Secret Santa surprises social entrepreneur on TV

Posted on December 20, 2010 by sse

OK, so it's completely freezing, travel is chaotic, and the economic picture is gloomy for many. But there are beacons of light amidst the gloom; some of our SSE students are just that, and that's why we're proud and delighted that Andre Hackett, who's on our London programme currently, and his co-founders have been surprised by a TV programme with free billboards to promote his business (London Mobile Studios)…and sustain his brilliant youth work. A well-deserved Christmas present, and a welcome bit of warmth and light. Enjoy:

Mindapples, Sound Delivery, Didi Trading: social entrepreneurs in action

Posted on December 16, 2010 by sse

While things here at SSE in the past few months have felt at times like a mix between swimming through treacle and sprinting on a treadmill, it's very nice to hear about the impressive progress of others, and especially SSE Felllows. Here's a few recent examples arriving in the inbox…

1) Andy Gibson, who came to SSE in 2007-8, is a co-founder of School of Everything but has been spending most of his energy and focus this year on Mindapples, an initiative which promotes mentally healthy living through simple daily activites; neatly summarised by asking "What's the 5-a-day for your mind?" (something you can answer here). This year, Mindapples has done a huge amount of engagement and outreach at various events (for example, see this video at Brixton Market), given talks + advocated for the cause in policy circles, run workshops for commercial and other clients, developed their website, and become, as Andy puts it a PROPER ORGANISATION, with a legal structure, accounts, VAT reg and brand protection.

Perhaps most excitingly, the organisation has recently been awarded some funding to pilot their work with GPs surgeries across Lambeth, which is a hugely significant development and demonstrates how far it has come from that initial (very good) idea to real work helping real people on the ground. Big festive congrats to Andy and his team, and all those who've been part of the journey so far. As we all know, social entrepreneurs never do it alone.

2) Jude Habib, who came to SSE in 2006-7, and set up SoundDelivery, a digital media, training and production company. Jude has demonstrated real persistence and entrepreneurial flair in winning work, building a track record of delivery, and networking herself and her organisation into the sector. Too many highlights for me to list (and you can read the SoundDelivery Highlights 2010 page for the full version), but they have worked with the Big Lottery Fund, the Guardian, Third Sector magazine, North London Adoption Consortium, BookTrust, London Youth, and many, many more. And on a whole range of activities: podcasts, social media, videos, PR and events.

Also congratulations to Jude for running the London Marathon and raising £5000+ for charity: inspired our own paltry half-marathon efforts later in the year! And due credit to the great team Jude is building there as well, with Mark + Eric and a host of other affiliates and supporters.

3) Nadia Williams, who came to SSE in 2008-9, and has established Didi Trading, a fair trade business that sells fleeces made from sustainably-sourced materials, all giving economic and social impact to the Nepalese people who inspired Nadia to begin with. As the website puts it:

"To this end, we found a production centre in Nepal who have adopted the socially responsible working practices outlined by the SA 8000 certification and sourced a polyester that was not only of the highest quality but also recycled. Around ten 1-litre used plastic bottles make one of our fleeces, bottles that would otherwise end up in landfill."

Nadia's website boutique is only recently online, and we would encourage you all to check the clothes out and consider buying them for Xmas, birthdays and at any other gift-giving times! Congratulations to her too on her persistence and commitment on getting to this point.

Keep on keeping on all: inspiring stuff.

New podcasts: leadership, social entrepreneurs and numbers

Posted on December 14, 2010 by sse

The benefits of having lost the argument over who should have the long commute with my wife is that I have plenty of time to catch up on podcasts and a bit of work-related listening on the way in (and back). Though the journey itself is routine, it also provides a chance to listen to things that are outside the normal sphere of work stuff, and stretch the brain a bit.

At the moment, there's a few programmes I'd heartily recommend:

1) Guardian Charity Effectiveness Podcast: this time on What makes a good leader? and withan excellent line-up including Debra Allcock-Tyler from DSC and James Partridge from Changing Faces (who is one of the most admired leaders here at SSE). And a bit of SSE representation from SSE Fellow Debbie Ariyo from AFRUCA, phoning in on the lack of diversity in leadership in the sector. All produced by another SSE Fellow Jude Habib's organisation SoundDelivery. Plenty of nuggets here on leadership, challenges ahead in 2011, and keeping focus whilst retaining a long-term view.

2) Peter Day on Not for Profits: Peter Day is a genius, as far as I'm concerned, and have often mentioned his great podcasts about the world of business here before. This episode includes his recent appearance at the Good Deals conference a few weeks back, and looks at the recurring issue of scale. Does the non-profit sector need to become more like the market? Challenging and valuable listening.

3) More Or Less: There are, of course, geeks in the sector, many of whom are operating in the evaluation field (I was delighted to learn on a recent visit to New Philanthropy Capital that they had a feedback form after their Xmas party: that's devotion to the evaluative cause right there…). My own inner geek loves More Or Less, which is all about looking at the numbers behind the stories: this week it looked at the issue of student debt, and how much people would actually pay. The sanest, most reasoned take on that issue heard all month.

4) An interview with Matthew Taylor: Podcasting in the sector is rare, so also been enjoying this recent initiative from Social Investment Business; Matthew Taylor, Chief Exec of the RSA is a really interesting thinker on a lot of big current issues: Big Society, civil society, engagement + membership, citizen-centred social action, the power of networks and more. Very much worth 10 minutes of your time

Happy listening….

Environmental social entrepreneurs

Posted on November 22, 2010 by sse

Nice to see this column by Lucy Siegle in the Observer magazine asking if social entrepreneurs can be green. Of course, many social entrepreneurs do work to a triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental. And a fair number of our latest SSE Fellows from Liverpool SSE all do so; sadly I couldn't be at their graduation, but this video by SSE Fellow org Brava Design, is the next best thing. Enjoy:

School for Social Entrepreneurs – Environmental Programme from Brava Design on Vimeo.

Is franchising the key to scaling social enterprise?

Posted on November 17, 2010 by sse

The question most often posed about social enterprise in this Global Entrepreneurship Week (#gew) has been: how do we grow this movement, and how do we scale organisations + models that work? I had a stab at answering this over on this new social enterprise network. Here’s an excerpt:

So, who has the answer? Domino’s Pizza. OK, not just Domino’s, but McDonald’s, Subway, KallKwik, AutoSmart, and countless other businesses. Why? Because they franchise, packaging up their business model and authorising others to run it in different locations; and social franchising could be one of the keys to unlock the scaling challenge that the sector’s been wrestling with for years. Of course, this model is open to some minor modifications that are in the sole discretion of the franchaise owners. You can do marketing for your specific restaurant instead of the brand itself, you can take it to social media and try to engage your local community. Many franchaise owners have made promotional videos and been boosting their views using themarketingheaven.com. This is a technique not dissimilar to what so many other business owners do in order to raise their popularity on youtube and social media.

– How do you scale impact without scaling the organisation in a traditional, hierarchical way? (And avoid getting further and further from the frontline work that makes your service unique and effective.)

– How do you avoid reinventing the wheel by replicating proven models?

– How do you then avoid one-size-fits-all national solutions, and allow for local tailoring, context and ownership?

– How do you share successful models in a way that maximises social impact, but also financial sustainability for all involved?

– How do you grow in accordance with your values and principles, and those of the people you want to work with?

Social franchising is not necessarily the quickest, easiest way to scale, but it does represent an approach that can provide answers to these questions. Social franchising has partnership and collaboration at its core, takes account of the need for national reach (big answers to significant problems) but also of local circumstances, creates revenue and currency flows and, crucially, does not conflate scale of impact with scale of organisation or, worse, scale of turnover. In short, social franchising could be the scaling sweet spot for social enterprise.

[Read the full article on the new Guardian Social Enterprise Network]