The School for Social Entrepreneurs

There's no poor people in Denmark (and other learning)

It's been a gallivanting around kind of time of late, and much to reflect on, not least meeting up with Peter "Sunlight" Holbrook and Jonathan "The Hub" Robinson in the last week or so, two very different but passionate social entrepreneurs. I felt like I learned a great deal from both....will blog on this soon.

SSE was also invited to lecture on Roskilde University's MA at its Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, so I headed out to Copenhagen this weekend (Roskilde is just outside the city). It was an amazingly huge campus: reminded me a bit of Warwick University with its vast swathe of concrete buildings (the taxi driver and I had some fun finding "pavillion 10"; he was also responsible for the "there's no poor people in Denmark" comment, btw) but it was also completely empty (it being a Saturday), so all a bit freaky at first. Thankfully, I found the group I was speaking to (along with Roger Spear from the Open University, who was a welcome and friendly face: we had an interesting chat about different pieces of research) and ventured forth.

Always a bit strange as a practitioner 'lecturing' on a course which is primarily academic and theoretical in its approach. I got the feeling that they probably knew considerably more than me, but hopefully my thoughts (on where new entrants to social entrepreneurship come from + how to engage them; and, separately, on future trends) were useful. It was useful for me to crystallise and build on some thinking we have been doing recently around this, and to draw together some work from OTS (their COI research report on Social Enterprise at the Crossroads segments where new entrants/actors might come from), some recession-focused tools for Fellows, some thinking on future trends and other policy work. It's a little hodgepodge, maybe, but here's the slideset that went with the words / workshops etc:

SSE Roskilde University Slideset

View more presentations from SSE. (tags: socialentrepreneur socialenterprise)

It was great, also, to chat to, debate with and meet some of the Danish social entrepreneurs (because there are genuine social entrepreneurs on the programme as well), not least a guy called Thomas who set up the Danish version of the Big Issue and has been hugely involved in the Homeless World Cup and Homeless Football League in Denmark. Inspiring guy: and good restaurant recommendations as well ;0)

Leadership development in Los Angeles (and Bethnal Green)

[Guest post from SSE's Development Director Ian Baker....]

As you may have seen, SSE was one of only two British organisations to have been recently awarded the Bank of America Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative 2008 Neighbourhood Builder Award. The other organisation was Trees for Cities. As well as £110,000 of unrestricted funding, this award comes with leadership training for two employees (the executive director and an emerging leader) in the US. As SSE's Development Director I was lucky enough to have been chosen as the emerging leader to attend this US training. I've recently come back from the first of three weeks in the US, for leadership training run by the Development Training Institute.

Before going to LA I'd been advised by people, as one of only two Brits, how to survive a room full of 90 Americans (from US non-profits who have all been awarded $200,000, making a total commitment from Bank of America in 2008 of around $20million). I think my colleagues thought I wouldn't be robust enough, loud enough or extroverted enough. So I went there with some expectations of cultural difference. But the most striking thing I'm taking away is just how similar we are, especially those of us working in the non-profit sector. Our motivations are the same, the issues are the same and the problems/challenges we face in our organisations/sector are uncannily similar. The diversity of organisations is probably narrower than the range of student projects we see at SSE, though. There were many more housing focused organisations, providing both physical housing and support services for different groups, ranging from the homeless, through low income families to people on moderate incomes. There were also a lot of counseling and advice services for people facing foreclosure (repossession).

We visited one project in LA's Skid Row - a large area of downtown where the city's 50,000 homeless population are centered. LA is the US's homeless capital and the number of homeless people on the streets was shocking; made more stark by the close proximity of downtown's financial district. I was surprised that a whole area was actively called Skid Row. I wondered how much this in itself provided barriers to the aspirations of people in the area. We visited Skid Row Housing Trust, which is doing excellent work at providing modern, well designed homes for some of the city's homeless population. Their biggest challenge was how to sustainably fund the healthcare and support services they provide to their tenants, especially now that their income from development activity has been cut by the financial crisis. In groups we offered solutions to this sustainable funding challenge, many of which relied on in-kind support and various kinds of fundraising activity, especially capitalising on the city's celebrity dollars. A few social enterprise solutions were offered but my impression was that philanthropy was a much bigger part of non-profit income in the States than here in the UK. I sensed that social enterprise and entrepreneurship may be higher profile in the UK, which surprised me, but perhaps I am just seeing this from a skewed perspective as I am so embedded in the sector here? Another difference that I noticed was the worrying number of US non-profits in the room who were having to make redundancies due to the financial crisis.

So there are some differences when you start to delve into the detail of the sector. But my main impressions are still of the similarities. And yes my American peers were generally louder, more extroverted and more positive than me. But on reflection I think some of my British peers can sometimes be too negative and reluctant to celebrate their successes. Perhaps somewhere in between is a healthy compromise.

As for the leadership training itself, I think the proof will be in the pudding of any changes in my own practice. The part I found most useful was 360 feedback from my colleagues about my leadership practices, or lack of them! Using the Kouzes Posner Leadership Practices Inventory, my colleagues rated my leadership practices under five broad headings: modelling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart. Many people, myself included, seemed weaker in inspiring and encouraging. I'm coming away with a shifted attitude towards leadership and work; realising even more that investing time in building relationships and effective communications is key to effective leadership, and it is still work! Also, it isn't just the responsibility of the CEO to model the way, inspire, challenge, enable and encourage; this can (and should?) be done by anyone/everyone in the organisation.

Roll on Philadelphia in May...

Action-Learning

This week I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the workshops with the SSE students. It was a great way to gain some insight into how SSE’s model works in action. As children we are generally encouraged to answer our own questions by experiencing something for ourselves. The SSE workshops encourage students to answer their own questions by experiencing something for themselves. By taking the time to question and reflect we can intentionally change our behavior and recreate our reality.

 

Similar to the approach taken at the Center for Experiential Learning at St. Olaf, action learning is not just about learning by doing: you must reflect on that experience in order to identify exactly what it is you have learned, internalize the lessons and devise action plans so you can take effective action in the future in a new situation, however similar or different. Through practice, SSE students learn the ability to ask the right questions at the right time and take action when necessary.

 

One of the interesting consequences of action learning is that learning starts with not knowing. We only become open to learning when we admit what we don’t know. There are no experts in these situations, and therefore there may also not be any right answers. What is important to note is that in situations where there are no right answers, it is important to act in order to learn. This ability to act (or be prone to action) is a fundamental quality of an entrepreneur. In an action-learning setting, learning takes place by posing useful and discriminating questions in conditions of uncertainty. Learning is about trying out unfamiliar ideas, and involves risk and taking actions which might not work out.

 

Death, sex and doughnuts (learning from experience)

One of the best things about travelling overseas for work (and there are plenty of downsides too) is the people you end up meeting. Often, strangely, this is not the people in the country you are visiting, but the people coming out from the UK for the same event. Indeed, some of my best UK networking has happened overseas.

The same was true on the recent trip to China, where I was part of a delegation including people from the Young Foundation, NCVO's Compact Team, the Office of the Third Sector (including Anne McGuire, the new government adviser on third sector innovation), the British Council, and the Welsh Assembly. It was fascinating to learn over dinner (and the odd drink) about their various experiences which had led them to this point, which ranged from conducting research on doughnuts (and why they are big sellers in Colombia and Saudi Arabia), reading articles on the sex lives of armadillos, and seeing behind the scenes at crematoria. Not hugely relevant to social entrepreneurship, you might think (and indeed, you might be right) but there is something about freeing up your brain and getting outside experience that brings you back to the organisation with fresh eyes and ideas. And about other people (with equally fresh eyes) asking questions about your work and your organisation from different fields and sectors that challenges and causes you to think anew about your work.

And about death, sex and doughnuts, of course.

What the Iraq War can teach you about strategic planning

Just as optimism reigns in the US, I've been reading about arguably its darkest days of recent times in the Iraq War. Fiasco by Thomas Ricks (a US journalist on the Washington Post) details the build-up to the war, the invasion, the insurgency, and the reconstruction efforts in fascinating detail. It's not an easy read and has left me, by turns, angry, frustrated, depressed but also uplifted, inspired and amazed. So what relevance to this blog and the world of social entrepreneurs? Well, a couple of things really stood out to me:

1) The first is the emphasis the military in the US places on learning (from mistakes). That may sound a bit bizarre, given that Iraq is largely viewed as a Vietnam repeat and, at least to start with, a case study in how not to carry out a counterinsurgency. Time and again, though, senior military figures give realistic assessments of what is happening / going wrong, and highlight what needs to be done to change this: and much of this is done publicly in workshops / publications / speeches and so forth. This happens throughout the first five years of the war, and the military's ability to be honest with itself, to highlight errors (and successes) and incorporate those into its future operations has been crucial in improving (eventually) its performance there. This doesn't apply to all, of course; some of the most senior figures involved consistently made out that Iraq was in a better state than it was, and continue to delude (or contradict) themselves to this day.

2) The second was about strategic planning. Ricks argues that the failure in Iraq was primarily one of strategic planning (or the lack of therein). Firstly, there was a lack of realism (if only their goals had been SMART) and a lack of consistency: their grounds for going to war were based on a worst-case scenario (i.e. Iraq has loads of WMD, Saddam works with Al-Qaeda, the US is under threat) while their plans for the occupation / reconstruction were based on a best-case scenario (we'll be welcomed as liberators, and the country's in an alright state etc).

Secondly, there was a lack of clarity over the actual objective of the invasion: was it about finding WMDs, was it about removing Saddam, was it about regime change, was it about introducing democracy to Iraq, or to the wider Middle East? (some would add, of course, was it about oil?) and so on; and it shifted as the politics demanded it. This was hugely confusing and bewildering for the troops on the ground, because each of these goals requires different operational activity, different tactics and so on. If you are unclear about your mission, how can you decide how you are going to get there and achieve it? How can you make decisions between where you apply resources (and how many are needed)?

Thirdly, there was a lack of planning in and of itself. Phase IV (the reconstruction) didn't have an overall plan in place when people arrived in Baghdad to start, whereas Phase III (the invasion) had been planned and war-gamed to within an inch of its life. 

Fourthly, the US Army had not done its homework on insurgency and counterinsurgency as a whole (though individual commanders had knowledge of, say, Vietnam or Algeria, and applied it appropriately), nor on experiences of occupation. They only started to bring in this learning 2-3 years in, in a formalised way (via pre-Iraq training etc).

Finally, there was also confused leadership / ownership between the State Department (Rumsfeld et al) and the military in Washington, and between the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Army in Iraq. From Ricks' account, this caused untold problems at every level of operations.

So, lessons from the Iraq disaster?

- do your research (it may not involve Vietnam or Algeria, but is necessary)
- a plan is important (entrepreneurs are prone to action, but a thought-through plan is crucial)
- get clear on your overall objective / vision and ensure it is clear to everyone else involved
- be realistic in your planning, rather than overly pessimistic or optimistic
- be clear about leadership and autonomy over particular areas (and who has the final say over what)
- be open to learning, honest about mistakes and constantly try to improve

Not a bad checklist for a social entrepreneur, or for the new US President to insist on the next time someone suggests a military invasion.....

Statistics, damn statistics...and lies

I mentioned in my review of Made to Stick (incidentally, they have a website about it here) the other day about statistics giving credibility, but often inducing glazed eyes and heavy eyelids. But, in the broader area of evaluation and measurement, they are incredibly important in this sector.

I had a great conversation with Steve Lawrence (founder of Work Ventures in Australia) at the SSE residential recently about the SSE evaluation, and how we can seek to extend and improve upon that work. You can find and download a full 100+ page copy of the report in the Outcomes and Impact section of the main website...and an exec summary version as well. One challenge we talked about was how much of the nuance and detail you lose when boiling this stuff down to headlines. A few times, Steve mentioned different things he was interested in, only for me to say that some of them were in the 100+ page version, but not the shorter exec summary; or had been in an earlier version and then cut. I'd love everyone to read that full report, as it gives such a rounded view of SSE programmes and their various outcomes. It also has more on the evaluation process, such as how we tried to provide incentives / anonymous responses (in order to get a good cross-section of participants), how we also used the process to empower SSE students and Fellows to use evaluative tools, and so forth. But, ultimately, the highlights are incredibly important organisationally because of people's time, and their need to grasp something swiftly. And simple, concise points do that. Balancing that with the need to give as full and holistic picture as possible is one challenge for those heading up evaluative work. (And, lest we forget, to improve and develop internally as an organisation from that learning).

You can see something of the same debate in the SROI vs. social auditing argument. See this exceprt from the Social Enterprise Magazine article linked to above:

"Where there are impacts which can be easily ‘financialised', like people moving off benefits into work, by all means use SROI. But there will always be impacts which are difficult to attribute reasonably in this way. In these cases how people think and feel is important and social audit methods will be more appropriate"

Not quite the 'highlights' vs. 'holistic' wrangle, I'm talking about, but it is about that same sense of crunching something down and losing something of the reality and totality of it all. But, as Craig Dearden-Phillips puts it in a typically provocative column, the sector can't rely on anecdotal evidence either:

"For years we have got away with being the sector of great anecdotes. When asked about the difference we make, we often bang on about our best-ever success or offer improbable statistics that would do a Soviet-era government proud ("our two staff provide services for 267,000 people" and so on). In a tougher climate, those who properly measure and prove impact will thrive while those who bleat that it's all too difficult will sink."

I agree with this, and make sure we introduce evaluation, impact measurement, outcomes, and all the rest of it to our students while their projects are at an early stage. So much easier to build it in at the start than try and retrospectively collect and analyse....

Having said that, the masters of the twisted statistic remain the retail sector. The current Flora Buttery advert has Gary Rhodes offering crumpets to people around the country: one with Lurpak Spreadable butter on, and one with Flora Buttery on. The whole ad is based around the fact that "more people said they preferred Flora". At the bottom of the screen (as with the classic shampoo ads), the "proof" pops up. In this case, it has 200 people who were asked, of whom 48% preferred Flora.....and 45% preferred Lurpak. With 7% having no opinion. That's 96 people for Flora, 90 for Lurpak and 14 for neither. So, yes, in a one-off exercise conducted by Flora with 200 people, 6 more out of those 200 preferred Flora to another brand. In my humble opinion, that proves absolutely nothing....do another 20 tests with the public, independently, and not conducted by a celebrity chef driving a Flora van with a crumpet on top...and then I might be swayed. (Mis)using statistics like that is why people say things like this:

"Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death" (Hillaire Belloc)

and, more poetically,

"Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment" (Jean Baudrillard)

Back in the game: a returning news and info round-up

Hello everyone: a big welcome back from the SSE blog. We'll start back in traditional fashion with a round-up of everything that's been going on in the world of social entrepreneurship and enterprise in the past few weeks.

- For the geeky web 2.0ers amongst you, How Sociable will tell you how well your brand is represented on the social web. What more could a blogger want.... (thanks to Beth for this)

- Can you smell a rat? No, but they can smell a landmine apparently. And now they can smell the money: £500,000 worth of it for this rodent-loving social entrepreneur.

- Are you a sneaky rat yourself? Try this online ethical test for your moral DNA...

- Patrick Butler had an interesting piece in yesterday Society Guardian about Jamie Oliver / school dinners....but more generally about lone heroes bringing about social change (or not). Well worth a read, particularly for the complexities of measuring and attributing success and the need for catalysts.

- I totally identified with this post by Mike Chitty:

"Enterprise is not about business and entrepreneurship.
It is not about premises, finances, business plans and swots.
It is a process for human development.
It is a way of exploring:

• who I am,
• what my potentials are/might be, and
• the kind of future that I could create.

It is way of living – of becoming.
Enterprise can be a catalyst, a framework, for the emergence of identity."

- CICs are back in the news (stay awake at the back), with two CIC CEOs setting up a CIC association to provide support and representation to all those CICs out there. There's a fairly equivocal statement from the Coalition in response, but given their recent call for more promotion of the structure, they must surely see this as a good thing. Certainly, the meagrely-resourced regulator does....

- This year's FOOTSEY event in Yorkshire looks like being even bigger and better than last year's, which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. I'll be trying to get back up to God's country for this one as well, so see you there....

- Someone mentioned £300m being taken from the RDA regeneration budgets to fund the new housing initiative to me today. Will try and find a link soon enough: unclear what the ramifications may be region-by-region

- Good to see Social Enterprise Ambassador, SSE expert witness and all round good guy Craig Dearden-Phillips nominated in the most admired chief exec category in the Third Sector awards. And to see him having an entertaining debate with the publisher of his own book....

- Also, much SSE news forthcoming: a new programme in the East Midlands starting in October; a new SSE in Cornwall starting formally soon; and a new publication to be launched next week. I know your breath is bated now; more soon.

- Finally, the hot question of the week: are you a changer, a contributor, or a coaster?

Till next time....

Empowerment and confidence

A couple of things stood out in the social entrepreneurship field in the past week or so. the first was the launching of the Empowerment White Paper from Department of Communities and Local Government, expertly chronicled and tracked by their secondee Simon Berry (check out the EWP Pageflake for example). Two relevant funding streams in this: a £70m Community Builders fund, which seems to be an amended, reduced version of the previously proposed 'community anchors' fund (a large proportion is capital). There is also a £7.5m which is a reworked version of the withdrawn Strategic Partners fund. Particularly pleased to see the emphasis here on the individual, and on practical action (one of the principles of the paper is "within the third sector, we recognise and celebrate the role of individual active citizens, social entrepreneurs, campaigners, volunteers and political activists...these people deserve the support and recognition of government").

Alongside that launch, there was the release of the new Social Entrepreneurship Monitor (as was), now simply called Social Entrepreneurship in the UK. (pdf download available from this page). In the past, the SEM has been a largely finger-in-the-air exercise in how it comes to its figures, but this report seems really well-thought through and researched. Includes case studies for the first time, and some interesting (and helpful) delineations of various terms. As with previous reports, it emphasises that "social entrepreneurs are not as confident as their mainstream counterparts....and do appear to be less confident as their activity becomes more established". This has always been something SSE has focused on (88% of SSE Fellows have an increase in skills and confidence to lead; 60% say this continues after the programme has finished), and it's important that this is recognised from independent sources elsewhere. Also worth noting that the report underlines that "mentoring and coaching as well as access to finance through the growth process are important". Again, it's good to see endorsement of our call for specialist support, without which all the good work on financial instruments, measurement tools and legal structures is lost.

What connects these two reports, I think, is that they both draw attention to the need to a) support and develop individuals and b) that this is not, primarily, about level 2 box-ticking audits, but about more intangible and "softer" (though harder to pin down) things like empowerment and confidence. Whilst many social entrepreneurs are driven by frustration with the status quo, or powered by personal experience, this can also become disillusioning if they are not supported on a long-term basis through the journey and if they are not genuinely able to achieve 'empowerment'. By which I mean not only in the sense of " To equip or supply with an ability" but also in the direct sense of "To invest with power", either via organisational forms they've established, or via genuinely representative roles within (and outwith) the political system.

If this research and this white paper can help make the case for and deliver that kind of work, then last week will have been an important one for social entrepreneurs across the UK.

Research engine

Increasingly in my role here at SSE I am tracking bits of research and policy that are flowing from different outfits and areas (and countries). And, while I haven't had much time to pore over them of late, here are a couple that I thought were of particular interest:

- The Social Intrapreneur: A Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers (pdf at end of article); It's from Sustainability, whose stuff is usually leaning towards the corporate / US / big business version of social entrepreneurship, and I guess this report is a logical extension of this. Their stuff is always very good and thought-provoking though, so this makes it worth a read. We've often played round with the idea of social intrapreneurship here, although as much in a 'large non-profit' as a multinational....but, either way, entrepreneurial individuals within organisations setting up new initiatives and projects for social benefit. Different challenges to starting from scratch, different benefits....but also much that is shared. An area to revisit, I think.

- Hitting the Target, Missing the Point: How government regeneration targets fail deprived areas is from the New Economics Foundation, and seems incredibly timely to me. Indeed, no sooner had I written something like "DCLG should aim to learn from previous / current regeneration initiatives such as LEGI" in a policy document than this lands in my inbox. Looks very interesting, particularly as it is rooted in practical work in the St Helens area (which has LEGI money: the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative).

I've yet to read it in full, but the general message seems to be that concentrating on outputs like job nos., enterprises started etc doesn't capture the full benefits of such initiatives. It's not a surprise to hear NEF calling for more sophisticated, thought-through measurement...but this one could have a big influence at at time when DCLG is looking at its regeneration objectives and infrastructure closely. Certainly, SSE has found that its outcomes and impact range far and wide: yes, jobs created, organisations established...but also increased political engagement, decreased isolation, greater community cohesion, improved relationships (!) etc.....

Intern-ment

Whilst reading about Derek Conway and the other MPs paying their own family for internships and work experience (even the Third Sector got briefly drawn in), I got thinking about how this related to the use of interns by third sector organisations, particularly in the fields of policy and research. As regular readers of this blog will know, SSE recently had an intern over from St Olaf College in Minnesota, which was pretty much an unqualified success. Using volunteers in this way can clearly make a substantial difference to an organisation like SSE whose capacity is still relatively small, if growing. And (I think) it can be a genuine win-win, with significant personal development, learning and contacts/networks for the intern in question.

The problem, which we have debated a fair bit internally, is how to ensure that this doesn’t run counter to our other principles: namely, the need for diversity in the third sector, the need for entrants and new leaders to come up from the grassroots as well as from the 'grad-routes'. For, inevitably, for someone to take a full-time three-month position at an organisation in (usually) London, unpaid with (possibly) some expenses, they have to have support from elsewhere. This is usually parental, either in the form of direct monetary support, or in the form of free rent & board. Or they are in university full-time and can afford not to work during some of their holidays. Generally (and this is a generalisation), these means of support skew the potential intake to those with a more privileged or well-off background.

So how can we ensure internships go to a real cross-section, to the best people regardless of background? Clearly, bursaries and sponsorship is one way: some universities arrange placements and support expenses, such as identifying cheaper accommodation or directly paying expenses. In Thor’s case, this meant that he could afford to not do his restaurant manager job for a month in the holidays, and come to SSE.

But how to also extend these opportunities further out? Our neighbours Operation Black Vote recently won an award for an interesting shadowing scheme which focuses on political internships / work experience, precisely to avoid the old-boy networks we see continuing in those establishments;  these might provide a useful model; or something along the lines of this scheme, Leaders Together. Maybe there is a case for something similar in the third sector: funded internships that take the burden off the organisation and the individual to find the money to make it possible, and allow for a broader, more diverse intern network. Happy to hear of any such initiatives or ideas: there could be a social enterprise in this....