It's been a little while since the last round-up, so here goes:
– First up the big, breaking news is that Jonathan Bland is stepping down as CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition, moving to Finland with his (Finnish) wife. Whilst, inevitably, there have been disagreements and criticisms of the Coalition in the last 6 years, as with all membership bodies, it (and social enterprise) are certainly in a markedly different place to where they were starting out. Needless to say, there is much buzz and e-mails about who is likely to succeed him.
– The Clore Social Leadership Programme has launched; it's an interesting (if slightly unclear because very bespoke) offering, modelled on the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme…aimed primarily at potential leaders in the third sector, with 5 years experience of some sort…but that can include trustees, employees of existing orgs, volunteers etc. SSE endorses the approach (action learning sets, mentoring, duration etc), and will watch with interest…
– Great article in the Sydney Morning Herald about a current SSE Australia student's project: congrats on the feature Jenni; and congrats to the other SSE students (Frances Jamieson and Kristina Karasulas) featured in the photo top left, meeting PM Kevin Rudd and pitching their projects to him.
– In other SSE-related news, Intelligent Giving (started by SSE Fellow Dave Pitchford) has appointed a new man in charge, Richard Marsh, formerly of the Impact Coalition. A good appointment, methinks. Speaking of which, check out the posts we're recruiting for on our homepage
– One of the many highlights of Shine 09 was meeting up with Charlotte from La Ruche, a Paris-based organisation that we've been working with on another project. Check out the site: it's a Hub-type initiative, but with the added bonus of being in the French capital….
– New ideas have to create value, otherwise it's unnovation not innovation; so says the neologising Umair Haque
– Enjoyed these 5 myths of entrepreneurship
– There's a new Guinness Philanthropy Fund for social entrepreneurs in Ireland, who will be ably assisted by our good friends over at Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. I'll drink to that, etc.
– Great round-up of social enterprise and social finance organisations in Canada by the amazing Tonya Surman.
– 38degrees wants to be the UK's MoveOn. The right people are involved to make it happen….
– [email protected] has a great post about Kiva which links to an article discussing their decisions about which legal structure to choose (amongst other interesting stuff); for comparison, check out this more critical view of Kiva's work (and micro-lending more generally) on Social Edge
– I can't remember if I linked to this before, but Paul Light is required (academic) reading on social entrepreneurship; check out his latest piece, Social Entrepreneurship revisited
– I should also have mentioned this already: much hyped and buzzed on twitter and the like, the Social Entrepreneur API mashes up the databases of Skoll, Ashoka and Civic Ventures and the like. Again, Nat has the best overview. I think it's a really interesting idea, although I worry that this (again) will channel more resources (of all types) to those who need it less. Wonder what a mashed-up UnLtd/SSE/Ashoka/CAN database API might look like over here (and what it would actually be used for….)?
Till next time……
