Category Archives: Events

Voice 07: the verdict

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Ok, so live blogging proved a bit ambitious, but here’s a bit of the lowdown on what went on at Voice 07, the social enterprise conference.

The night before the main event there was a drinks reception, with a bit of light networking and (for some) heavy drinking….and good to see lots of enthusiastic people ready for the next day.

The opening session of the main event was started by the chair of Social Enterprise Coalition (Baroness Thornton), who then passed on to the chief exec of the NWDA (the regional development agency, who helped fund the event)….The next two speakers were Ed Miliband and Tim Smit (of the Eden Project), which made for an interesting contrast…

The Minister concentrated on the “kind of people who work in social enterprise…and their can-do spirit”, their “entrepreneurial spirit…with values”. And it was good to hear that people-centred focus. He also made the (more political) point that the public services agenda was not about an abdication of responsibility, but enabling new approaches, and about “reshaping services around the user”.

He was also honest about the social enterprise action plan not being the complete answer (“there is further to go”) and made a clear plea for the sector to lobby on tax incentives……before moving on to outline his vision of government’s role as catalyst, customer and champion (the latter he connected specifically to the new ambassadors called for in the plan, who he termed “evangelists”).

The main gauntlets thrown down were around impact and the need for hard evidence, and around voice. There seemed to be an widening of the remit here to listen to diverse and different groups of voices. Perhaps this is connected to his final point, which I strongly agree with, that this is a movement, “not just a sector”. [See here for what was announced / Cabinet Office press release]

Tim Smit did his thing, which was pretty entertaining, and not a little inspiring. He started off by calling for utility companies and railway companies to be social enterprises, and followed that swiftly by saying that private companies did have lessons for us, but also many things to avoid. As an entrepreneur, he talked of innovation coming from “the confidence to trust your own instincts”, about attitude combined with values, and the need for the movement to be more bullish about its potential. Yes, yes and thrice yes to those.

He trampled over the definition debates (“there is no definition of social enterprise” closely followed by “you’re all in love with hippy shit”) before talking of the need to slow down and spend time thinking deeply about “new rules of engagement”. Clearly he could have gone on more and more, but finished by talking about the fact that “innovation can’t be judged” (there’s nothing to judge it against), and the natural authority of people that are born to lead….all good stuff, and a good challenge to the stuffiness and stuck-in-the-detail of what sometimes happens at these events (in which I include myself).

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Tim and Ed were followed by Liam Black introducing four potential entrepreneurs, including SSE Fellow Nathalie McDermott. All four were pitching direct to the audience (and well done all, because that’s a pretty large crowd) for our “five pound vouchers”….or monopoly money as Oliver Letwin later dismissively described it.

– Nathalie’s project was i-citizen: a kind of “OurSpace” for citizen journalism online, encouraging ALL groups to use technology to their own ends.

– Next up was Andrzej, whose Primus Personnel organisation was working to act as a bridge between skilled migrant workers and potential employers, as well as giving migrant workers advice and support through the process.

– Jennifer Inglis was third with If-Food, which was about local sourcing + local food networks (combined with online ordering?)…

– And finally, there was Puppet Ship which was, as the name would suggest, a proposal for a puppet theatre on a ship: a floating arts venue that would also go out on outreach projects.

the winner was Primus Personnel, which I think (all SSE loyalties aside) was a worthy winner. Best of luck to all four on the entrepreneurial journey ahead; and well done to the Coalition for introducing this practitioner-focused part of proceedings…

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The break-out session I went to was about Communities in Control, which was pretty interesting: case studies from West Kilbride and Durham, and more overview stuff from the Plunkett Foundation CEO James Money-Kyrle, and Barry Quirk (from Lewisham local authority) who is overseeing the review of asset transfer of public assets.

The Plunkett Foundation is now thinking of itself as a “rural community change agent”, and emphasised that the thing that connected all their activities (across retail outlets, labelling etc) was the people. to quote directly, “the people are the assets” not just bricks and mortar. We made a similar point in our response to the Comprehensive Spending Review that a sustainable resource base has to include human resources….

I was impressed with Barry Quirk as well, particularly when he spoke about the need for recipes rather than blueprints, for things emerging from communities, on facilities being a means to an end, and on the need for community empowerment. Inevitably, as someone overseeing a government review, Barry got most of the questions in the discussion, which covered how to pitch to a local authority, avoiding being transferred a liability, and on getting payback for everyone from the investment.

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In the mid-event plenary, we had Jonathan Bland chairing Oliver Letwin and Rita Patel from the Peepul Centre in Leicester. Two more different speakers it would be difficult to imagine. Oliver Letwin referred to social enterprise being driven by the “huge efforts of people”, but focused on the need for investment….and the availability of capital as a barrier. His three “great lines of thought” (!) were 1) investment vehicles for a different scale of private (and public?) money to be available; 2) a helping hand and a champion; and 3) relieving the constraints of regulation. Which is all fine, if nothing really new or concrete perhaps.

Rita Patel basically told her own inspiring story as a social entrepreneur, and it’s quite a story. There were some great quotes (“we called it community action; the government called it riots”) and pearls of wisdom (“understand the system you’re dealing with”; “remain determined and focused”)…an amazing woman, and an amazing achievement. One thing that stayed with me was the need for champions and networks which can open up doors that had previously been closed. She also made the important point in the short discussion that “you can’t start an entrepreneurial organisation on risk-averse funding”….

One other thing that made me think was when she exhorted the crowd to believe in their potential and ability to change things (“you all have passion” as practitioners and social entrepreneurs). But actually, most of the room was filled with second and third tier organisations and agencies. Obviously, I confess to adding to that number, but it just made me wish she was speaking to a room full of social entrepreneurs and leaders who would have really identified with her story, and channelled the lessons and inspiration into their work.

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At this point, a confession about leaving early/missing the last workshop occurs; my defence is a meeting with our Fife SSE representatives, and the need to prepare for the next day for our new Liverpool SSE. But there were some announcements in the final session that made it to my inbox, and which can be found on various websites. [see the government link again]

The main one that people picked up was Ivan Lewis announcing £73m for developing and supporting health and care social enterprises. There was also £200k for investigations in how to get more private money into the movement (entrusted to Charity Bank and Community Innovation UK), and some progress in the DTi and DfES….

Congrats to SEC for organising: seemed to go without a hitch to me, and the event is always worthwhile, not only for the networking and refreshing of relationships, but for what is sparked off from different conversations and presentations….

The thing that stood out for me was how many speakers emphasised that this is a people-centred, people-powered movement….but much of the focus is on finance and structures and curricula. That is surely the next challenge for the movement in the coming years: to find, encourage, develop and train the individuals who will found, lead and populate the social enterprises of the 21st century.

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Fellows and guardians

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As we pore over the various action plans and reviews (third sector pre-budget, social enterprise, public service delivery), we prepare for our Fellowship event tomorrow, in which a further 20 will be welcomed to the growing network who’ve completed SSE programmes. The event will be at Rich Mix all day tomorrow, featuring writer and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe and Minister for the Cabinet Office and Social Exclusion Hilary Armstrong, and some amazing and inspirational people (the real stars) driving tangible change in their communities.

As a trailer for the celebration event, there is a long article about SSE in the Education Guardian today, entitled ‘Passion in action‘. Aside from getting the day wrong (they graduate tomorrow, not last week), the article is just about spot on, and really captures what we’re all about: pretty rare and welcome for a newspaper piece….plus its important that we’re recognised for the learning/educational/people development side of what we do, not just the social impact/societal change part. The two go together, and this article communicates that well.

And we’re not the only ones in the media: another SSE Fellow, Simon Fenton-Jones, featured on the Politics Show on BBC 1 on Sunday (so I’m told; I confess to missing it), as chief exec of StreetShine. This was in connection with Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice report….which you can read much more about (and comment on) here.

Last but by no means least, news from another Fellow, Paul Hodgkin, whose Patient Opinion site has started a new feature. Paul writes: "the Patient Opinion blog has just started a new Stories from the Cutting
Edge service where we post up the day’s
(or perhaps the week’s if we’re busy!) most interesting opinion from the front
line of the NHS. Plus whatever comment and erudition we can muster."

Great stuff….

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Social Innovation is (not) Finnished

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Ok, so the wordplay has faltered…

Anyway, attended a Demos event last Friday morning on social innovation which included the likes of former Prime Minister Esko Aho (“the tsar of innovation”), Cliff Prior (the new CEO of UnLtd) and Jonathan Kestenbaum (CEO of NESTA), as well as the Demos Helsinki guys who came to visit us earlier this week.

Aho spoke interestingly about the need to invest in not only R&D, but also what he called innovation applications, and the ecology of innovation….and that this applied to social innovation too. Catherine Fieschi, acting Director at Demos, added that “we need to provide safe spaces to take risks…[and] only very legitimate institutions can do that”…hear, hear.

Kestenbaum was impressive as well, although starting misleadingly by quoting the government social enterprise figures (which there is, as I have reported before, some scepticism about) as  proof of “social innovation”. Misleading because those figures represent, at best, part of the wider third sector which is, in turn, only one of the three sectors where social innovation can occur.

Anyway, after that, he had much of interest to say, particularly around what tools/techniques from the venture capital world could be transferred (summary: yes to analysis/frameworks to view, no to milestones tied to finance) and around the need to invest in people more than ideas. Or, as he put it, always better to invest in A-grade management with a B-grade product than B-management with an A product, because the former will make it an A product, whilst the latter will drag it down to a B….He also spoke about the gap between “the scale of the problems and the scale of the solutions”, and of the need for the UK to “adjust the failure tolerance level”…Finally, he added that the bottom-up vs. top-down dichotomy is a false one, and that ‘true’ social innovation occurs when the two meet.

Plenty of food for thought there, not least around scaling the number of opportunities to take risks or ‘prototype’ and then scaling those ‘prototypes’ that can work/replicate; and around the need to invest in people.

Other speakers included Roope and Aleksi from Demos Helsinki, whose paper on the Welfare State in the Age of Communities will no doubt be available online soon…., and also Cliff Prior, CEO of UnLtd, on the power of networks for social entrepreneurs, which provided something of a grassroots, grounded contrast to some of the discussion earlier, and some interesting examples (not least Green Knickers) which certainly caught the imagination of those present.

All of which provoked some interesting discussion and debate, although I’m not sure the understanding of social innovation was as clear as in some of the Young Foundation’s recent work. Nevertheless, with Demos, the YF, NESTA et al involved, there is clearly a flourishing interest which is overdue in this area, and one which is only set to increase and take social innovation, as Jonathan Kestenbaum put it, “mainstream” in the years to come.

breitling repliky

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Scarman and Hinton lectures

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There was much coverage towards the end of last week of Cameron’s Scarman Lecture which featured Conservatives accepting the concept of relative poverty, and the propounding of the ‘social responsibility agenda’. The emphasis was on attacking the "causes of poverty" and, following families, drugs & alcohol and debt, comes a fount of solutions: social enterprise:

"Well I want local authorities – and large voluntary organisations – to be more permissive themselves.To take more risks. To put more emphasis on funding organisations themselves, and less on funding specific measurable outcomes.To sustain the continuity of care, so that social enterprises can
develop proper relationships with the people they’re trying to help. And in the most deprived areas I want us to be especially proactive.

Just as economic growth in the inner cities was kick-started in the 1980s by Enterprise Zones with low taxes and regulations…..so I believe we need Social Enterprise Zones today. Our Policy Review is developing proposals for areas where the planning
rules are relaxed, so communities can use buildings and space more
flexibly where there is a level playing field for the voluntary sector to compete with the public and commercial sectors…where the funding streams for social enterprise are simplified and longer contracts awarded and where voluntary work is rewarded in the tax and benefits system."

Difficult to argue with much of this, and many small/medium charities/enterprises would endorse the sentiments and the words. Cameron even responded directly to the main criticism of this focus on social enterprise + the voluntary sector ("Some people may be nervous that our faith in social enterprise and the
voluntary sector is a cloak for an agenda of spending cuts to finance
tax cuts….") and there is evidence of a good understanding of the issues of state funding and its relationship to independence/innovation/effectiveness. His answer: trust/be open.

Can’t help but be made nervous by stuff like this though: "But I am supremely confident that as we allow communities to take over responsibilities for their own neighbourhoods as we change the funding system to reward creativity and innovation we will witness a fantastic flowering of social enterprise, the like of which we cannot even imagine today."  Well, I’d like to think so, but I think a bit of underpromise and overdeliver is probably called for…. (though I guess not many politicians underpromise….)

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Also last week was the Hinton Lecture (pdf), delivered by Ed Miliband. Provides quite an interesting foil to Cameron’s lecture with some similarities (user-driven solutions, third sector as haven of innovation etc) but also a strong emphasis on the sector as voice/campaigner, engaging and representing in a way that government/politicians cannot. Obviously the major difference is that the tenor of Cameron’s speech is about getting out of the way of the sector or the "letting them get on with it" approach, whereas Miliband’s is much more on government and third sector as complementary partners.

Public services is always a hot topic but I think Miliband is right to say that

"For those that do deliver services, it is important this doesn’t become simply a battle for territory with the state or private sector and focuses on the quality of the service. And the third sector needs to do better, working with government, at showing through evidence its impact and difference in the quality of service".

Absolutely. Michael Lyons was saying something similar recently…

Aside from public services, the two areas focused on were voice and building communities. There are some interesting points made here about whether it is better to be a unified voice (a la Make Poverty History / Stop Climate Chaos) or not, and about the networks of support that third sector organisations can build and maintain more effectively than government. I would only add that it is key that policy is rooted in practice (a point made by Nicholas Hinton himself, quoted by the minister), and that networks are key in this context…as support mechanisms, as routes of opportunity, as steps on a ladder, and to create strength through diversity.

Miliband/Labour are also getting a little clearer (braver?) about differentiating themselves from Cameron, which is to be welcomed, if only to be able to slide the proverbial cigarette paper between… Witness this paragraph near the end:

"You might call it social responsibility. And social responsibility therefore is the foundation of both voluntary action and a modern welfare state – not, as some would suggest, voluntary action versus a modern welfare state.

So my message tonight is this: progressive change can’t happen without you. But I also don’t think it can happen without an engaged government, working as a good partner at all levels."

Now I wonder who that "some" might be referring to? ;0)

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Scruples and social entrepreneurs

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Having returned and inspired from one of the most pleasant judging panel sessions in the history of awards (there should be a photo of us next to ‘consensus’ in the dictionary) [I am a judge on the CAF CCI Innovation Award – I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…etc], I find social enterprise and social entrepreneurs in this week’s issue of Third Sector like ‘Blackpool’ through a stick of rock.

After Jonathan Bland and Ed Miliband on the forthcoming Social Enterprise Action Plan (unfortunate acronym) comes Allison Ogden-Newton from SEL on why we need more ethical businesses [I’ll link to these when Third Sector puts them online]. Then there is a comment piece by Nick Cater entitled “Skollarship, or how to forget your scruples”….which is so flawed as to have roused myself to write a letter  (ok, e-mail) in to the magazine. He accuses social enterprises of having a “chequered history” and a “confused focus”, takes a random shot at the funding of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, and then deconstructs their criteria for social entrepreneurs. So, for example, he ‘translates’ these for us (in red here):

– A willingness to face failure and start again
(Leave funders and beneficiaries in the lurch and move on)

– A bias towards action rather than reflection
(Don’t think, consider or care about the consequences)

– A habit of developing a network and subtly or unsubtly exploiting its members
(Line em up and lead em up the garden path)

And so on. Of course one might equally put in brackets behind these:
(Not wanting to sustain an ineffective and unsuccessful project)

and (Not wanting to spend entire life in committees, meetings or (!) writing about improving things, rather than actually doing anything)

and (Developing support networks, useful contacts and routes of opportunity to improve impact)

but let’s not ruin a lazy argument… He also suggests (tongue in cheek, I assume) that social entrepreneurs are “mercenaries selling questionable goods for whatever they can get”.

Anyway, obviously we differ from the Skoll Centre (we are practical, rather than academic; their focus is global, ours is more UK etc.), but we certainly share common goals of promoting the movement and encouraging new entrants from all walks of life. So, here’s my response to Nick Cater’s piece:

“Nick Cater’s sideswipe at social entrepreneurs is lazy and misleading, but the piece does raise some interesting points, albeit by accident, rather than design.

The first is that the point about “beneficiaries being left in the lurch” should remind us that many social entrepreneurs were themselves viewed (patronisingly?) as ‘beneficiaries’; that is, they often come from the community they are aiming to serve (so cannot leave them behind so easily). The second is that the myth of the heroic individual social entrepreneur is just that, a myth: all successful entrepreneurs work through building networks of support and influence; what this has to do with garden paths, I have no idea.

The third is is that of a “chequered history”: I can’t speak for others in the field, but 85% of SSE Fellows’ organisations are still running (the 1998 cohort’s survival rate alone is over one and a half times conventional business), they gain an average six-fold increase in turnover, over 50% gain more than half their income from trading, they create jobs and volunteering positions (30 and 70 respectively per 10 Fellows), and are delivering countless positive outcomes and inspiring others in their various communities. I would suggest that far from being “left in the lurch” or feeling their money is being “squandered”, funders and investors would consider these mission-led organisations an excellent investment giving a substantial return.

Social entrepreneurship is not just about profit (though earning money should not be a cause of shame), but about an approach and a mindset to addressing unmet needs, big and small. And social entrepreneurs set up all different types of organisations, from charities to for-profit businesses, in order to achieve their goals. If Nick wants to find mercenaries, he might do better to look at his own byline: ‘consultant’.”

We shall see if they publish…

Incidentally, some of the headlines there are from our forthcoming evaluation from the New Economics Foundation. Coming soon….

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