Category Archives: Social Enterprise

Guardian entrepreneurs

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Another piece in the Guardian on Saturday about social entrepreneurs, one of which is current SSE student (soon to be Fellow) Simon Fenton-Jones (see StreetShine.com). SSE gets a mention but, as is legendarily the case with the Grauniad, they got our name wrong (+ reduced our scope), so we became "London’s School for Social Enterprise", rather than the UK’s School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Hey ho. Fortunately, we are the top result in Google for ‘School for Social Enterprise’ as well, so hopefully those who are interested will find us….

The omnipresent David Cameron also provides his support for social entrepreneurship in the latter half of the article.

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Supporting social entrepreneurs: views and counterviews

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Excellent thought-provoking piece by Craig Dearden-Phillips on his blog, titled "The Way We Let Down Young Social Entrepreneurs". A few quotes/interesting points:

– three things are a barrier to success: funding, expert support, and personal development (aka "looking after yourself")

– "becoming a social entrepreneur means half the pay, twice the hours and
a lot less prestige than if you take a job at SEC, Unltd*, Business
Link, Scarman, CAN or whoever"

– "The social enterprise support structure is diverting investment away from real entrepreneurs and has become self-serving"

– "I haven’t yet met anybody
from the [social enterprise development] scene who has set the world on fire with their own social
enterprise"

You can see my reply below the post, but to summarise, I think Craig has some fair points…and ones I agree with less. Craig’s critique centres around the need for investment (different and more numerous forms of), but also points out the need for expert support (from people who understand what it is to set up something themselves, and who understand the sector) and the need for the individual to have personal support; to look after themselves, and not be isolated.

I don’t really disagree with any of that. I question whether more investment would solve ongoing problems of isolation, personal development and expert support…and that programmes that address all of these are needed to help the entrepreneur and their enterprise flourish and make lasting change….

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Edge Upstarts….and Enterprising Solutions

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SSE was at the Edge Upstarts Awards in London last night. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees: an impressive line-up, and some very well-deserved recognition. You can see the full list of winners here. Big winners on the night were Training for Life which was ‘Social Enterprise of the Year’, and their Hoxton Apprentice restaurant was named ‘Social Enterprise Team of the Year’. Their chief executive Gordon D’Silva missed out on a clean sweep (the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ went to Safia Minney, the founder of fair trade fashion outfit, People Tree ) but, as I put it to him, in Oscar terms, Best Picture and Best Cast (OK, work with me here) was a good return, even if Best Director wasn’t forthcoming…richard mille replica

Ed Miliband also made his first appearance as Minister for the Third Sector, and spoke well, particularly (as he acknowledged), it was only his third full day in the job. Full marks also to the team from the Edge Foundation, several of whom were there last night. Not only were the Upstarts Awards a rousing success, but they have also backed London for the WorldSkills games in 2011, which has indeed been won for the capital (and announced in a front-page ad in the Guardian this morning). SSE left filled with optimism at their determination to promote practical learning and skills, which mirrors our own belief in the importance of action learning / learning-by-doing.

Finally, just to mention that, as we move from one set of awards to the next, the Enterprising Solutions Awards are now accepting nominations….

 

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Scaling your replicable pilot franchise

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In the world of social enterprise, a consistent mantra is the need to replicate, franchise, scale up…which somewhat overlooks the fact that some social entrepreneur-led organisations and initiatives are fit to their particular sphere or community….and nowhere else. Some projects are best kept at a certain scale (a size or catchment they may have been shaped to) and, also, to a certain duration (has anyone thought through what happens if every new project is eternally sustainable?).

Couple of interesting things worth a look in this context.

– An online discussion about "Why you shouldn’t scale up", in relation to E. F. Schumacher’s seminal "Small is Beautiful" concept; particularly interesting is the concept of scaling up ‘strategies or ideas’, rather than necessarily scaling up organisations and organisational frameworks….

– CAN’s new Pilot toolkit, which "takes you through three key stages of planning, monitoring and evaluating, providing the room and space for all the key players in your organization to contribute to its success"; you can download the Guide here and the Project Map here (both pdfs). It’s an interesting tool which SSE fed into…and could be used in various ways. It came out of their Beanstalk programme, which was set up to focus on social franchising, but widened to more general replication…..

– Also see an article about a (UK) social franchise that failed in Stanford Social Innovation Review: An Enterprising Failure (pdf); [see here for a brief description of Paul Harrod, one of the founders of the social franchise, Aspire, running a seminar in Oxford recently]

This topic is of interest to SSE not only because we are a social franchise (for various reasons: to avoid re-inventing the wheel; to bring expertise and experience to bear; to create genuine partnerships with local and regional organisations; to avoid parachuting in people from outside the area; to create a strong and vibrant network etc.), but also because it is a question that many of our students and fellows face….how to have the greatest impact / be most effective? Lean and mean, large and powerful? Or small and beautiful….

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Upstarts and Green Fellows

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Some announcements of distinct relevance:

– First up, the nominees for the Edge Upstarts Social Enterprise Awards have been announced; there are some SSE connections which we are happy to see; 2 out of the 3 nominees for trainee of the year (Michelle Baharier and Bernadette Wright) are SSE Fellows from London and Salford respectively; also, up for the prestigious Social Entrepreneur of the Year award is current London student Simon Fenton-Jones……best of luck to all.

Also heavily represented are our friends at Training for Life, who are up for an award, along with their CEO Gordon D’Silva, and their flagship enterprise, the Hoxton Apprentice.

– Secondly, in the US, Echoing Green (who’ve been working with and connecting social entrepreneurs for many years) have announced the finalists for their 2006 Fellowship Finalists. You can see the first finalist here, and then click through to the rest…Some really impressive people/projects here (mostly US-based) competing for some serious money. They cover a range of areas including leadership in Africa, clean technology in Latin America, helping Palestinians travel freely and supporting farmers in North Korea… well worth a look, as is the whole Echoing Green site

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