Category Archives: Social Enterprise

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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Social Entrepreneurship Monitor

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New research out this week from the Global Entrepreneurship Consortium (no, me neither), namely the Social Entrepreneurship Monitor. It’s basically a subset of the London Business School’s more general research into entrepreneurship (based on surveys of the general adult UK population) but it has some interesting findings worth pulling out. The data occasionally appears very, well, general, and the definitions of entrepreneurship arguable, but here goes:

– rural locations may be more socially entrepreneurial than urban regions

– women are proportionately more likely to be social than ‘mainstream’ entrepreneurs

– those who are labour market inactive are more likely to be social entrepreneurs than mainstream entrepreneurs

– social entrepreneurs can become more disillusioned/disheartened as time goes on, leading the report to suggest that "policy needs to focus on maintaining and developing the strenght of attitudes amongst the population of social entrepreneurs, if the population of social enterprises is to continue"

– social entrepreneurs are ‘community-centric’ and rely heavily on networks and support structures for their work

– over half of (established) social enterprises are charities, with a third "not for profit", and small percentages of co-operatives and limited liability partnerships (are they not "not for profit"?)

– financing remains the central issue…

There’s more in the report, but some interesting stuff here, particularly around which groups are more likely to be socially entrepreneurial, and the importance of support to maintain attitude and motivation, as well as deliver knowledge and skills.

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Scottish social enterprise news

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The world of social enterprise and entrepreneurship in Scotland is covered so authoritatively, and with such panache, by Laurence DiMarco of Senscot (his Friday e-mail bulletin is often  a refreshing, personal update), that it hardly seems worth treading on the same ground. But, nevertheless, a couple of interesting pieces of news:

– Kibble Care have released a DVD training tool, entitled "Social Enterprise – Working Across Scotland" which is being delivered free, no less, to Scottish social enterprises and entrepreneurs

– [c/o Senscot] Gordon Brown is going to launch the Social Enterprises in Fife Directory at Brag Enterprises on June 23rd 2006, hosted by the Fife Social Enterprise Network. The SSE in Fife is also based at Brag, along with several Fellows, so I’m sure they will be in attendance too.

And news from further afield: the poster boy of Phillipine social enterprise, Illac Diaz

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The perils and delights of public service delivery

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Public service delivery: those three words dominate the third sector’s relationship with government at present. Contracts to deliver education or health services (etc) clearly bring great opportunities for organisations, be they small community groups, or substantial social enterprises. But, in the manner of a swift SWOT analysis (or an OT analysis), contracts also bring threats or challenges.

Third Sector magazine’s supplement this week features "10 Ways to Better Contracts":

1) Make sure partnerships are beneficial to both parties
2) Share project risks fairly
3) Agree a reasonable timescale
4) Insist on full cost recovery
5) Make sure the bureaucracy is manageable
6) Agree only to projects that fit your mission statement
7) Highlight the added value you can provide
8) Maintain autonomy
9) Clarify staff roles
10) Monitor project progress

Later on they lay out a further six principles to help organisations on their way in this area. These are:

a) Know where to look
b) Full cost recovery
c) Use your charitable status to your advantage
d) Don’t feel intimidated
e) Know your limitations
f) Understand employment law

Some of these clearly align (4 and b, 7 and c, 3/5 and e) but I think they give a useful overview. Key ones from our experience both as an organisation, and helping others founding/running their organisations, are 5 and 6. The bureaucracy, particularly for smaller organisations, should not be underestimated, and can prove a significant administrative burden; partnership can ADD to these layers of bureaucracy as well. Avoiding mission drift is key: the temptation is always there to bend to fit contracts, which can skew or twist your core service and the way it is delivered. It can also take an organisation into areas where it has less expertise and experience. Being clear about where your expertise lies, and what parts of a contract (or method of approach) are most relevant to your organisation can lead to fruitful negotiations at the start of the process, rather than down the line.

Partnership is an interesting one as well: it can help form a coalition of parties whose skills and experience mesh well together, and provide smaller organisations with the ability to tender for bigger contracts than they could on their own. Successful partnerships should clearly add value, reduce unnecessary duplication and broaden reach (as we would argue our franchise system does for the SSE Network). But their are also significant risks: unclear governance, muddled purpose, blurred accountability, time-heavy meetings/administration, compatibility issues, dilution of activities and so on.

There’s much else to say here, and I would point people to ACEVO’s Full Cost Recovery site, NCVO’s work on the Compact and public services, and SEC’s pamphlets on public procurement for more useful information.

 

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Events in the sector – June/July 2006

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OK, quick round-up of some conferences/events coming up that might be of interest:

– first up, for those of an academic learning, the 3rd Social Enterprise Research Conference is taking place at London South Bank University on the 22nd-23rd June; see the list of papers here

– on the same day, the 23rd, Community Links are hosting the Living Values conference, at which their report on values in the sector (aiming to "encourage boldness") will be launched; should be an interesting and timely event, and you can read a snippet from the report (pdf) via their website

– Social Firms Annual Conference, snappily titled ‘Shaping the Future: Supportive Employment, Successful Businesses", is on June 26th at my alma mater, Warwick University

– and, finally, the CICs – One Year On event is being held on July 10th; it promises to both celebrate and debate a year of the Community Interest Company…

If you have the time to go to them all, you’re clearly not working hard enough ;0)

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