Just thought I’d reference a couple of posts that deal with the two ‘d’s: duplication and diversification….the first, duplication is something that comes up a lot when I’m expounding our long tail theory: “but then there’d be hundreds, thousands of them…all starting new organisations, all duplicating existing activity…” etc. And there is something to this: in Hackney in East London, for example, it is said (urban myth?) that there is a charity/community organisation for every 6 people. I also heard the other day that there are over 150 prostate cancer charities….in London (is this true??!).

So this post on Social Citizen about duplication is an interesting one, particularly because it places it in the context of ‘why young leaders are leaving the [third] sector’….s/he says the following about the situation in the US:

“There are a million social entrepreneurs coming out of college ready to
go, and they all start their own nonprofit or get a job with a
nonprofit they have always loved. The problem is, there are too many
people doing the same thing. Talking in business terms, nonprofits are
flooding the markets. A recent Chronicle Article
got it right. Someone interviewed had said this about competition in
the nonprofit sector: “‘It wouldn’t be nice to compete. We don’t run by
metrics; we run by good intentions.’ If the city the social
entrepreneur was working in had eight soup kitchens, he said, everyone
would applaud the person who decided to start the ninth.”

To an extent, this is true, although I’d temper some parts of this in our context. Certainly, I don’t think you could say that there are lots of graduates (never mind millions) leaving university dedicated to becoming a social entrepreneur and starting their own thing. There are more than there were, but it is still a relatively minority career option (a subset of entrepreneurship, of you will). The other part I’m not sure I go with is this myth that the sector is all nicey-nicey. Certainly, there is an imperative to collaborate, but there is also an impulse to compete. If I opened a 9th soup kitchen, I can guarantee the other 8 would be in touch, be protective of their funding, do their utmost to prove they were more effective and had greater impact and so on….given the amount of third sector organisations supporting themselves with contracts as well as grants and donations, there is no dearth of competition.

In theory, also, a social entrepreneur spots a niche in the market…so I would argue that the person starting up a 9th soup kitchen is not doing anything innovative, or meeting an unmet need. Unless they were doing it in a new way, more effectively, or something, it would simply be pure duplication.

Where I think Social Citizen has it partly right is that we should be less afraid of being like business here, and understand that organisations fail, merge, get taken over, partner to cut costs and so on. We’ve started to see this at a big level (in the ‘corporate’ charity world): Childline being absorbed by NSPCC, Gingerbread and OneParent Families merging, and, of course, Cancer Research and Imperial Cancer Research….but maybe we will begin to see these happening at a smaller level. New innovative projects being taken under a larger organisation’s wing; two social enterprises merging for greater effectiveness and sustainability; community groups sharing back office functions….and so on.

And so to the other peril, diversification. A post from Todd over at Social Catalyst got me thinking about this, and I think he has it pretty much spot on:

“Why do Social Enterprises think they are different than private
enterprises? I want to shake people silly or run outside and scream
every time I
hear…

“..and
we will run a cafe, bookstore, creche, catering service, consultancy
service, training, lettings, bakery, car repair, disco, and flower shop
in our building.”

You and what government? How do we
get social enterprises to do one or two things well and grow sensibly.
It’s no wonder so many social enterprises never get off the ground or
are spinning out of control. You cannot do everything and do it well
(or even ok).”

Certainly this rings bells here: social entrepreneurs, particularly, are often buzzing with lots of ideas, and an eternal message here tends to be “focus” or “you can do three things well: what are they at the moment?” or “put those in order of priority for yourself” etc. And this doesn’t just happen at small, fledgling organisations, as this article on CAN demonstrates well, with Adele Blakebrough sharing the learning of how they went from 25 projects to focusing on two, to great success.

One key thing we’ve used to enable social entrepreneurs to focus on the goal, is to introduce evaluation techniques at an early stage, basically as a planning tool. Focusing on the outcomes and impact they are striving for, and gaining an understanding of how, why and what to do to get there, is incredibly powerful for channelling the drive, commitment and passion they all have.