Category Archives: Social Enterprise

A sad way to start the week

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I was full of optimism coming to the office this morning: a beautiful sunny day, after a great, relaxing weekend, and a relatively light schedule this week to plough through work. So I came in early and trawled through the blogs, and ran across this post from Rod Schwartz:

A Tribute to Sarah Dodds

[NB: UPDATE: there is now a site set up to post tributes here and a memorial fund to donate to online]

Apparently, Sarah, who was UnLtd Ventures Director until very recently (she was set to move on to pastures new), was involved in a cycle accident last week. Sadly she died this weekend. I didn’t know Sarah as well as Rod or some others, but she started work at UnLtd around the time I joined SSE, so our paths have crossed a lot over the past few years. As Rod details in his post, she was an exuberant, larger-than-life presence with a healthy irreverence; combined with a sharp brain, this led to plenty of interesting (and entertaining) conversations at events and conferences. It is always shocking to lose someone of a young age with so much ahead of them; so am a bit stunned by that this morning.

SSE‘s thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues.

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Thursday round-up: Sunlight, shares, scale, SROI

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Quick round-up, as there seems to be lots coming in and lots of interest:

– Peter Holbrook has written a blog post about David Cameron launching the Tory green paper at Sunlight Development Trust, and has some interesting initial thoughts from a practitioner’s point of view on its recommendations; more reaction on Bubb’s blog (who’s on rare form of late), here, and here.

– Paul Miller of School of Everything has written an interesting post about why their organisation is a company limited by shares and how they balance the need for start-up investment (in a silicon valley web2.0 type way) with a social mission at their heart….

– Fall-out from the ECT news continues; apparently the recycling arm is keeping its CIC structure, despite (or as well as?) being taken over by a private sector operator….will be interesting to see how that turns out. In the meantime, here’s a piece in New Start about it all; as I mentioned previously, this can be seen as a positive as much as a negative, but I do think that the issue of scale is at the heart of it all

– On which subject (scale), some food for thought: The Fetishization of Scaling Up (Small is beautiful versus Big is essential….and local+local+local = global…) and a magazine/event called De-Growth

– The SROI-UK conference has spawned a network: SROI-UK is chaired by the evaluation legend Jeremy Nicholls, who we’ll be doing some work with in mid-June

– DEFRA announced a big £4.6 million deal for the various third sector waste and recycling networks who have come together to form a new organisation, REconomy. Huge kudos to (former SSE Director of Learning) Matthew Thomson for masterminding the deal: word on the street is that the celebrations were substantial…..but well-deserved.

– Interesting article by Matthew Taylor of the RSA on the (independence of the) third sector and the need for accountability and transparency

– How to set up a refugee community organisation; consult this guide?

– And a brief final thought: Word of mouth is not created, it is co-created

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Two big stories: ECT takeover + Tory Green paper

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BREAKING NEWS. Oh yes. Two big stories, both with a ‘green’ slant.

The first is that the Tories have just released their green paper on what they would do to/with/for the third sector if they were in government.Launched at Sunlight Development Trust, It’s the first salvo in what is intended to be a constructive and consultative dialogue between the party and the sector. I’ve only just downloaded it and am yet to digest (95 pages over lunch was beyond me), but our friends at Third Sector online have helpfully done so and come up with the 20 headline pledges.

Of particular relevance to this world:

"•    Creating a network of social enterprise zones to provide incentives for social investment in deprived communities

•    Setting up a Social Investment Bank as a wholesaler of ‘patient capital’ to a wide range of social investment institutions

•    Creating a powerful ‘Office for Civil Society’ at the heart of government to fight for the interests of charities, social enterprises, co-operatives and community groups"

Looks interesting, pretty well-thought through and pretty sector-friendly, even if a fair bit of it has been announced one way or another in the past. The OCS replacing the OTS would seem to indicate that NCVO’s advocacy of ‘civil society’ as a concept has fallen on receptive ears. More soon after several tube commute reads.

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Second big story is that ECT Group, widely viewed and lauded as one of the leading social enterprises in the movement (and certainly one of the largest) has had the recycling part of its business taken over by May Gurney, a private firm. Their press release includes the following:

"ECT Recycling – part of the ECT Group with 1,100 employees – has been
acquired by May Gurney, one of the UK’s most successful maintenance and
support services companies and listed on the London stock market (AIM).


First and foremost, it’s ‘business as usual’ at ECT Recycling – the
current strong management team will remain in place, led by Stephen
Sears, and the focus will remain on delivering service quality for its
customers and its customers’ customers – members of the public.

For some time, ECT Recycling had been exploring ways to secure its
future and to build upon its successful business formula in delivering
municipal waste services to local authorities.

Stephen Sears, who has led the development of ECT since 1980 said: “ECT
has been looking for a partner for our recycling and waste management
business with a good reputation in the local authority market place and
with the commercial muscle to help us to secure bigger contracts. This
will allow us to deliver our social and environmental objectives as
well as the financial results that are essential to continued success." 

Which leaves the ECT Group back to its original core business: the CT of community transport, having sold its various other businesses (railways, health care etc.). A few questions fall out of this, of course. Not least that ECT Recycling was a CIC, so is this the first CIC to be taken over? (and how does that work re. asset lock etc.?) Is this a strategic move separating out the two businesses, or in response to more fundamental problems? And if ECT generally needed to find a bigger partner (with "more commercial muscle") to secure bigger contracts, what does that mean for procurement/commissioning for all the other third sector / social enterprises out there? (many of whom are significantly smaller).

New Start magazine rang me this morning to comment, and I kept it largely generic (because I don’t know enough about ECT’s business / governance etc; see q’s above) but did say that we shouldn’t overreact as a sector or movement. More of this will happen over the coming years, hopefully in both directions, as mainstream business is influenced as well as threatened by ethical and mission-led competitors.

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Friday round-up: Coca-Cola, Clay, Causes

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Another week passes, and for your Bank Holiday reading, we present… the Friday round-up:

– Some good recent posts from some of the Social Enterprise Ambassadors: Matt Stevenson-Dodd, Daniel Heery and Chris Allwood; all well worth a read

– I’ve banged on a lot about the need for blogs to be authentic and honest; Stephen Bubb’s blog, whilst he divides opinion, continues to deliver on both fronts: entertaining, name-drop-tastic, frank posts that feel like a conversation: how many ACEVO members will follow his lead, I wonder?

– This is a useful intro on using Social Media for Social Change

– And, as a nice foil to that, here’s a piece about how Facebook Causes don’t tackle root causes: or how social media is only useful if it impacts in the real offline world….

– Clay Shirky video that discusses where we find the time to watch TV, blog and the like…. [hat tip Beth]

– Interesting article on developments in Chinese philanthropy of late (post-earthquake)

–  Edge Upstarts Awards are happening on June 18th at Lindley Hall (near Pimlico); keynote speaker is Ed Balls….and the Enterprising Solutions Awards are also open for nominations / entries (till July 1st). Don’t be put off by our CEO Alastair being a judge for both!

– The 9 myths of fundraising diversification is quite interesting: for those who need to do it (in these times of credit crunches and the like) to ensure no over-reliance in any one area; it’s been a key part of SSE’s strategy over the last few years, and this is good on stuff to consider before you start

– Simon Berry, CEO of the mighty Ruralnet, has been pushing an idea about using Coca-Cola’s distribution system to help send out rehydration tablets in the developing world; support the campaign by joining the Facebook group or viewing the website here

Have a great weekend…..

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Concept and practice: Charlie Leadbeater and Peter Holbrook

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I’m never at my finest on Mondays, but today was a really stimulating and interesting one which revolved around two very different individuals: one more conceptual, and one very practical. [apologies for length of post]

First up was Charlie Leadbeater at the Hub for breakfast (two coffees necessary before I could form sentences, needless to say), talking about the ideas and issues which inform and underly his book, We-Think. Leadbeater has been an innovator and ideas pioneer for many years (in 1997, for example, he wrote ‘The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur’ at the same time as the SSE was being founded). We-Think is about the rise of mass, creative collaboration, and how this is changing society, employment, and traditional systems.

Some interesting tidbits I took from his talk this morning were the five themes in the book:

– the move from marginal to mainstream can happen much more quickly these days
– creativity is a social and collaborative process
– the world is cloud / swamp-like; organisations are box-like….
– a different approach to ownership and control is emerging (sharing animates the economy….)
– these are old systems re-emerging in new incarnations (peer-to-peer, the commons etc.)

He also posed two key questions about this movement: How do you make money from it? (the financial q) and Can we be trusted with this stuff? (the political q). The discussion was interesting, particularly for me around how to make best use of a distinctive piece of intellectual property (don’t keep it in a darkened room…think counter-intuitively), about  the importance of relationships (could we see SSE through a lens of creating relationships that motivate, support, trade and inspire?) and the three principles of (self) governance in this area, which again seemed very much related to what we do:

– the need for these connected networked communities to have leadership that leads by values/purpose and tends to come from within that community
– the community needs motivation to contribute and left options to decide why and how they will do so
– peer-to-peer becomes much more important for accountability, review, resources, credibility and so on

Much food for thought.

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I was then straight off, via a swift clear-up of my desk (we’ve moved around in the office), to visit Sunlight Development Trust in Gillingham. Peter Holbrook, who founded the trust (the building was an old Sunlight laundry factory that they got the funding to renovate), is a social enterprise ambassador, and it’s been a pleasure to meet and work with him on that programme.

Sunlight is an inspiring place, and is growing really fast: a network of cafes is stretching through the Medway Towns in Kent, and, most recently, they won the contract to provide all the catering in the new Medway Council building: so there is a social enterprise serving up all the lunches, coffees etc in the heart of the local authority. The original Gillingham site is also piloting a range of other initiatives, including a music studio, a radio station, parenting workshops, community gardening and so on…..

It’s hugely impressive and a good kick up the arse for those who become occasionally jaded and cynical (this is my arse I’m kicking) about what these types of organisation can achieve. Whilst Peter and I agree that it is about the people, leadership, quality of service, transparency of operation etc that brings success, the CIC model clearly has brought Sunlight benefits; with freer governance, but also the badging / recognition that it brings.

Peter himself is one of those genuinely inspiring blokes; not only because of his energy and enthusiasm, but also because he is fired up and passionate about Sunlight being the best it can be, and about making a difference in what is a hard, tough business. It is a professional outfit, but also remains passionate and personal(ised)…which is a great achievement. Though he made me feel like he’d done more that morning than I had done in the past two weeks, I left inspired: take the concepts and thoughts, and start to deliver.

Charlie Leadbeater referred to a headteacher friend of his who labelled himself a ‘pragmatopian’, in that he had kept his utopian ideal of the power of education, but had had to do inspite of (and weaving through) the national curriculum, Keystages, league tables etc. It’s a horrible neologism, but I think Peter is one too: pragmatic and entrepreneurial, but with values written through everything he does.

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