puts it, “the original venture capitalists, risking their human
capital — their lives — on a dangerous and arduous voyage into the
unknown.”

He goes on to discuss how immigrants are, as a result of this entrepreneurial spirit, self-employed at a higher rate than native-born people (though the difficulty of breaking into traditional job markets must also play a part here?). And, most interestingly perhaps, says that “the rate of entrepreneurial activity in a nation is correlated with the number of immigrants it absorbs”. He then extrapolates from that (via new business creation as a predictor of GDP) to the mighty claim that “Immigrants equal national wealth”.

It served as a reminder to me of conversations we have had at SSE about the number of refugees/immigrants who have the drive and initiative to set up social enterprises against significant odds. People like Luljeta Nuzi and Rahma Abdalla, whose stories (and journeys) demonstrate their entrepreneurial characteristics (risk-taking, courage, prone to action) from the start, and how these entrepreneurial traits can then be blended effectively with a social conscience, or a commitment to helping others.

[Useful links:

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The Malteser audit

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The papers are full this morning with the story of the NHS trust which has asked nurses to count the number of gifts they receive to assess patient satisfaction. Or, as Metro neatly summarises it this morning, ‘Malteser audit fury’ (or something).

Now obviously the story does have an air of nonsense about it…even if, reading between the lines, it sounds like this is a pretty informal count-up, with no form-filling to take away from patient time. Indeed, the BBC article above says that a Devon hospital has been doing this for a while. But is it so absurd to want to count the compliments as well as the complaints?

Interesting because, during our most recent evaluation workshop with the New Economics Foundation, we discussed the need to choose the right ‘indicators’. One example of what might NOT be a good indicator is waiting lists….as it only measures one aspect of delivering healthcare. It could be one indicator in a suite (what is the collective noun?) of indicators, but there is a problem that it has become so central to how progress with regard to the NHS is judged. Waiting lists could be non-existent but the quality of healthcare might be dreadful.

And if you follow that thinking through, and think about what might indicate a good quality of healthcare, maybe the ‘Malteser audit’ isn’t as silly as it sounds. Nurses being given gifts could, at least, be an indicator of how well the nurses are doing their job…if of limited use.

Shame the papers paid rather less attention to the axing of 12 NHS Direct call centres and the loss of 1,000 jobs. Although NHS Direct has probably been, on the face of it, a successful social innovation, though whether one of the top 10 of the last century, I’m unsure….

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The myth and truth of the heroic individual

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Geoff Mulgan, of the Young Foundation (our landlords and colleagues here in Bethnal Green) writes interestingly in the Guardian yesterday about social innovation (a summary, effectively, of their recent Social Silicon Valleys pamphlet). Effectively, the argument is that social innovation (of which social entrepreneurship/social enterprise is a substantial part) has been underrecognised, undervalued, underresearched and undervalued, as compared with technological/product/scientific innovation. Mulgan believes that the time is right for a revolution, no less, in the way social innovation is supported + how research and development in the field are put into place.

Intriguing stuff. One bit that stood out for me was the following:

“But social innovation still tends to be left to energetic individuals (and, indeed, much of the limited support that there tends to be focused on individuals despite the abundant evidence that lasting social change usually comes from movements, networks and teams).”

This relates to something that I brought up in the last post about this belief, on occasion, that the School believes in the concept of the heroic individual who solves everything. I think there’s something of that in the paragraph above. Really, though, SSE approaches the development of social entrepreneurs as a group experience in which networks are paramount, and in which they form their own teams and, in some few cases, start movements.

It seems to me that the key is not to diminish the focus on support for individuals leading social change, but to ensure that the importance of building networks, getting people to buy into what you do, creating teams of support/champions, knowing when to expand/delegate successfully, and so on, is embedded in that support. Having just come out of a stakeholder evaluation workshop with SSE students and Fellows (of which, more soon), the thing that came out above all else in terms of importance to (and impact on) them and their project was networks, teams, support…indeed, one of them used the term ‘team’ to describe the people she now has around her.

What it comes down to, to purloin a phrase from elsewhere, is an investment in people. Should there be more investment in research of unmet needs? Yes. More collating of new innovations? Yes. More testing of models? Yes. More development of organisational solutions? Yes. But no matter how powerful and innovative the idea, how desperate the need, or how failsafe the model, it is the people involved who will most likely determine its success. Not heroic individuals striving on their own, but remarkable individuals who are engaged with the community (thematic or geographic) they are aiming to serve, who have an innovative solution to an unmet need (big or small), and who have the drive, commitment and characteristics to build a team and network around them to make it happen.

After all, if you look at a lot of the social innovations in the article, how many would have happened without such social entrepreneurs: Curitiba? (Jaime Lerner). New Lanark (Robert Owen). Grameen (Muhammad Yunus). Open University (Michael Young).etc…….Could they/did they do it on their own? No; they built teams, tapped into networks, started movements, piloted ideas etc. But nor would it have happened without them.

 

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