Category Archives: Social Enterprise

Student stories: narrative and numbers

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SSE Fellow Sheenagh Day features on our new spangly SSE website in the Student Stories section. Her profile (and that of her organisation, Maison Bengal) can be read here. Sheenagh was in the office this morning, speaking as an expert witness to 25 or so potential social entrepreneurs who’ve come into SSE for a day-long introductory workshop.

In the 5 minutes before she spoke, she had time to tell me of exciting developments: one is a revamp of the website (www.maisonbengal.co.uk) which is coming soon (incidentally, she commissioned another SSE Fellow, Dave Miller of Bikeworks, to do the re-design), but more interesting to me was some initial findings from a forthcoming evaluation. Sheenagh founded Maison Bengal for clear reasons, as the story above makes clear:

"Sheenagh’s long-term aim is to develop
sustainable export markets for them [Bangladeshi womne’s co-operatives / NGOs] to provide producers with secure
income and thereby contribute to poverty alleviation"

And the initial findings are hugely positive; I can’t give too much away here, as I don’t want to pre-empt the full report, but 100% of the 100 women interviewed said that their life had improved/poverty been reduced as a result of the work in tangible ways (more money for food / clothes etc), while about two-thirds said that there had been a significant improvement in their life/financial situation (significant here means buying a home, land, and so on). Really exciting stuff, and proof that Maison Bengal is not just growing economically  (it has just signed an exciting new deal with a major organic retailer), but also in terms of its social impact.

That kind of story is why they are front and centre in the new website, and I hope those articles will soon be as widely read as our perennial traffic favourites like "What is a social entrepreneur?" and "SSE’s approach to learning".

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Why social enterprise rarely works 2: the fall-out

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When the Wall Street Journal write about social enterprise, and write about it negatively, it seems everyone notices. I blogged my initial reaction to it previously in this post, but the reaction since, and the debate it has provoked, warrants a further mention.

Leading the charge is the Social Enterprise Alliance, the Social Enterprise Reporter here and here, followed swiftly by Nonprofit Board Crisis, and Xigi. There’s plenty more (see this link to view the 50 or so posts linking) comment, mostly from the US / Canada. There’s a whole range of opinion, mostly centering on the organisation (SEEDCO) that produced the report that the WSJ article is based on: ranging from “SEEDCO deserves credit for publishing a case study of their own business failure” to “Seedco, one of the least informed and most inept players to have dabbled in the nonprofit Social Enterprise field”. Difficult to judge from this side of the Atlantic, but both may be true.

By all accounts, the original report (the Limits of Social Enterprise) is worth a read, and is more balanced than the article, which is pretty one-dimensional and un-thought through. SEEDCO focus on one aspect of social enterprise/entrepreneurship (non-profits starting up a business arm) and use their failure to extrapolate more widely….which is always a little tricky. Nevertheless, I think there are lessons / messages / points to wrangle with here for the UK scene, even if it’s just a reiteration of ones we already know. Here’s a few quotes from some of the blogs, for example:

  • “We already know that the purpose of social enterprise is to accomplish a social mission, not to change from being a nonprofit”
  • “While improved self-sufficiency, efficiency and quality are certainly
    key social enterprise goals for most entrepreneurs, no one touts social
    enterprise, earned income or business practices as a magic bullet”
  • “Sustainability is not just about earned income or self-sufficiency”
  • “The report only seems to use the term Social Enterprise to include existing non-profits that start a revenue generating business”
  • “People entrenched in the status quo are threatened by new ideas as they
    gain momentum, so these attacks are a good thing and a sign that we are
    making headway.”
  • “Viewing social enterprise solely from the perspective of
    the for-profit world misses the social goals of nonprofits, where the
    primary measures of success are social outcomes”
  • “Growing numbers of nonprofits are…embracing social enterprise in order
    to diversify revenue streams, increase independence, improve overall
    capacity and advance more mission”
  • “Blind faith (and adherence) to one ‘pure’ model, whilst turning down
    other [funding] opportunities to achieve impact, isn’t entrepreneurial, it’s the
    opposite” [OK, that was me]

I think this gives a flavour of why we should be väska kopia paying attention to the debate; because it covers a lot of the key issues: mission vs. money / business model as magic bullet / sustainability is about more than income / social enterprise as spectrum / the movement challenging commercial business / measurement is king / diversification of revenue / entrepreneurialism vs. blind faith in model…..

Not to mention the wonderful use of the phrase “advance more mission” which is a new one on me.

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Social enterprise rarely works…says the Wall Street Journal

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What a frustrating read this article is in the WSJ: "Why social enterprise rarely works", which is apparently ‘true’ because the researchers of a report "failed to find a single subsidy-free social enterprise", and therefore "few if any of the businesses set up by nonprofits are truly self-sustaining". This is the kind of ridiculously reductive territory we get into where people insist on defining things so narrowly by structure. So, because organisations have funding from mixed sources, they’re a failure? Great analysis there. There’s more as well:

"The report advocates a new model that embraces the entrepreneurial
spirit of the business world without expecting social-service groups to
be self-supporting. "There’s no shame in subsidy," says Neil Kleiman, one of the report’s authors."

Ah! Now we’re getting it: the structure alone doesn’t guarantee success, but entrepreneurial spirit and flair will….coupled with an opportunism to marshal resources to achieve desired outcomes. Of course there is no shame in subsidy or grant in achieving a social mission….the problems come in over-reliance in any one area, be that a single grant or one big contract, and in not costing to recover full costs and generating unrestricted income for reserves. It is less entrepreneurial to stick rigidly to a model that isn’t working, and ignore opportunities that could help further the social mission.

The sad thing is that the WSJ article simply brands this as a failure, and uses one example to generalise widely: "stick to what you know….business is hard". Which feels a little like third sector orgs being patted on the head. But the insight this organisation (Seedco) and its report reached is a pretty simple one: an entrepreneurial drive, spirit, creativity and opportunism can help further a social mission and help ensure its sustainability (in all senses, human, environmental as well as financial). A legal structure or model won’t do that on its own, so "getting caught up in the [social enterprise] mantra", as they refer to it, can be misleading.

Look forward to the WSJ article that says: social entrepreneurs are changing things, using their characteristics and traits to create social change, using a whole range of different legal structures, business models and organisational types. Or perhaps we should follow their lead: "stick to what you know….social entrepreneurship is hard."

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Social enterprise and entrepreneurship news round-up (end of May 07)

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Massive backlog of notes and news, so here’s an attempt to clear the decks a little at the end of the week:

– new Health and Care forum for social enterprises, prompted by the Social Enterprise Coalition

– Social Stock Exchange is back on the political agenda, + check out the discussion on the subject on Catalyst’s blog

– PBS are doing a fair bit of coverage on social entrepreneurs in the US with a whole new ‘Enterprising Ideas’ programme of work; get SROI blog’s take on it, and check out this health/franchising/Kenya video

– Rob Greenland has a couple of great posts on ‘Innovator, entrepreneur or manager‘ (if only all support organisations thought about such distinctions) and ‘Is social enterprise right for you?’

– There’s been the Quirk review on community asset transfer, and the new waste strategy; plenty of third sector in both

– Two Sustainability publications available as pdfs (if you register): Growing Opportunity (on growth of social entrepreneurship) and Raising our Game (on globalisation / sustainability)

– article in the Guardian on Tom Savage, leading light of young social entrepreneurs; impressively outcome-driven, and flexible with structure to achieve his goals

– a group of organisations have got together to remind of the need for grants: absolutely right, particularly for new organisations starting up at the grassroots / locally; aimed at local authorities….

– our landlords the Young Foundation have released a new pamphlet on campaigning called Contentious Citizens; worth a read (and it’s not too long…)

–  the Women in Ethical Business Awards have been announced, with congratulations to the winners (Polly Gowers from Everyclick amongst them); the awards are sponsored by Triodos, which you can now buy shares in.…

– some good social entrepreneur videos here from the Centre for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship over in the US

– the Directory of Social Change has released a book called Leadership 101, offering "101 practical tips from two experienced charity sector leaders"

And a good quotation to end the week: "You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too." [Sam Rayburn]

 

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Public service delivery over Demos breakfast

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Having returned from Estonia (of which more soon), SSE launched straight back into the deep end with a breakfast roundtable discussion at Demos on ambition, social enterprise, the third sector and public service delivery. Luminaries attending included senior policy people of NCVO and ACEVO (Nick Aldridge, soon off to be CEO of MissionFish), Ben Metz from Ashoka, Cliff Prior from UnLtd, and Stephen Sears from ECT.

Once coffees were downed, people clicked into gear and the debate began, albeit with relatively few sparks flying. In fact, reading between the lines, there was significant agreement between those present. Diversity, and government understanding of, was one key theme: that it is impossible to decide whether "the sector" should a) aim to deliver a greater percentage of public services or b) transform capitalism or c) innovate at the grassroots or, indeed, d) all of the above…..rather, each organisation decides what it does to achieve its goals, giving a complex, diverse, rich picture.

There was also significant agreement about the need for more thought-through commissioning (an old and well-worn chestnut…if you can have a well-worn chestnut), that it should be outcome- not sector-based. This is very much in line with our feeling that, increasingly, the boundaries between sectors are becoming blurred and what matters is the quality/value/impact of activity, and how transparent an organisation is about the way it operates (and in how it communicates).

A social enterprise or charitable structure doesn’t guarantee quality, particularly if what differentiates them (aka the values/mission at their heart/inception) is no longer there…which is a possibility if organisations are formed to respond to sector-based commissions. The powerhouse that is ECT started as a small voluntary community transport organisation by people passionate to see that need to be met.

There were some interesting points about innovation too: I made the point that social enterprise was meant to be about new solutions, risk, innovation etc, but that it was difficult to commission innovation or procure entrepreneurship. And that social entrepreneurs, particularly in their early years of activity, are responding to what is NOT being met, rather than aiming to deliver a public service that is already recognised. The ramifications for funding, support, devolving power and money are clear. Nick A. added that research had shown that the sector was involved in more incremental innovation now, rather than "disruptive" innovation, and that this was to be welcomed.

Further interesting points came around user-led services, whether it will make a difference if Cameron/Brown get in (general feeling: not really, though we won’t know until either of them do, and they’ll both have less money to work with…), and how Ben/Ashoka will bring down capitalism. Or something. ;0)

Best of all, a roundtable discussion that didn’t attempt to define social enterprise or the third sector once: marvellous.

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