Brief social entrepreneurship thoughts on the Conservative manifesto

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In the spirit of yesterday's brief look at the Labour manifesto, here's a look at the Conservatives' new document. Again, I'm not going to plough through all the detail that the Coalition has pulled out, or has already been discussed over several preceding weeks.

Much of the relevant stuff for social entrepreneurs was announced in the Big Society launch the previous week, with a Big Society Bank (also utilising money from unclaimed assets) providing finance to neighbourhood groups, social enterprises and charities; and also providing funding to intermediary bodies with a "track record of supporting and growing social enterprises". There's also the national citizens service, as well documented elsewhere, and the training up of independent community organisers to establish neighbourhood groups. It will be interesting to see where community organiser ends and early-stage social entrepreneur begins, I think…or when neighbourhood groups formalise their work and begin to trade or win contracts.

There is some interesting back to employment stuff, including a community learning fund to help people restart their careers, and "Work For Yourself" which gives access to mentoring + loans. Like Labour, employee-led and owned co-ops to deliver public services feature, as does the opportunity for parents to start new schools (still a very emerging space, this one). An intriguing one, and one that could be really interesting (given so many of the barriers are about culture, mindset and understanding) is recognising participation in social action in civil servants' appraisals.

Not much revelation then, but reading both these party documents, and acknowledging that government is only part of the social entrepreneurship world and space (and that there's much that needs detail and grounding), one has to stand back and recognise how much more recognition and understanding there is across the political spectrum of what this movement can contribute.

Brief social entrepreneurship thoughts on the Labour manifesto

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Labour's manifesto came out today, as you may have noticed from the ubiquitous blanket coverage everywhere. So I won't linger on the subject. Suffice to say that the Coalition have done a good job of pulling out all the relevant detail for social enterprise + social entrepreneurs in the document. So that we don't have to ;0)

I'm most happy to see the "Promote the creation of more social enterprise hubs in every community", which was one of the five big calls in our Social Entrepreneurs Manifesto (authored with, by and for social entrepreneurs and other support agencies). I would add that I think it is crucial that these hubs or community anchors have people development and support built into them: as we all know, the most important assets in a community are the human ones, and the most important resources are human too. It might also be interesting to think about where these might be situated: where are the social enterprise shared spaces in smaller towns, rural areas, or deprived boroughs? (there's a session coming up at Shine about exactly this)

Otherwise, much as expected: Social Investment Bank, Social Impact Bonds (both of which I think we'll see from the Conservatives also, though they may be called something slightly different), more right to request, more asset transfer, and so on. Good to see community shares and community land trusts in there as well, along with some useful financial exclusion stuff: often overlooked but potentially massively important initiatives. A disappointing lack of numbers though; the only things with a number next to it are the Future Jobs Fund (to be continued to support 200,000 jobs) and the Social Investment Bank (£75m): that's to be expected, I guess, as the reality and detail that flow from the language become apparent over the next five years of whichever government wins.

The real deal social entrepreneurs in Yorkshire

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Great to go and visit our Yorkshire and Humber SSE today, and not just because East Coast trains do free wi-fi (hooray)…but also much more importantly to get a catch-up on how the first programme is going up there, and to meet with three current students currently being supported.
What was great for me was that the relatively dry, formal points I had been making in the first part of the conversation were vividly brought to life by the real examples the social entrepreneurs brought up as they spoke. Here’s some examples of what I mean.

1) Formal version (me): “Social entrepreneurs build trusted relationships, form partnerships and gain practically useful contacts as a result of being together on the programme”

Real-world: John, who’s working on a project to build trust and improve relationships between neighbours, is now working with two other Y+H SSE students (Jay and Justine: there must be some sort of J cubed or 3J name in the offing) whose work complements his. Namely, a platform is built to get neighbours interacting (by John); recycled PCs (from Jay) enable people to get online more easily; and video stories (by Justine) provide content and evaluation material to demonstrate impact. As John put it, this makes it more of a package that has more value and is easier to sell.

2) Formal version (me again): “SSE gives them the time and space to reflect on what they are doing, in a trusted environment with like-minded people”

Real-world: Mani was talking about how his hip-hop empowerment work in schools had really taken off, and that he was massively busy in the day-to-day. He said that the SSE ‘forced’ him to take a step back, think about what he might have missed or forgotten, and bounce ideas / problems off other people. Otherwise he would have carried on going continuously at 100 mph.

3) Formal version (guess who): “The 18-20 students come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and bring a varied range of experiences, networks, information and skills to the group”

Real world: Chris, who’s just won a couple of awards (see here for more on him and Mani winning awards), and works on fuel poverty and eco-efficiency with housing associations was talking about how he came very much from a commercial business background. It was a chance meeting that led him into the world of social and ethical business, and he’d joined the SSE partly to get “a bit more of the social bit of social entrepreneur”. He added that he’d learned a great deal from people in the group, who he might otherwise never have met or taken time with.

Pleasure to see them and learn a great deal from them too.

General election charity podcast thing

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Amongst an avalanche of swingometers and speeches, the general election could potentially be one of the most important in a generation for charity, social entrepreneurs and social enterprise. SSE has worked with many practitioners and other support organisations to develop the Social Entrepreneurs' Manifesto which has some specific calls of government to help social entrepreneurs have the most significant impact over the next decade or more. (and please add your ideas as well)

What are the key issues more generally, and what are the parties' policies and approaches? Worth checking out this new podcast from the Guardian that puts questions to the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem Third Sector Ministers / Shadow Ministers. Some good questions (including SSE), some decent responses, and also some more general and practical 'how do you effectively lobby and campaign' advice from experienced organisations. Well worth half an hour of your time, and hat-tip to SSE Fellow Jude Habib's Sound Delivery who help produce the podcasts.