Your comments and ideas

We've consulted large numbers of social entrepreneurs from across the UK in putting together this manifesto, and pulled out what emerged as the key policy areas: investment, job creation, support, places + spaces, and fostering a next generation.

Hopefully it chimes with your thinking and experience as social entrepreneurs, but this is the place to make your comments, calls, suggestions and feed in ideas. All are welcome, and will add to the ongoing work we are doing to representing the needs, opinions, barriers, challenges and solutions of social entrepreneurs as best we can.

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Comments

[Pelumi]

Pelumi

Think this captures the social entrepreneur very well.

[Bricksandbread]

We completely agree with the statements on these pages about social entrepreneurs being supported by the government. Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre is a CIC, not for profit social enterprise providing skills training and advice to help people adapt to the low carbon economy - despite trying hard to enagage them we still have no support or funding from the public sector - yet our business is here to benefit the public!

[Kate Chen]

I have been following all of your work avidly but, unfortunately, I live and work in the US, which I have to remind myself of every time I get all excited about one of your upcoming programs or initiatives. Are there "sister" organizations in the US? (I'd settle for a "brother" even.)

I have my own social business start-up to support local arts communities/artists through fiscally sustainable model, i.e. not non-profit and taking advantage of the actual valuable products available - original fine art!

[cliff prior]

Kate Chen
Many thanks for your comments. In the US, look up Echoing Green and Ashoka. You probably know about socialedge.org - well worth a look if not. Good luck with your work.
Cliff, UnLtd

[Martin Murphy]

What I particularly like about this manifesto is the obvious intention to galvanise those we term "socially excluded" to solve their own problems.

In my view and with the exception of UnLtd very few Social Enterprise orgs and bodies concentrate on this.

In this regard I believe we have an issue of trust when it comes to financing social entrepreneurs.

A lot of the funding goes to big bodies to handle and it is very often those orgs with the resources to complete lengthy application processes that get hold of the money, in some cases they even take a cut and pass it down!!

In simple terms the money needs to go to the poor or bop or socially excluded whatever term u most like and we need to find the right mechanisms to support their efforts. We also need to allow them to fail to a degree.

It is a very simple methodology of holding up a higher goal for people to aspire to.

As Stephen Robertson from the Big Issue Foundation once put it, "when we tried to engage homeless people in budgeting classes no one came, when we entered into a conversation with them about being self employed lots of people came and completed budgeting classes as a result"

Therefore if the goal of starting a social enterprise is not achieved there are lots of other wins. This makes the giving out of money more efficient and productive!

There are many entrepreneurs on our streets and in our sink estates and their product currently is drugs. The mind boggles at what we could achieve by investing a little faith in those we seek to assist!!

[Nick Temple]

Thanks Martin for your comment. Couldn't agree more. What we at SSE, UnLtd and the other organisations have in common, as you say, is a genuine belief that social entrepreneurship can transform those normally viewed as 'beneficiaries' into potential leaders.

With support from the movement and government, we're hugely excited by the possibilities.