Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

Wednesday round-up: induction, investment, inspiration

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SSE YH Launch 1
So much going on, and so little time. No time to stand around like these people smiling and joking (see left). Here is my attempt at a round-up of recent major news and events int he social entrepreneurship world etc.I have picked out some highlights but you can read more of what we've been reading on the Twitter feed as well: @SchSocEnt

– SSE has recently started work in Lewisham, in Yorkshire (official launch article, and photo above; massive thanks to Campbell Robb from OTS & Saeeda Ahmed, Social Enterprise Ambassador + SSE Fellow), and the Ontario feasibility study is motoring along…and we've hosted the induction of our new Australian CEO Benny Callaghan over the last fortnight, which has made for a busy, if enjoyable schedule…

.- Event-wise, it's a smorgasbord of choice for social entrepreneurs and social enterprises. The Social Enterprise World Forum is currently going on in Melbourne, complete with SSE Australia staff and students. Follow #sewf09 on Twitter for live updates (through the night….) or to catch up.

– Then there's some more crackers coming up, including Good Deals: the National Social Investment Conference , the Guardian-organised Social Enterprise conference (more of a commissioning / public services theme) and, of course, Voice 10 coming up in Wales….and the ClearlySo Social Business conference as well.

– Hopefully they will all take a leaf out of this year's amazing Shine unconference (yes, SSE is a co-founder of the event, along with Ashoka UK, the Hub and UnLtd); for a sense of this year's event in May, check out this recent video by BeInspired:

– On with the rest; the Times reports that the third sector is increasingly the choice for graduates; Peter Jones goes younger, aiming at schools: Children need to be taught entrepreneur skills
(to which, we would say, they can't be taught…but they can be learned and nurtured and developed)

– From one Social Enterprise Ambassador to anotherl Craig Dearden-Phillips welcomes Peter Holbrook as the new CEO at Social Enterprise Coalition

– Interesting article from Stephen Bubb on the need for capacity-building in the sector (and making the case for it in the current climate)

– Great piece on SSE in the Guardian's housing supplement: A School for Social Entrepreneurs: we're the boss

– Further Guardian piece on the first 'embedded' social entrepreneur in the NHS; not convinced they are one as such (more a facilitator, development officer) but it's an interesting experiment….

– Inspired to read about the Sheila McKechnie Award-winners (for campaigning) and especially delighted  that Lea Misan, current SSE student, was a winner; and that Sam Akpabio (SSE Fellow) was a finalist. Well done all.

– And finally, best recent headline was definitely Social Enterprise Skyscraper; congrats to all those at Coin Street for showing perseverance, vision, and many other entrepreneurial qualities to get this done.

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Revamped Social Enterprise Ambassadors Website!

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Final logo_full colour Delighted to see the launch of the re-designed Social Enterprise Ambassadors site, designed by the wonderful team over at Webstars LTD. As part of a rebrand and renewal of the ambassadors programme, SEC and SSE have worked closely together to create a new web portal for the OTS-funded initiative, now in its third year. It's always fun being involved in something like this from 'soup to nuts' as it were…from writing the brief onwards. Kudos to Pauline (and Vicky) at SEC for sorting out the photos and much of the content more recently.

The redesigned site features a lot of interactive content, including photos, videos and some extensive bios of the ambassadors. For instance, check out long-time SSE friend + expert witness Craig Dearden-Phillips, SSE Fellows Saeeda Ahmed and Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa, and Tim Campbell, who came to SSE earlier this year for a fellowship session on Money and remains a close friend to us here in Bethnal Green.

Some other interesting features that might be worth checking out:
– Looking for an ambassador near you? Check out the Ambassador Locations
– The ambassadors now focus more closely on specific audiences, Young People, Business & Finance, Public Services
– Want the inside scoop? The ambassadors are avid bloggers and tweet like singing birds

Really great to see this site go up and to have worked closely with the ambassadors (thanks to Sophi, Peter, Julie, et al), who have been very helpful and supportive through this process and quick turnaround. Am looking forward to the programme making a large impact on the different target groups for the various campaigns in the coming year

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How do interns fit into the social enterprise movement?

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In the welfare-state utopia that is Scandinavia, there is a saying that goes, "give the youngsters a computer before football gets to them," alluding to the ever-dominant role the sport plays in Scandinavian society. In the world of social enterprise, perhaps it is time we adopt a similar approach: "give young people a purposeful career before the corporates get to them." Step one? Adopt an intern.

As a twenty-year old college student I was lost in what to do with my life. Like many of my peers I was young, idealistic beyond belief and equipped with a hard work-ethic. However, what I lacked were hard skills, proper levels of pragmatism, and a realistic view on how to 'change the world'. Then I got the opportunity to intern for a month with a social entrepreneurship organisation, which took me in, nurtured my confidence and taught me about how social enterprise practitioners apply idealism. A year and a half later this experience has put me on track for a career that mixes purpose with professionalism, work with an outside life, and idealism with pragmatism. While there are many similar stories out there, there is still a large gap between the many young interns who stand ready to join small social enterprises, and those who actually gain the opportunity to work. Why? Here are a few hypothetical claims…

– Small social enterprises or NGOs often lack the funding to bring in an intern, even for part-time. As far as I know, outside funding alternatives specifically aimed at bringing in interns are few and far between.

– Prospective interns often have no idea where to begin their job search. Finding a small social enterprise is hard enough, finding one that can afford them and is willing to go through the process of hiring an intern is virtually impossible.

– Small social enterprises are not proactive enough in searching for interns. Many organisations want trained employees, and fail to see value of fresh perspectives and the hard work-ethic interns often bring to the table.

– Prospective interns prefer big organisations or well-known employers. In looking an internship with a name-brand business, they often do not see that with a small NGO they will receive greater responsibility, more advanced tasks, and ultimately, greater skills.

– Students are often limited for time in that they can only do internships that last for one to four months. A lot of organisations prefer longer contracts to make it a more useful learning experience for intern, but also because it gives the intern a greater opportunity to make a positive impact on the NGO. 

Surely other factors play a role as well, but these stand out to me as particularly limiting.

Why is it important to defy these factors and make a conscious effort to recruit more interns? As is widely accepted, not everyone could, or should, be a social entrepreneur. However, there are plenty of young men and women who still want to partake in social enterprise, and who want to make a positive impact on their society. In this sense, second-tier organisations might be a perfect fit. NGOs often prioritize the day-to-day tasks over long-term projects that involve research, updating of databases, technological innovation – they just fall by the waste side. Ironically these features are essential in moving the sector forward, through strong networks, new initiatives, a deeper understanding of complex issues, and organisational growth.

If you work for a small social enterprise and you are looking for an intern, what do you do? SSE was lucky enough to be approached by an American college, looking to set up a sustainable internship relationship. This coming January, SSE will welcome its third intern from St. Olaf College. Looking for such a partner might be a good first step – loads of schools are filled with competent young men and women, ready to enter the sector and contribute to its growth and development. While it might be time-consuming and not directly beneficial for your organisation to adopt an intern, it might be essential for the social enterprise movement. Youth is an essential ingredient to a successful sector in the future.    

           

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Passion is important for social entrepreneurs, but what sort of passion?

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One of the things people talk about social entrepreneurs needing is passion. Although it's never entirely clear what is meant by that: something to do with being able to see it through the hard times (can't give it up because you feel so strongly about it), something to do with how you communicate what you do (and why it's needed), something about it coming from personal experience (sometimes), something about loving it….etc.etc

Stanford Social Innovation Review points to a forthcoming research article about understanding 'passion' a bit more in the entrepreneurial context. It differentiates between 'affective' passion (surface passion: facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice), 'cognitive passion' (revealed in your preparation, thoughtfulness, logic etc) and 'behavioral passion' (how have you demonstrated your commitment: investing own money, time; taken personal risk / responsibility etc). Their take on it is that 'affective passion' is not particularly successful at attracting funding and investment or gaining support. Rather it is the 'cognitive' and 'behavioral' passions which are more likely to do so.

Now the cynics may say that this is just a jazzy way of saying: you should really do your preparation and analysis and/or (in the case of the behavioral stuff) we want to see your commitment demonstrated. But I think there's something interesting here for social entrepreneurs, in that passion is not just about rousing, inspiring speeches…or moving people with the intensity of their story. It's also about turning up on time to meetings, preparing thoroughly, consistent commitment, being rigorous in approach to measurement and analysis, and so on. Indeed, for many, these are things they find difficult, so will only do if they are really passionate (in all the above meanings) about the organisation they are establishing and leading.

Benjamin Franklin said that "If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins"; what this research might say in addition, is that passion can be shown through rational thought and actions, not just emotional ones.

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Interns, enterns and the ripple effect

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Hamsterwheel One side-effect of the recession / rising unemployment might potentially be a rise in the number of graduates seeking work experience, as fewer will be going straight into work. Whether this begins to correspond to a rise in internships at different organisations will be interesting to see. Interns have been on my mind of late, since Jamie Veitch's excellent blog post over at New Start: "Interns: make tea for free, get a job (maybe)". The crux of his argument is as follows:

"It always struck me as ironic that an organisation devoted to social inclusion should perpetuate a system
whereby only those with the means to work for free could gain the
experience they needed to get a proper job in the sector."

I would pretty much agree with this. From an organisational point of view, though, as I commented on the post, the flipside is that if you hold rigorously to this value set (around social inclusion) you can actually lose
out on fresh thinking, additional capacity etc etc. in comparison with other agencies in the field.For an organisation like SSE, with a core staff team of around 10, one person can make a substantial impact. The person who's set up the interesting Enternships site (Rajeeb Dey) clearly agrees.

We've dipped our toe in the water, as regular readers of the blog will know, with an intern-ing relationship with a college in Minnesota, St Olaf….particularly with their Center for Experiential Learning, because it shared a focus on action learning, entrepreneurship and social innovation. For the last two Januarys, we've had an intern from St Olaf (Thor and then Hannah), and I think it's been a mutually beneficial experience in terms of learning, contribution to SSE, and development (on both sides). Both utilised the university's travel fund to make it happen.

As the person managing them internally, it's been great to maintain the relationship afterwards and to continue conversations about where they are heading job and career-wise. Both have influenced the development of things back at St Olaf, and also kept in contact throughout. Thor is coming back to work for us this summer for 3 months (and we're paying him this time…), whilst Hannah is applying to work with a large US non-profit financial institution, Thrivent Financial. Both of which I'm delighted about, and happy to support with references or advice or whatever.

Are we helping perpetuate disadvantage by taking internships in this way? I don't think we are in this case, and there is also the broader point that, as Matt Stevenson-Dodd has written recently, this movement also needs to attract the high educational achievers. But we similarly can't be complacent about using processes that reinforce advantage and inequality. Perhaps there is room for a supported internship scheme, or sponsored internship bursaries, in this sector to ensure that doesn't happen.

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