The School for Social Entrepreneurs

A week is a long time in social enterprise

For the social entrepreneur and social enterprise aficionado, there are two main event seasons: the cluster around October / November (Good Deals, Social Business, Global Entrepreneurship Week etc), and the end of March extravaganza of the Skoll World Forum, its fringe Oxford Jam and (this year), Voice 11. A few reflections on the events of last week, then…

Voice 11 came first, and marked something of a step-up in ambition for the sector, being held at the O2 and (I think) having delegates in four figures for the first time. It had a decent ministerial line-up (even if Cameron appeared only on video) to represent their policy reach, but more importantly the tiered pricing and programme created much more of a buzz of business than previous years. Stands were busy, sessions were well-attended, and the networking area was full of good conversations and deals being done.

Announcements included (*minimum*) £10m more for the Social Enterprise Investment Fund from the Department of Health: good news for the waves of right-to-request spin-outs, and prompting some to wonder what the split of the £10m will be (in terms of grants and loans). The Big Society Bank was also the source of much debate and conflab, with a start date now of summer 2011, though many fear it will be significantly later than that. It was also interesting to hear Vince Cable say there were “40,000” CICs, which was about 10x what I’d thought there were…

The only gripe people had was that it was cold (the third bottom line would have been swiftly dropped for a well-placed patio heater); but this is a hardy sector, and good humour overcame the chills. And that good humour was much in evidence at the awards in the evening (congrats to all winners: especially the NI contingent), with Alexander Armstrong arguably upstaged by Ed Miliband’s range of “I get mixed up with David” jokes…

Up in Oxford, the glamour was more international. Where else but the Skoll World Forum could you find Desmond Tutu and Jude Law at the same event? Skoll takes a TED-type approach, in that the event is pretty exclusive, but much of the content is made available online. From the tweets / conversations I followed, the megatrends, neuroscience and deep leadership sessions are particularly worth tracking down. [click on the previous link for access to videos, blogs and more...]

Oxford Jam is now firmly ensconced as the Skoll World Forum fringe, and Amanda Jones, Ben Metz and Jonny Mallinson (and helpers) did a fab job of pulling it together on shoestrings and enthusiasm. The vibe was great, the dialogue open and challenging, attendance free / on donation, and the drinks were multiple.

Highlights included Paul Cheng from Venturesome (“we’re not far off the social enterprise world’s first Bernie Madoff”), Jonathan Jenkins from UnLtd launching their Big Venture Challenge (“Why are we doing this? Because I’m bored. Bored of having the same conversation about the ‘missing middle’ ”) and Geoff Burnand / Caroline Mason’s (from Investing for Good / Charity Bank) excellent social enterprise quiz over dinner. Long may the Jam (and the late-night cabaret) continue.

It’s a big commitment of time, energy and expense, but I returned with mind opened, networks expanded, and motivation renewed. Can’t say fairer than that.

[Nick Temple is now also blogging at www.NickTemple.org]

Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship links from January 2011

It has been a busy start to the year, and it seems like that is the case for everyone. Certainly everyone I bump into seems to be working very hard indeed, as the end of March 2011 looms large....No different here at SSE (lots of work across the network, graduations, launches, new programmes and more). Which is partly by way of explanation for why blogging has been a bit infrequent (many thanks to current intern Ryan for filling in), and why this is the first round-up for a couple of months. Anyway, here are the most interesting and (hopefully) relevant links from the last month or so:

- My favourite post of the month was from Craig Dearden-Phillips, on how social enterprise is like religion: Losing my religion? The theology of social enterprise

- My favourite iPhone app of the month? The new one from Smarta

- Been interesting finding out more about Right to Request, and about the reality of where social enterprise meets public sector meets unions. David Floyd delves deeper into the unions / social enterprise issue

- I love lists, and so: the 9 new rules of branding your business online (from Inc.com) and 6 choices you need to make in social media (from HBR) and 20 start-ups to watch in 2011 (from Director mag)

- Interested in what happens to our forestry and waterways? Then Ben Metz's piece advocating for community ownership is a must-read (and just the start of a debate we will hear much more about)

- This doesn't strike me as anything particularly new, but apparently if becomes more interesting if different people (read mainstream business gurus) are saying it. So here's Michael Porter / Mark Kramer on 'creating shared value' (a new future for business). You can also check out the Peter Day interview with Porter for more detail.

- I was inspired by the quiet effectiveness of the Aspire Foundation (Owen Jarvis and Paul Funnell) and their work in Tower Hamlets.

- Muhammad Yunus has been in and out of court in Bangladesh: good round-up from earlier in the month here, but this is very fast-moving; see the latest on the BBC here

- Also internationally, British Columbia's government have established an Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship; marking exciting developments in Canada

- Liam Black guest-posts on Allison Ogden-Newton's blog: entertaining and relevant as ever on social enterprise and the dangers of the public service delivery agenda:

"under Labour – which let us not forget kick started the social enterprise sector which the coalition wants to co-opt. – there was plenty of money about. Intermediary bodies sprouted up everywhere and much horse shit and awful service poured forth!"

- A note on humble leadership fro the IoD: "The best CEOs are the ones you've never heard of"

- Ralph Lewis' article on relationships, belonging and servant leadership in the context of Big Society is fascinating

- Paul Harrod talks about his experience as a social entrepreneur and coming back from adversity

- And finally, I spent a bit of time between Xmas and New Year collating all the various videos by SSE schools and involving SSE students and Fellows. Check out the SSE Vimeo Channel and the SSE YouTube channel

Cheers!

Is franchising the key to scaling social enterprise?

The question most often posed about social enterprise in this Global Entrepreneurship Week (#gew) has been: how do we grow this movement, and how do we scale organisations + models that work? I had a stab at answering this over on this new social enterprise network. Here's an excerpt:

So, who has the answer? Domino's Pizza. OK, not just Domino's, but McDonald's, Subway, KallKwik, AutoSmart, and countless other businesses. Why? Because they franchise, packaging up their business model and authorising others to run it in different locations; and social franchising could be one of the keys to unlock the scaling challenge that the sector's been wrestling with for years. For inside that challenge lie several tough questions:

- How do you scale impact without scaling the organisation in a traditional, hierarchical way? (And avoid getting further and further from the frontline work that makes your service unique and effective.)

- How do you avoid reinventing the wheel by replicating proven models?

- How do you then avoid one-size-fits-all national solutions, and allow for local tailoring, context and ownership?

- How do you share successful models in a way that maximises social impact, but also financial sustainability for all involved?

- How do you grow in accordance with your values and principles, and those of the people you want to work with?

Social franchising is not necessarily the quickest, easiest way to scale, but it does represent an approach that can provide answers to these questions. Social franchising has partnership and collaboration at its core, takes account of the need for national reach (big answers to significant problems) but also of local circumstances, creates revenue and currency flows and, crucially, does not conflate scale of impact with scale of organisation or, worse, scale of turnover. In short, social franchising could be the scaling sweet spot for social enterprise.

[Read the full article on the new Guardian Social Enterprise Network]

Residential report 2: inequality in depth

One of the features at the residential last week was the appearance of expert witnesses speaking on particular topics (strategic planning, partnerships, inequality etc). We thought it would be useful to share these on the blog both for those students (and Fellows) who couldn't be there, and to a wider audience that might be interested.

The set of slides below are by SSE Chair Charlotte Young, who was speaking on inequality and its impact. This gives an overview of the state of the UK, possible reasons for that current situation, and some thoughts about approaches and interventions that might help tackle it.

Impact of inequality dartington

View more presentations from SSE.

Social enterprise and entrepreneurship links from August

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.”

Is a Social App Store just Toolkits 2.0?

I was inspired to write by the latest issue of Third Sector magazine this week. Not a sentence I've written too often, perhaps, (tend to rely on it for news, rather than inspiration...) but there were three thought-provoking pieces in the current issue.

The first was what is probably the best interview I've read with Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society, on the Conservative approach to the sector. There are some good challenges  here for naysayers and cut-watchers alike, and a good summary 'progress report'.

The second was by John Kingston of Venturesome asking "How can we increase supply of capital to the third sector?' I'll cover that in a forthcoming post on Big Society Bank / social investment

And the third was a great challenge from Craig Dearden-Phillips to move away from just complaining politely about cuts (and doing so ever more loudly) and to think radically about how to react, survive, thrive and reconfigure in the current context. To be constructive about the Big Society agenda.

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To that end, I've been reading up on one initiative bubbling away in the affiliations of the Big Society Network: the concept of a Social App Store. David Wilcox, arch social reporter, suggested this as an idea and it has begun to be shaped and formed online by the contributions of others. His outline of it is here, and you can read the subsequent discussions here. The concept is summarised as follows:

It will aim to offer online users simple navigation to easy-to-use content and tools for social action - some free, some paid-for. It will offer developers of how-to materials for social action the opportunity to showcase their existing work, and work with others to develop new offerings. By creating a substantial market place it will provide developers with an incentive to develop or re-purpose materials in formats easy to use by those new to social action.

In principle, I like a lot about this: making ideas accessible, thinking radically about how we can scale up their take-up, a commitment to openness, the potential largeness of reach, democratising design / co-production, utilising new tech to connect, providing a real product (or even 'shopfront') to what big society is and means, financial transaction / trading element and so on. Much to build on and work with here.

My constructive questions or concerns are: is the language alienating (does it smack of metropolitan smart-phone-owning tech-savvy people etc)? Others, including David, have noted this already though, and suggested alternatives. More substantively, it is the communicated sense that this type of social action can be 'downloaded and installed' (to borrow the terminology) so simply. Implementation of such work is not one-click and instant, but, often, achieved with hard slog and determination over the long haul. And it is often challenging and difficult and messy. Where I can get up and running with an app or MySociety website cleanly and instantly, other social projects and tools need support, capacity, confidence and persistence to put into action.

The associated risk, therefore, is that this is just toolkits 2.0: everyone in this sector knows there is a toolkit or a resource for everything from community planning to social impact measurement, and also that creating the content after the project (because you wrote it in the bid) is often the easy bit. An online store of these won't change that. (see Richard's recent post on SE Toolbelt for a similar take). Materials, by definition, are only the substances out of which things are made.

So my suggestion is to think and proffer questions about what offline support might look like: who the store workers or shop assistants might be, and where they might be located. Are they voluntary, app-ointees, connected to existing local networks? Are they located in actual stores (as David Barrie suggests in his response in the group discussion)? Where are the learning loops or support networks for those 'downloading' from the store, and what might those look like? Or is there a phone hotline to talk through problems? (the equivalent of e-mailing the app developer?) Will there be any quality control or measurement of success (app-raisals?), or is it genuinely radical in its devolving of trust and, possibly, resource?

Much to ponder, but also much to build.

Partnerships: are you the Bono and Frank Sinatra of social enterprise?

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.

Partnership spectrum

View more presentations from SSE.

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?

Will a new toolbelt help social entrepreneurs?

The SE Toolbelt is an online information platform aiming to provide social entrepreneurs with practical resources that have been developed by their peers. It boasts 1000 or so items of various shapes and sizes on its data base, and these are grouped broadly by business topics and sectors. From the School’s point of view, you can imagine an ideal scenario where someone with a fledgling project could find a precedent, capitalise on pre-existing market research and a functioning business model, and adapt them to a new enterprise. More developed organisations could research approaches to scaling best practice or SROI in a format that is, in principle, an extension of, or addition to, the peer learning process.

Thumbing through the available materials, however, I’m sceptical of the claim that SE Toolbelt “brings a grassroots practitioner perspective to the fore”. The site is a library of business school-esque articles on topics from Marketing and External Communications to Risk Management – interesting in themselves, but part of the top-down academic approach that the site is hoping to challenge. It is easier to see a way for a collection of case studies to find their way into the SSE programme, supplementing live witness sessions with further examples.

At the moment though, most studies are based in North America, or hot beds of social enterprise in the developing world, particularly India. There is relatively little based in, or coming from the UK, which means students will always be dealing with a different legal system, funding structure, cultural and social context etc. But this doesn’t stop entrepreneurs in the UK getting involved, and it may be that as the site grows it will become increasingly relevant. Like any online platform, Toolbelt will be useful if it’s used.

[Richard is currently interning with SSE, helping on a wide variety of projects. You can also follow @SEToolbelt on Twitter]

Is trust the most radical and efficient thing we have?

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]

Charlie Kalsi: social entrepreneur from Hampshire

It's always a pleasure to go out to the various franchises around the country and meet the social entrepreneurs that are moving their projects along, and seeking to change things. Our Hampshire SSE
has been running since the autumn in Portsmouth and are recruiting for the next programme already. Here's a video of one of their current students which demonstrates the support it's been giving to those looking to start up a social enterprise, a social business or a charity.

HSSE Case Study - Charlie Kalsi from Shedlight on Vimeo.