The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Is your website mainstream?

Noted today how the School of Everything (who live upstairs from us) blogged about how they hoped to see more people browsing on their website using Internet Explorer rather than Firefox, on the basis that this would demonstrate they are going 'mainstream'. They then compare this to the Wikipedia breakdown of the average percentages of browser use.

This seems to me an eminently successful exercise, and a useful 'finger-in-the-air' assessment for whether you are just reaching white 30 year-old men who like reading Clay Shirky, watching TED video podcasts and twittering or friendfeeding every waking moment. You know who you are (he said, looking in the mirror). Wonder what the breakdown would be for all web 2.0 sites?

Not really applicable in SSE's case, as we're hardly web 2.0 (this blog aside), but happy to report that Google's Analytics tells me we're pretty much bang on the Wikipedia average: 71% Explorer, 22% Firefox, 6% Safari, a bit of Opera (so to speak) and then the odds and sods. Must attract more geeks to the site.... :0)

Skoll Forum (part 2...)

Back and reporting after an exhausting final plenary session here at Skoll.

First to wrap up yesterday's proceedings. I attended one of the 'consultancy clinics': with a panel made up of Liam Black, Alex Nicholls (Skoll Centre, leading researcher), Jim Fruchterman  (Benetech) and Kevin Jones (GoodCap), I had high hopes. But the session never really took off: whether this was due to the 'pitching' projects (when a pitch ends after 5 minutes, and the panel ask what you do, it's never a good sign...) or the format, I'm not really sure, but the fireworks never really happened. With the possible exception of the final project, the Big Give, whose business model (or lack of therein) got a bit of a savaging, before the panellists got a bit more constructive in their critique.

In the evening, the Skoll Awards were given out. Jimmy Carter was, by all accounts, very inspirational and the award-winners are a pretty amazing bunch of people, doing pretty extraordinary things. I must confess that I watched it this morning on video as well, having chosen instead to spend the afternoon with noted UK troublemakers (Black, Wilson, Kershaw) and others in a local hostelry. A good time had by all, as you can see from the photo below; an image I've found hard to dislodge:

Later, I went to the Social Edge (where you can see lots of blog and video footage of the Forum) dinner: thanks to Jill and Victor for the invite, and I'm looking forward to working with them in connecting the UK bloggers and podcasters into their great space for discussion and connection. Met some great people (again) from great organisations, like Tal from MBAsWithoutBorders, Mike and Omar from Berkeley, and Matt Flannery of Kiva, who was notably humble and unassuming, not to mention interesting company.

After reuniting with a dissolute UK bunch in a local Chinese restaurant, I headed home.....

----------------------------

DAY 3: I have to go and catch the train back to London to get to the Ashoka awards event on time, so I will blog about this soon. Suffice to say that whereas by the end of Day 2 I was in full, cynical curmudgeon mode, I leave inspired. The storytelling session this morning was worth coming to the whole forum, with Walter Mosley and James Orbinski...in fact, the whole panel were simply outstanding, and I have countless pages of notes on the risks of heroisation (obviously discussed recently on this blog), the need for relevant role models, the balance between truth and propaganda, perspective and resolution, the risks of empowerment, the role of humour and much more besides. Probably the best session I have been to in five years of coming to this event.

After that, the final plenary was going to struggle, but Paul Farmer (Partners in Health) almost did. He was fabulous and finally, on the Skoll stage, communicated the need for social entrepreneurship to include the disadvantaged, excluded and poorest to "allow them to be social entrepreneurs" rather than viewing them as beneficiaries, problems to solve, or markets to exploit. Amen and hallelujah to him, his work and his words. And he was so good that Al Gore, who followed, left less of an impression: indeed, he was moved to say to Paul Farmer, "I am not worthy".

I would really recommend going to Social Edge (link above), and watching the videos of those two sessions; worth making time for.

Skoll Forum (part 1...)

First missive from here at the Skoll Forum; just thought I'd give a run down on yesterday afternoon's opening proceedings.

Opening ceremony was in the Sheldonian Theatre, which is beautiful and old...but also pretty uncomfortable after a couple of hours. Nevertheless, pretty impressive surroundings to kick off in.

First up, after Stephan Chambers (Chair, Skoll Centre) welcomed us in his engaging, wry manner, Jeff Skoll spoke, and was very entertaining, noting that Al Gore and Muhammad Yunus both won the Nobel Prize after they had been keynote speaker at the Forum ("coincidence? I don't think so..."). His theme was that this movement was now entering the mainstream: a case of "here we are" rather than "here we come" (he backed this up with examples from Bill Gates, Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey: an alternative trinity to conjur with).

Next up was Lord Giddens who had an engaging style, no notes...and some half decent jokes. With the theme being "culture", though, it seemed strange to have him talk on climate change...it also felt a bit like a beginner's guide to climate change. With a room of people who know those issues inside out, this seemed strange....and it kind of felt like he'd been booked for his speaking credentials, rather than his relevance to social entrepreneurship (occasionally, he'd seem to remember and say something like "...which is..er.. why we need you, the social entrepreneurs"). His three key issues, for the record, that we need to tackle are: freeriding, hyperbolic discounting (not taking the future seriously), and "spending" the energy we save.

Phil Hope, the Minister for the Third Sector was next, and gave a pretty rousing speech. It was nicely structured, using Beveridge / welfare state / "stalking giants" as a frame for what is needed, and what has changed, 60 years on. He talked encouragingly of the need to "mobilise social entrepreneurs" who have a "vital and catalytic role", and also of the need to work with an engaged government, rather than ignoring the state altogether. With 700 people from 40 different countries, it did feel a bit domestically-focused (people near me were glazing over at the mention of social clauses, and other elements of government activity; as well as asking me who Harold Wilson was...).

The example he used of a social entrepreneur creating an opportunity and movement seized by government also seemed strange: the anti-plastic bag movement started in a town in Devon, then picked up in the media, then rolled out by government. The Irish government didn't need the Daily Mail et al to pick the issue up to ban them 5 years ago, and was government taken by the idea...or by the media coverage?....Overall, though, I was fairly impressed, and he had some nice lines ("real change cannot be financed by small change") and powerful delivery.

The final part was a panel of women who'd worked in cross-cultural projects and initiatives. The one who stood out for me was Jody Williams, who I confess to never having heard of before. She won the Nobel Peace Prize for pulling off the treaty banning landines in 95 countries, and was just outstanding: on respect and trust for partners, on communication and sharing of information, on not worrying who gets the credit: "nobody was more important than anybody else". Really inspired by her, particularly given our international initiatives.

Finally, Stephan Chambers wrapped up, reminding us of the forum theme of culture: shared experience, behaviour, habits... and that "behaviour isn't geology" (i.e. it keeps changing). But he was brief because, as he pointed out, "I'm the only thing standing between you feeling your legs again and getting a drink". Nice touch.

 

Then we all packed off to Trinity College for drinks in a marquee (the heavens opened as we left the theatre, ensuring that I networked heavily with people with umbrellas); all good stuff, and met some interesting people from Israel, Latvia, Russia, China, as well as some more familiar faces from the UK and Ireland. Dinner followed on with the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland team, Nigel Kershaw, Yasmin from Lovells et al....

All of which made getting up to deliver our presentation at 8am a little challenging. But it went well, and have just missed the first scheduled session because of the continuing conversations afterwards (which I think is a good sign: all the good stuff happens off the programme!)....but will try and get back on track with one of the new 'consultancy clinics' (dreadful name, but good people by the look of it) this afternoon.

Over and out.

Busyness is business

It's been a busy few weeks here at SSE HQ: on top of our biggest graduation event ever, it is reporting season (aka the end of the financial year), which means spreadsheets and outcomes till the cows come home. It has been nice to look back at one three-year grant and see how closely we have delivered on what we said we would (it helped fund network development / franchise package)....though I am pretty much in the fifth circle of box-tick, form-fill hell by now. Still, worse to have no funding to report back on, so I'll cut the carping.

Alongside that, I've presented to Finnish and Chinese visitors, delivered a policy and lobbying workshop up in Birmingham (and re-found an SSE Fellow: hello Parminder), and put in motion the changes to our extranet. Also, preparation for the Skoll World Forum of Social Entrepreneurship. Alastair, our CEO, and I will be presenting on the 'fringe' at 8am on Thursday, I am led to believe. Those who've suggested we deserve our place there for comedy reasons should know that there is nothing funny about an 8am presentation....ever. If you're coming, come along and see how much caffeine I've managed to down.

I'll also try and write up some thoughts here as the event goes along. This will be my 5th forum (yes, I've been to every one), and it's certainly changed a bit over the years. For a start, it was free the first time (thankfully, as I was running a tiny non-profit at the time), but is now a price that would make Rob Greenland blanch. And after Ben Kingsley, Robert Redford and Al Gore in previous years, ex-president Jimmy Carter is making an appearance this year. SSE is going, largely because of networking, particularly in relation to potential international partners; and because there's a lot of interesting thinking to get a handle on (if I can follow it). It's useful, particularly, to get a sense of how people view what you're doing when coming to it completely fresh with none of the baggage and politics (i.e. from abroad)....and also for us to remind the 'scaling up', systems-changing brigade that social entrepreneurship is also about inclusion, opportunity, and grassroots, local, sustainable change. (I will be taking the soapbox).

So, no time for now to review Andrew Mawson's book, the Social Entrepreneur (teaser one line-review: lots of Mawson, but also lots of passion and insights, + is very readable in snappy, bitesize chunks; worth buying), or to look forward to the first UK Ashoka Fellows (announced / revealed on Friday), or to tell all about the forthcoming Shine unconference (Facebook grp).

And no time, indeed, to discuss how SSE was present when Stephen Bubb (chair of Adventure Capital Fund, taking over Futurebuilders) met Richard Gutch (outgoing chief exec of current Futurebuilders) at the recent ACEVO conference for the first time since the surprise switch was announced....though I can confirm that hell did not freeze over, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse did not appear....

SavvyChavvy

On a list of things I thought I'd never link to, a site with the name SavvyChavvy would probably feature. But it's not a micktaking site or a spoof online joke: it's a serious initiative to connect gypsy and traveller communities in the UK who are, by their very nature, often particularly isolated from each other. It allows young travellers in particular to connect to their peers, which is often as much about connecting East European Romany to their UK counterparts.

Does this section the community off in itself? Well, possibly, but providing them with a safe space to connect and communicate away from the excesses of Facebook groups and comments (there have already been 'spoof' profiles set up within the site, prompting new culturally-specific questions) seems like a sensible thing to do, especially when coupled with on-the-ground internet training. You can only join the community if you're part of the traveller community at SavvyChavvy.com (it's a social network built with Ning) but you can see some accompanying video clips here, and how the local South East TV news reported it.

Hopefully it might also go some way to reclaiming, or repositioning, the word 'chav', given that it is largely thought to come from the Romany word 'chavi' for a young person.

Congratulations to Jake Bowers and SSE Fellow Nathalie McDermott on a great initiative.

The Bubb enters the fray...

Just a quick note to say that Stephen Bubb, legendary CEO of ACEVO has entered the (non-profit) blogosphere, starting with a suitable low-key post with hardly a name dropped....oh, ok, maybe the odd minister or two...and the Queen. Couple of sideswipes at others, talk of a dog and we're away.

Anyway, promises to be an interesting read, if it continues regularly and, more seriously, it's good to have the organisation that represents leaders in the third sector showing a bit of leadership in this area....... Check it out here.

Congratulations to 40+ new SSE Fellows

So another 40+ social entrepreneurs completed the SSE programme at the London School on Friday, and celebrated that fact at our largest ever Fellowship event at Coin Street's fabulous new neighbourhood centre. With so many new Fellows, the event was split into two separate rooms, before coming back together for the customary drinks, food and networking. Each person is given three minutes for their powerpoint presentation (rigorously enforced...) to talk about themselves, their project/organisation, and (occasionally) a bit about how the year at SSE has been for them.

I only saw the 'weekly' programme presentations, but can honestly say that they were all superb, and feedback from those in the other room was that the 'block' programme was of a similar standard. Most valuably for me, it was a huge reminder to me why I sit in dry policy meetings or extended discussions with investors and councils and RDAs about expanding the SSE network: simply to give more people like this the opportunity to develop themselves and their idea to fruition. I was asked to provide some 'unsung hero' examples for an article the other day, and it is an easy task when faced with such a group of people.

I could have picked out any number of highlights, and I've listed all the new Fellows below (do check out their pages / sites), but here's just three: Genevieve Dowokpor, who runs Youthology, and showed great poise and class in giving half of her time over to some of the people she works with (later, she would announce that she'd raised £28,000 per year for 3 years from a philanthopic fund); Esther Ofora, whose personality lit up the room and whose passion engaged everyone; finally, Will Rogers, who spoke powerfully from the heart and moved the audience with his emphasis on telling his true story (and helping others do so).

And that seems like an appropriate theme for the day: over 40 different true stories of change, of challenge, of (tough) choices. I look forward to seeing all of them continue to write and live those stories as SSE Fellows over the months and years to come.

---------------------

Block Programme Fellows:  see here for all personal profiles or project websites linked below

Olukemi Akinruli - Nous Aussi
Mark Doughty - Living Well with Arthritis
Beth Barton - Healing Futures
Sule Elkatip - Talk Turkish CIC
Lucy Hooberman - Mentoring Worldwide
Jim Pope - PACT: Prisoners Academy for Creative Training
Sabrina Ben Salmi - The Mobile Single Parents Project
Duncan Law - Transition Town Brixton
Jacqui McIntosh - H. E. A. D. for Black Youth (heritage, education, aspiration, development)
Cerdic Hall - HeartSounds
Sarah Wang - Creative Intelligence Agency Ltd
Kate Ryan - Streetbeatz.org
Amanda Roberts - Bud Umbrella
Zoella Freeman - Fun Edu Tainment
Andy Gibson - School of Everything
Lauren Craig - Thinking Flowers?
Andrzej Garus - Primus Personnel
Orode Faka - Infinite Arts and Media
Des Powell - Tracks Of Our Life / Youth Music Initiative
Andrae Palmer - Ground Up Development
Surya Turner - Suryaco Ltd: arts and personal development
Marian Spiers - The Photosynthesis Project
Andrew Walker - Southside Young Leaders Academy

Weekly Programme Fellows: all individual profiles, or click on links below where possible

Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa - Catch 22 Magazine
Winnie Williams - Halisi
Fatima Khasimi - SMILES
Jacqui Flynn - Raina's World
William Rogers - True Story
Ike Onubogu - CLUE Academy / Generation Xchange
Micol Carmignani - training programme in radio broadcasting
Leon Pearson - VegZed
Puck Markham - Community Money CIC
Genevieve Dowokpor - Youthology
Moses Okello - Musa House
Rosa Goncalves - Kidbrooke CIC
Joan Ferguson - diabetes awareness  / support
Esther Ofora - ECHO Regeneration Consultancy
Rachel Nabudde - Learning Continues
Juliet Challenger - Living Works
Nnamdi Edauemi Dime - Positive Pastimes UK
Oleander William - Creative Lifestyle
Jo Dempster - Global Youth
Satwinder Singh - Renaissance Foundation

Kids Company: Sex Pistols or the Clash?

Last summer, maverick Kids Company founder Camilla Batmanghelidjh launched a media campaign to achieve further government funding for her organisation. My post at the time ended with the words "Ultimately, we'll see how it turns out; I'd imagine they will get another 3-year government funding package, particularly given their work hits one of the key priorities....But I wonder if the long-term effects of this move might not be wholly positive".

Sure enough, last week it was announced that Kids Company was going to receive £12m over the next three years; one organisation amongst five sharing £27m (44% to Kids Co.). Which is no doubt good news for Kids Co and the other four organisations (if not the other 85 who submitted an expression of interest), and signals a real investment in delivering appropriate services to young people across the board. (It also means that Camilla's threat to strip in Parliament won't happen).The reason I'd written that "the long-term effects might not be positive" was because I felt that this was not a sustainable way of working for the sector: as someone put it at the time, should we all enlist Max Clifford, rather than fill out applications?

Interestingly, Craig Dearden-Phillips of Speaking Up (one of the other funded organisations) has written a blog post which reflects what I imagine to be a wider view from the youth sector: it's titled "Why Kids Company Excite Me....But Scare Me Too", and gives a real insight into those views, so I'm going to quote a couple of chunks of it:

"While part of me rejoices at an exceptional character like Camilla facing down Government, part of me is a bit unsettled by it too. Should a talent for PR and platinum inside-connections get you this quite this much money? A lot of people are privately spitting feathers. Yeah, sure, some are jealous but others just feel this kind of largesse to a small organisation serving a few hundred kids across a few postcodes to be grossly unfair. And they do have a point: How, I wonder, does a community group on a council estate in Hull closing its doors in April feel when they see Camilla playing the government (and, indeed, the HM Opposition) like a salmon?"

Craig goes on to tackle their approach to impact measurement, replication, funding and, of course (and related to all of these), founder syndrome:

"My final point is about how KC needs to redefine the role of Camilla. KC is the creation of its brilliant founder who has unbounded commitment and energy. To get out of the starting-blocks, the drive and hands-on approach of someone like her is absolutely necessary. Beyond a particular point, however, it is damaging. Once out of the baby phase, leadership needs to be shared-out, the entrepreneur needs to step into an outward-facing role and the `grown ups' need to be allowed to get on with the serious business of running an operationally and financially sound organisation. Believe me on this point because I have got form! As a Recovering Founder, I know the pitfalls of `Founderism’. From the bits I have heard from people who have been at KC in the past, the organisation shows all the signs of Chronic Founderism. If KC is to grow and help more kids in more places, Camilla needs to start a Twelve Step Programme for Founders - now. I can recommend a good one…"

I won't add much to that, as I think it speaks strongly enough. We will see what happens in three years' time and whether, as Craig puts it in his conclusion, Kids Company "do a Sex Pistols - and crash and burn in a self-indulgent heap. Or, like the Clash, evolve into something incredibly special and lasting".

UnLtd World: voyage of discovery?

As I mentioned recently, I attended the UnLtd World launch recently, which was held in a dingy nightclub in a road tunnel by London Bridge (if the intention was to make us feel slightly seedy / 'underground' on our way in, then it succeeded!). I was keen to attend, because I've been following its development ever since a very early meeting about the concept almost a year ago.

Certainly, in the rash of web 2.0 / third sector projects, I think it has as much chance of success as anything. Like most judgements, this is based for me on the product but, equally importantly, the person. Firstly, the site is very usable, pretty intuitive and with lots of useful features, specifically designed for use by social entrepreneurs (resources, relevant groups) or to be interesting to them (shoutbox microblogging, Q&A debates etc). It seems to be gathering momentum, although (and this is one caveat), it's difficult to tell if you don't add friends....(sounds like a dense point, but ways into the information other than through friends is crucial: I'm beginning to find some of these).

Generally, I feel positive about its chances, and the second reason for that is about the person leading it, Alberto Nardelli, who has insisted on its openness and usability by others from the start. Though 'closed' in that you have to register, it is open in terms of its structure (APIs, feeds etc) and that ethos is written through Alberto and the site like a stick of rock. I remember at the original discussion, someone said that it was not about being "King of the Hill" anymore, but building "the hill" (being it even) for others to use and interact with. Though at the moment (particularly given the name etc) it seems like more the former than the latter, I think we will see more interesting uses of this 'hill' moving forward. This is where it gets interesting for SSE, in that we can work with Alberto and his team to think about how we best interact with / use / pull from / feed into / re-brand the hill to our own (aka our students and Fellows') purposes; I'm meeting him about this on his return from SXSW.

So I'm pretty positive and will hopefully have more to write about this soon. My solitary "But?" is a version of one that was rather brutally expressed in a comment on the Guardian blog's piece on the site:

"More web 2.0 candyfloss. You could surely do more for your community by getting up off your arse, getting out from behind the computer and just doing a few hours community service."

Now obviously this sets up a rather unfair and untrue either/or scenario (either they'll use UnLtdWorld, or they'll do something in the real world), whereas most of the people signed up are already engaged in real-world projects in one way or another. But we do have to think about where resources are best expended to the furthering of social justice, of social change. I get as carried away by the new tech and geekery as anyone else, and don't want to be Luddite, but I do think there is a rise of slacktivism and what might be called 'hands-free philanthropy'.

This is a wider point than just UnLtdWorld. At the two most recent events I've been to, I've found out about three new web-based philanthropy / social networking / social entrepreneurship initiatives....and there is a real difference between an existing SSE Fellow or UnLtd Award-winner using these sites to further practical ends on the ground, and a whole load of well-meaning people putting shouts out to each other and debating their favourite films. Or clicking a couple of buttons and keeping a healthy distance from all that poverty and disadvantage. It must come down to impact (UnLtdWorld's Research Lab (log in required) looks like an erstwhile attempt to pre-empt this) in the end, and the most effective way of using human and financial resources to achieve an organisation's (or society's) goals.

Ultimately, web 2.0 sites such as this are (incredibly powerful) tools to facilitate things to happen, for changes to be made; they are not the change themselves. At the risk of a bad extended metaphor in reference to the title of this post,  that's what's written at the top of my map whilst charting a course through the ever-changing, somewhat choppy waters of new technology on behalf of SSE. I hope UnLtdWorld proves a useful port of call.

A ray of Sunlight

Ambassadors are starting to blog (hoorah), mostly with some introductory posts about who they are and what they do. Great post up today from Peter Holbrook from Sunlight Development Trust which gives a window into their world of diverse, community-based services and products. Here's his abridged history of Sunlight's growth and development:

"Our journey goes something like this (abridged):

1. Understand the problem and identify possible solutions
2. Build a common vision with others
3. Consult in a meaningful way - check your assumptions and revise your vision - 'action research'  works well
4. Get money - we got ours from the lottery
5. Get more  - we got more trusts and government regeneration funding
6. Yep we're still short - we'll need twice as much as we thought we might need.
7. We grew our aspirations by working with partners - keep as many useful people and partners with you as possible.
8. Don't be afraid to lose some people and partners along the way, especially if they're nasty, unhelpful or miserable
9. Get lovely staff, volunteers and supporters - check us out - we do have lovely staff and volunteers - probably the best in the whole wide world.
10. We got going - doing really good stuff - check out our website.
11. Crikey people like us!  We're getting loads of awards.  The PM is coming to visit!!
12. Yikes we're running out of money!
13. We need more money
14. What's all this about social enterprise?
15. We're doing social enterprise and making some money.
16. No one is telling us what to do with our earned money - much better and more liberating than boring old grants.
17. Goodness me... we're still here (just) and err....growing."

Such a great (and realistic) view of how these things develop (particularly points 4, 5 and 6), though it obviously underplays the impressive work that Peter and his team do to make all this happen. Good honest stuff. Read the post (and the other posts) for more, and start commenting.