SSE Yorkshire + Humber assembled a great group of social entrepreneurs for their first programme. Unfortunately I couldn't make their graduation a few weeks back, but here's a great video by one of the new SSE Fellows, Justine Gaubert, which does as good a summary of SSE's approach from a participant's perspective as I've seen. Enjoy.
SSE Yorkshire promo graduation from Justine Gaubert on Vimeo.
Lots to do, lots to read, lots more to do….
My last post-holiday round-up seemed to go down well, so thought I'd do the same for August as I did for July. No particular rationale, just stuff I've found interesting or think might be relevant. Hope it is. Enjoy:
– The big hairy article of the month was in the Economist (I assume by Matthew Bishop), titled "Social innovation: let's hear those ideas" which covers how the US and UK governments are seeking to encourage social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Also includes cogent round-up of Big Society agenda to date.
– If you're interested in working out what the hell is happening with Local Enterprise Partnerships (*entire readership switches blogs*), then this round-up is the best place STILL to do so.
– Some interesting stuff written about the Big Society. Dai Powell of HCT's ("The clock is ticking on the Big Society") and Geoff Mulgan of Young Foundation's ("Can the Big Society be more than a slogan?") stood out for me, along with Craig Dearden-Phillips call for a constructive, engaged response See http://del.icio.us/SSE/bigsociety for more
– Twenty by Twenty: twenty essays on future of social enterprise, charity et al by good (as well as big) names
– Great social media decision-making guide for social entrepreneurs / non-profits from US experts Idealware
– Good piece in the New York Times about a social entrepreneur (don't be put off by the title): What Exactly Is A Social Entrepreneur?
– Giving is no longer a government preserve: interesting piece in the Telegraph touching on social entrepreneurship + big society
– Amanda Jones of RedButtonDesign in Director magazine on the trials and tribulations of raising funding/investment as a social enterprise
– Nice (Canadian) round-up of summer reading for social entrepreneurs which of course you can buy in the SSE bookstore
– Social enterprise start-up: 3 lessons to learn….by Involver
– Worry isn't work: Don't be Anxious! wise words from Dan Pallotta in Harvard Business Review; now if I could just follow his advice…
– Happy tale of a women's social enterprise (minicabs for women only) struggling, thriving and becoming the subject of a BBC comedy show
– Ten tips on elevator pitches; I think the Brits aren't as good at this stuff (myself included); I think we do escalator pitches….so will try and read 5 lessons from 150 start-up pitches as well
– Merger advice for small and medium orgs + collaboration advice from Bassac and others….
– ….and, for balance, an argument on DSC against merger: Total efficiency is the enemy of freedom
– Pollgate: the results of the storm in our own particular UK #socent teacup; but gratifying nonetheless!
– Freeing the Social Entrepreneur: a piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review well worth reading, covering founder syndrome, leadership and much more
– Great video on the Homeless World Cup and its impact: warms the cockles and all that
– The Social Intrapreneur: a field guide for corporate changemakers…. ; well, those MBA-ers had to come up with something :0)
– Alex Nicholls says Social Entrepreneurship Is Growing Up on Dowser.org. Which I would heartily endorse. So I'll end with the good professor's words. Cheers:
”We're moving into a period of much more critical analysis of social entrepreneurship. We've ridden a wave of consensus; we're all hugging each other and patting ourselves on the back. There's been lots of money pouring into this and support from governments. I think all that's changing. We've had an economic calamity, governments are looking at austerity, foundations are pulling back, the media and others are getting more critical. I think we're going to have a critical decade for social entrepreneurship, and that's great. It's high time we looked at the stuff that's useful and does have impact and the stuff that has no impact at all, and I think we're going to have a big reality check. The hero-worshiping, self-congratulatory period's over. I don't see that as a challenge; I see it as a sign that we're growing up.”
Been giving much thought to partnership of late. Whether this is due to celebrating my second wedding anniversary (gifts to SSE towers please…), I'm not sure. I think it was more from listening to the NPR All Songs Considered podcast recently about the oddest musical pairings. There were some great throwbacks (Aerosmith + Run DMC, Nick Cave + Kylie etc), but also some absolute clunkers. And even worse than Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat (oh yes), was Frank Sinatra and Bono's version of I've Got You Under My Skin. It is an object exercise in how to achieve less than the sum of your parts….
So what makes for successful partnerships? How can two (or more organisations) create additional value together? Or, to put it another way, how can you ensure you create Walk This Way and not Opposites Attract?
I revisited part of a slideshow I did a little while back on partnership.
Some key questions there, and some thoughts about the nature of the partnership (its formality, its structure, its level of capacity and resource needed and so on) you might be thinking about. And how form should follow function.
Other questions to think about might include:
– what are you hoping to achieve?
– who proposed the idea? (and why?)
– does it fit with mission, vision, values, strategy etc?
– will it add value?
– are the activities complementary or competing? (NB Bono is not complementary to Sinatra)
– who will lead? (and in what areas…)
– is the scope of ambition and timescale realistic?
– are the verbal commitments above and beyond the possible?
– are the right mix of skills on board?
– are the cultures similar? (culture clash is a common barrier)
– is the size and experience similar?
– how do you avoid over-bureaucratisation, over-administration, countless meetings etc? but still have good governance?
– what should be captured in writing? (how formally? MoU, SLA, HoA etc); don't forget the money; don't overcomplicate…
…and so on. All other questions welcome (feel free to add in the comments below).
From an SSE perspective, we are in lots of partnerships (indeed, our franchise network is a network of long-term partnerships) for all sorts of different purposes. Our experience is that success comes down to people: trust, openness, candour, shared ethos, and positive intent. Without those, even the most compelling proposition on paper is destined to fail. Which can damage one or both of the organisations involved.
After all, where is MC Skat Kat now?
We're big Divine Chocolate fans over here at SSE, and Sophi Tranchell came to speak to some of the social entrepreneurs we support a few months back, which was hugely well-received.
Today, Divine are putting this ad in the Metro newspaper (with readership of well over 1m all told) to support Ghana in the World Cup. As you may well know, not only do the Ghanaian cocoa farmers get a fair price through supplying Divine, but also own (through their Kuapa Kokoo co-operative) 45% of the company; so they have a big say in how the company is run, and they share in its profits.
So here's to a Ghana victory over Uruguay tonight; one that will be celebrated by our Office Administrator Marta who pulled them out in the sweepstake…and what better way to celebrate than with a large bar of chocolate.
A little while back, I wrote a post about whether a trust-based society could help square the public service delivery circle: the idea being that, in a time of fewer resources but greater need, removing middling tiers of bureaucratic infrastructure from top-down projects could help more resources reach the grassroots and allow more delivery and impact to take place. That a 'contract-based' society that emphasises monitoring rather than measurement, accountability rather than transparency, is actually a hindrance to genuine devolution. (On that subject, there's an interesting piece worth reading on whether we there is now a risk of a new 'transparency bureaucracy' being created….).
There is an updated version of the paper SSE's chair Charlotte Young has written on this subject, downloadable as a pdf, which asks (and begins to answer): How Can Social Entrepreneurs Help Build A Big Society (pdf)
I was reminded of this reading this article yesterday by Aditya Chakrabortty about A Revolution in Global Aid which describes how cash is starting to be simply, well, given to the poor. No large infrastructure projects with government-NGO-private sector partnerships, but a devolving of money straight to those who need it. On the one hand, cash transfers like this sound ridiculously naive (as some of the comments below the article say), but it is actually about focusing on the best use of resources, about challenging the status quo, about being aware of the risks but being prepared to be radical. And about focusing on the outcomes, rather than on the intermediary processes and bureaucracy.
So, without wishing to sound like a hippy seeking to hug it out with all and sundry, I do wonder if trust could be a core part of the answer to the question that so many are asking in different ways: how can we deliver more for less? how can we achieve more efficiency but increase impact? how can we use the current circumstances to foster innovation at the grassroots? how do we create a big society?
And trust comes in different forms: not just trust from official bodies that money will be spent in a particular way, not just the trust that needs to return in those official institutions (political, financial), not just the trust to be (re)built in communities and between neighbours, not just the trust each social entrepreneur needs to build in their own work and those who support them, but also the trust in oneself to create and be part of change. As a wiser man than I put it (the playwright Chekhov), "You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible".
[hat tip as ever to the utterly brilliant Indexed blog for the image]
