The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Scaling social entrepreneurship (or why many molehills make a mountain)

[This post was written for the UnLtdWorld Shout Out for Social Enterprise series]

There are big problems in the UK and in the rest of the world: social and environmental needs and challenges that are not currently being met adequately or, in some cases, at all. So it seems obvious that to meet these big problems we need big solutions and big scale organisations and projects that can change things for the better.

And there are amazing examples of extraordinary social entrepreneurs establishing such organisations: Muhammad Yunus (Grameen); Fazle Abed (BRAC); John Bird (Big Issue); Michael Young (Open University / Which Magazine); Ann Cotton (CAMFED) and countless others. And you can find countless more via the websites of Ashoka, Schwab, Skoll and others. We should recognise, support and be inspired by their work.

But we should also not necessarily use them as a template or blueprint, or fetishize scale itself. Why? For a number of reasons.

1) Firstly, what is important is the scale of impact and change made, not the scale of individual organisation or scale of budget; well-focused advocacy can change policies affecting the lives of millions; an open-sourced solution can spread change more rapidly than a heavily controlled one; a franchise operation can fit local and regional needs more closely, and avoid reinventing the wheel. Social entrepreneurship should not be about empire-building.

2) Secondly, scale is not part of what makes a social entrepreneur (despite what is said here; check the comments!); the vast majority of social entrepreneurs start locally with a small-scale or niche problem, and are content to create a solution that solves it in a sustainable way. Just as in the commercial world, a few have the capacity, willingness and ambition to replicate and scale and grow their organisation; but there’s nothing wrong with those who don’t. Using scale as a part of what defines a social entrepreneur is only serving to create an exclusive, elitist, MBA-heavy cadre, not an inclusive, diverse and accessible movement.

3)Thirdly, small-scale makes business and social sense. In the commercial world, we might spend most of our time talking about entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Stelios, or Alan Sugar, but 97% of UK businesses employ less than 20 people (and 95% employ less than 5 people), 64% of commercial innovations come from small firms, and businesses with under 50 employees contribute over half of UK turnover (FSB statistics). Why should this be any different with social entrepreneurs, particularly when their reason for starting (and motivation for continuing) is often a local / personal one? And imagine those statistics translated into social, rather than commercial, innovation and social impact instead of turnover.

4) Fourthly, the more who get involved, the better. Not only because “many social entrepreneurs x small impact = large-scale impact” as surely as “few social entrepreneurs x big impact = large-scale impact” (as complex as my maths gets; see here for more); and not only because we need more innovations, not fewer. But also because social entrepreneurs, whether they are in school, career-changing, long-term unemployed, a refugee or a new graduate, gain skills, confidence and networks through the process of setting up a project or organisation. So it’s not just about what their organisation does and delivers, but also about their development as future employees, entrepreneurs, representatives and leaders.

5) Fifthly, replication and scaling is tough, and people often underestimate how tough it is (I know that SSE did). There is now pressure on social entrepreneurs to scale up, often before they’ve truly proven their original idea or concept really works; pressure that comes from funders, prizes and, to an extent, media emphasis. And I’m not just talking about investment readiness (do the numbers stack up, the cashflow, the working capital?) but also, more broadly, about organisational readiness (do you have enough capacity, expertise, the right skill set?) and even what might be termed ‘impact readiness’ (have you proven your model works, will you have most impact taking this route?). It can also be tough, as Body Shop and others have found, to scale values and ethical principles. 

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SSE is not ‘anti-scale’ at all. Of those listed above, Michael Young was our founder; Ann Cotton is an SSE Fellow; John Bird is an expert witness on our programme. And SSE itself operates under a social franchise, replicating its programme across the UK and the world (well, Australia for now but more soon, we hope).

It’s our belief that we need both: the big stars and case studies that can capture imagination and bring attention and investment and recruits to this world; but also countless smaller stars that help change lives in communities up and down the country and who, cumulatively, have an enormous role in transforming things for the better.

Revamped Social Enterprise Ambassadors Website!

Delighted to see the launch of the re-designed Social Enterprise Ambassadors site, designed by the wonderful team over at Webstars LTD. As part of a rebrand and renewal of the ambassadors programme, SEC and SSE have worked closely together to create a new web portal for the OTS-funded initiative, now in its third year. It's always fun being involved in something like this from 'soup to nuts' as it were...from writing the brief onwards. Kudos to Pauline (and Vicky) at SEC for sorting out the photos and much of the content more recently.

The redesigned site features a lot of interactive content, including photos, videos and some extensive bios of the ambassadors. For instance, check out long-time SSE friend + expert witness Craig Dearden-Phillips, SSE Fellows Saeeda Ahmed and Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa, and Tim Campbell, who came to SSE earlier this year for a fellowship session on Money and remains a close friend to us here in Bethnal Green.

Some other interesting features that might be worth checking out:
- Looking for an ambassador near you? Check out the Ambassador Locations
- The ambassadors now focus more closely on specific audiences, Young People, Business & Finance, Public Services
- Want the inside scoop? The ambassadors are avid bloggers and tweet like singing birds

Really great to see this site go up and to have worked closely with the ambassadors (thanks to Sophi, Peter, Julie, et al), who have been very helpful and supportive through this process and quick turnaround. Am looking forward to the programme making a large impact on the different target groups for the various campaigns in the coming year

How do interns fit into the social enterprise movement?

In the welfare-state utopia that is Scandinavia, there is a saying that goes, "give the youngsters a computer before football gets to them," alluding to the ever-dominant role the sport plays in Scandinavian society. In the world of social enterprise, perhaps it is time we adopt a similar approach: "give young people a purposeful career before the corporates get to them." Step one? Adopt an intern.

As a twenty-year old college student I was lost in what to do with my life. Like many of my peers I was young, idealistic beyond belief and equipped with a hard work-ethic. However, what I lacked were hard skills, proper levels of pragmatism, and a realistic view on how to 'change the world'. Then I got the opportunity to intern for a month with a social entrepreneurship organisation, which took me in, nurtured my confidence and taught me about how social enterprise practitioners apply idealism. A year and a half later this experience has put me on track for a career that mixes purpose with professionalism, work with an outside life, and idealism with pragmatism. While there are many similar stories out there, there is still a large gap between the many young interns who stand ready to join small social enterprises, and those who actually gain the opportunity to work. Why? Here are a few hypothetical claims...

- Small social enterprises or NGOs often lack the funding to bring in an intern, even for part-time. As far as I know, outside funding alternatives specifically aimed at bringing in interns are few and far between.

- Prospective interns often have no idea where to begin their job search. Finding a small social enterprise is hard enough, finding one that can afford them and is willing to go through the process of hiring an intern is virtually impossible.

- Small social enterprises are not proactive enough in searching for interns. Many organisations want trained employees, and fail to see value of fresh perspectives and the hard work-ethic interns often bring to the table.

- Prospective interns prefer big organisations or well-known employers. In looking an internship with a name-brand business, they often do not see that with a small NGO they will receive greater responsibility, more advanced tasks, and ultimately, greater skills.

- Students are often limited for time in that they can only do internships that last for one to four months. A lot of organisations prefer longer contracts to make it a more useful learning experience for intern, but also because it gives the intern a greater opportunity to make a positive impact on the NGO. 

Surely other factors play a role as well, but these stand out to me as particularly limiting.

Why is it important to defy these factors and make a conscious effort to recruit more interns? As is widely accepted, not everyone could, or should, be a social entrepreneur. However, there are plenty of young men and women who still want to partake in social enterprise, and who want to make a positive impact on their society. In this sense, second-tier organisations might be a perfect fit. NGOs often prioritize the day-to-day tasks over long-term projects that involve research, updating of databases, technological innovation - they just fall by the waste side. Ironically these features are essential in moving the sector forward, through strong networks, new initiatives, a deeper understanding of complex issues, and organisational growth.

If you work for a small social enterprise and you are looking for an intern, what do you do? SSE was lucky enough to be approached by an American college, looking to set up a sustainable internship relationship. This coming January, SSE will welcome its third intern from St. Olaf College. Looking for such a partner might be a good first step - loads of schools are filled with competent young men and women, ready to enter the sector and contribute to its growth and development. While it might be time-consuming and not directly beneficial for your organisation to adopt an intern, it might be essential for the social enterprise movement. Youth is an essential ingredient to a successful sector in the future.    

           

International social entrepreneurship

Our focus of late at SSE has been pretty relentlessly on our existing and planned activities in the UK; following the government investment in the national network back in February, our Network team have been working hard with our regional partners to get everything in place for the expanded delivery: staff and student recruitment, match funding, agreements with partners, marketing materials, etc etc And the fruits of those labours can be seen in the list of regional schools down the side of the website, which now features Devon, Hampshire and Yorkshire (NB - so new, they don't all have full details up yet!). Hugely exciting and even more so as we recruit students and start the programmes later in the year.

And that UK work and track record over the last decade and more has given us a robust replicable package to work with and created a great deal of interest in the methodology abroad. As regular blog readers will know, our SSE programme in Sydney is our first international pilot, and it has been very rewarding for all over here to see significant time and effort pay off with the first group of Antipodean social entrepreneurs gaining support and development. And to get practically involved: I'm Skype-ing the programme manager over there about an evaluation session tomorrow morning, for example. And we have learned a lot this side in the process, both for our ongoing, current UK work, and for any further international SSEs.

One thing I think is most interesting about our franchise system (I never thought I'd start a sentence with that) is that it is rigorous enough to deliver consistency / quality assurance, but also has enough flexibility to be tailored to different local, regional or national contexts. So what excites us here is learning and adopting new innovations and improvements from our international (and UK) partners, and sharing them back round the franchise. In this way, I hope that, whilst gaining maximum impact from our central expertise and experience, we are not doing so in a neo-colonial type way (UK knows best etc), but in a mutually-beneficial one. Then we can avoid the worst of what Rod Schwartz has been highlighting in his Social Edge debate: Are the only innovations in social entrepreneurship Anglo-Saxon?

And it's exciting to see how social entrepreneurship is spreading into different contexts and more mainstream institutions. Take today's announcement of the British Council planning to boost 10,000 social entrepreneurs worldwide, focusing particularly on East Asia, China and south-east Europe. I'm delighted because we've been working with BC in various guises, including helping on the design of a pilot skills for social entrepreneurs programme in Beijing, and they've now got buy-in centrally to push the work on. Which can only be good news for those of us who think that social entrepreneurship is part of the solution, regardless of your background or which country you're in.

Social enterprise and public service delivery

Yesterday, SSE attended the Smith Institute's launch event for its new policy pamphlet, Social Enterprise for Public Service (pdf download). Good line-up, including Stephen Bubb (ACEVO, Futurebuilders), Minister for the Third Sector Kevin Brennan and his opposite number in the Conservative party Nick Hurd. Each of them, plus Paul Palmer (Cass Business School) and Tom Titherington (Network Housing Group), spoke for 5 minutes, before it was opened up to questions.

Worth mentioning that the SSE chapter in the pamphlet looks at a few questions of relevance + pertinence to social entrepreneurs: whether entrepreneurship can be commissioned and procured; how can such 'unorthodox' people work with 'orthodox' civil servants; how can they gain legitimacy + credibility when self-appointed; is measurement more important than legal structure; and how can pressure to scale and conform be avoided?

Monday round-up: Wilcox, web 2.0, Wal-Mart, whisky

Back in the swing of things on the blog front: two meetings cancelled / postponed today, and time therefore for a brief post rounding up some recent links and news of interest. Hope you like the recession/Obama cartoon (from gapingvoid, as ever). Roll on the inauguration. And kudos to intern Hannah, who has been blogging so proficiently that I got complimented for it....

- On that subject, interesting-ish article about whether non-profits should use volunteers / interns on their social media; comments are as interesting as the piece.

- Third Sector Minister Kevin Brennan in the Times on the opportunities for social enterprise in the current economic climate: Chance for social enterprise to be more enterprising

- Arch genius of social media / non-profits (or the godfather of social reporting, as I read recently) David Wilcox twittered (yes, I know..) today about this categorisation of conversations and dialogues and tools. If you facilitate or run workshops, this is interesting.

- Nat over at Change.org is bang on the money again: Investing in People Not Ideas

-The Paradox of Choice, also via David Wilcox; why more is, ultimately, less; to apply this policy in the world of web 2.0, read Beth Kanter's tips on How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media Efficiently

- Top 10 Green Books of 2008: another list for the list

- Two new posts from social enterprise ambassador Peter Holbrook: Losses and Life in 2009, and Enterprising Solutions; both worth reading.

- Are you going to Voice 09? SSE will be there. Word on the street is that there were some bursaries available.....though these may have gone by now

- Turkish Social Entrepreneur of the Year list

- The top 5 articles in Stanford Social Innovation Review from last year are pretty interesting; on performance, impact, social innovation...and Wal-Mart amongst others.

- And from the same magazine, what better way to start the year than with 10 Ways to Become a Better NonProfit Leader in 2009

- I've just reviewed Forces for Good for Social Enterprise Magazine; I'm lining up the Charismatic Organization next (subtitle: eight ways to grow a nonprofit that builds buzz, delights donors, and energizes employees; oh yes)

- Social Silicon Valleys: in Spain article from the Guardian. I've met

- Finally, and fairly randomly, enjoyed this article about how whisky is having to be rationed because the Chinese are drinking so much. On an overland train from Xian to Shanghai a year ago, I had a conversation with a Chinese guy where he recommended 'baijio' ("Chinese whisky"; aka hugely strong alcohol schnapps-y type thing, best mixed with snake's gall-bladder apparently) and asked what I'd recommend. My recommendation was Bruichladdich, which my new friend faithfully wrote down on his newspaper. I'd like to think, therefore, that I'm at least partly responsible for this Chinese whisky frenzy.....

Top 10 social entrepreneurship trends for 2009

There are, of course, a whole host of posts and articles predicting what we can expect in the year ahead: check out Nat's take on Change.org for one. But repeating others has never stopped me before, so here’s my take (partially cribbed from other people’s posts) on what we might see in the next 12 months in the world of social entrepreneurship and enterprise. Who knows, we might even make this an annual thing to see if we were anywhere close to being right.....

1) Resilience: new favourite term of funders and policy-makers alike; the concept of resilient communities, as promulgated by Transition Towns, has only gained more credence in the current climate, and I think we’ll see it bandied around a fair bit. Rightly so, too, I reckon.

2) Partnership, collaboration and merger: where partnerships over the past five years have, at times, been partnerships of convenience put together simply to apply for a particular piece of funding, the recession will mean partnerships of necessity will be the order of the day.

3) Bang for buck: again, economically (and social impact-wise), it’s all going to be about value for money, particularly in public sector contracts; so added value will most likely need to be put into pound signs where possible (hello Mr SROI). To coin a phrase, the revolution will be monetised.

4) The Obama effect: while his grassroots web 2.0 movement building stuff will be the inspiration for a UK version (or twelve; who knows, one might take off), it may be that a U.S. Office for Social Innovation or a Social Entrepreneur agency (as touted in various documents and proposals) might be the more substantive influence on the sector.

5) Internationalisation: something which has grown in the last couple of years, with initiatives like the Social Enterprise World Forum and countless visits and exchanges; this will move from a network-y, sharing information, “you’re great, no you’re great” phase to more practical delivery partnerships and collaborative working.

6) Jobs and skills: with unemployment set to rise significantly (some are predicting over 3 million), an emphasis on job creation, skills for employment, and micro-entrepreneurship (aka self-employment) will come from government and trusts/foundations. Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise needs to place itself firmly and credibly in this space, because everyone else, from universities to private sector agencies, will be as well.

7) Mobiles: if last year (and the year before) was the year of the social network, we also started to see mobile phones (via twitter, qik et al) begin to impact. This could well be the year when “mobile apps for charity” is a phrase we see... or the year when Stephen Bubb starts to tweet. Which can only be a good thing.

8) Niches: the trend where we see expertise pulled in as a sub-contractor / deliverer for relatively small areas of work, or niche jobs; particularly relevant for start-up social entrepreneurs who should seek out those opportunities / unmet needs / markets.

9) Realism: the emphasis will be SMART, and the R will be the most important: realistic; from business plans to applications, from tenders to proposals, investors and funders will be looking for the credible, reliable and proven. Overblowing the trumpet not advised.

10) Investment (ready or not): two prongs to this point; the first is that there is much talk of ‘investment-readiness’ in the social entrepreneur world (or lack of therein), and 2009 will see agencies start to enter that space with vigour; the other aspect is that pressure will be put on trusts and foundations to maintain levels of investment even as their endowments go down, given the preceding decade of prosperity. We’ll see forward-thinking trusts do so.

All in all, lots to look forward to. SSE has much to look forward to, and we wish everyone, particularly SSE students and Fellows, a prosperous and successful new year.

Thursday round-up: karaoke, kicking and kiva

Ok, a brief round-up of some useful links and info, having surfaced for air from various bits of writing. Sadly, no photos or film from the SSE Christmas do last night as yet (which ended with karaoke), but perhaps in the New Year...All I'll say is that there was a version of Hallelujah which won't be appearing on X Factor any time soon. On to more important things:

- Starting unbiasedly with ourselves, SSE has contributed the Social Entrepreneurship chapter to the Philanthropy UK Guide to Giving. I think it's a useful one-pager for people looking for an introduction to this world.

- Voice 09, SEC's big event, is coming together. Check out the details online...and probably see you in Birmingham.

- Piece in the Times today on celebrities and social enterprise which is interesting-ish

- Good report on tackling worklessness by Blackburne House CEO (and SEC Chair) Claire Dove which pushes the need for (socially) entrepreneurial mindsets and self-employment

- Rod Schwartz continues to kick CICs, this time calling for action to change some of the regulations in light of the rapidly decreasing interest rates

- You may well have read the report on the Social Enterprise Ambassador programme shake-up (with two asked to leave); there's an interesting post + comments over on Rob Greenland's blog where I've contributed a fair bit

- The Spark programme for homelessness / social enterprise projects is renewed and open to new applications

- Third Sector covers the social enterprise debate / identity project

- Lord Mawson responds to the Queen's Speech and uses the opportunity to talk social entrepreneurship

- SSE Australia is happening; see here and here for more info

- I found this post, entitled Kiva is a menace very good in terms of how what seems to be an "internet-based" idea that can easily be replicated is actually much more particular, not least of which is that their leadership (I've met both Flannery's on different occasions) are so bloody good. Essential reading for those who are doing a "It's like Kiva meets MoveOn" type project

- NESTA are doing some interesting things in social finance

- And Nathaniel Whittmore continues to write great content on the Change.org blog; let's back his Make Social Entrepreneurship Support part of the National Service Plan (US) idea

- Check out Robert Mulhall, a Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Fellow (we love SEI), talking about his work on Irish TV

Till next time.....

Social entrepreneurship in China: lessons from Beijing

I've been in Beijing all this week working on a couple of practical projects and, yesterday, speaking at a Social Innovation and Third Sector conference organised by the British Council and the Ministry of Civil Affairs (or BC and MoCA as I'm learning to call them). There was some really interesting background statistics and information, not least the enormous rise in the registration of non-governmental organisations across the country: hundreds of thousands each year. The discussion of regulation was also fascinating, as new legal structures / processes have come into play, allowing for the creation of private foundations and also for very small local (primarily voluntary) groups to operate without the need for the full regulatory procedure.

Of course, small and local is all relative in this field: one conversation we were having about the importance of a social entrepreneur being connected / engaged with / from the community they are aiming to serve led one government-official to note that some of his neighbourhood leaders might come under that definition....and the neighbourhood they worked with and served? 125,000 people. Whatever one thinks of the Chinese government, they are practically the only route to scaling or replicating any sort of solution across this vast country.

But what inspired me most, given that we are in development with the Fuping Development Institute and the British Council about potentially bringing the SSE methodology to China, was the similarities between the social entrepreneurs and their voicing of the various barriers and challenges they face. There were some great examples and practitioners there: like the entrepreneurs who established Shining Stone Community Action and the 1+1 blind / radio project. In our breakout session (when I was still trying to gauge response to my presentation: always tricky to see how something has been received in translation / with a 10-15 second delay), such practitioners mixed with support agencies, government officials (some of whom were also extraordinarily entrepreneurial: overseeing pilot subsidies / exemptions for NGOs, increasing procurement from the third sector by 300% etc) and business leaders in heated and pretty open discussion.

And the key issues / barriers / challenges? Funding + earned income, personal/business support, government regulation / legal structures (on which people were split between they need to be heavily involved...and they need to get out of the way), connecting with each other to share information...and so on. Sound familiar? Absoutely. And while the UK is further along the line in many of these areas, and has learning and knowledge to transfer (including what hasn't worked), and while the constraints and challenges are different here, there is a huge amount of common ground. And what shone through, as ever, was the passion, dynamism and purpose of these social entrepreneurs doing extraordinary things in an extraordinary country.

Friday round-up: Shine, school, summer, sloths...

Basking in the Indian Summer here in Bethnal Green: here's to it carrying on all weekend. And, of course, what better way to prepare for the weekend than with a round-up of news frmo the world of social entrepreneurship and enterprise....

- First up, there's a downloadable pdf of the OTS "Is social enterprise at a crossroads?" research that I posted about yesterday: check it out on their website: Social enterprise: where next?

- Way back when (May), SSE was involved as a founding partner in the Shine Unconference; one interviewer who was there on day 1 was Alex Bellinger of SmallBizPod, and you can download and listen to the podcast at Social Entrepreneurs shine at Shine; it even features an interview with yours truly, but don't let that put you off....

- If you prefer reading to listening (or you don't have as long a commute as me), then this Harvard Business School article, the Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise might be interesting. Coming very much from an elite business school point of view, obviously, but some provocative stuff worth browsing about the "imagination deficit" in the sector...

- On a related theme to our recent monograph, Sustainable Paths to Community Development, the Development Trusts Association and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have been looking into the question "What role for community enterprises in tackling poverty?"

- Who are the leading entrepreneurial speakers? Find out (an opinion) here

- Andrew Mawson, author of The Social Entrepreneur, has been spreading the gospel in Australia

- Do you know how your council works? Urban Forum's guide will tell you how....

- Some good recent Social Enterprise Ambassador posts by Daniel Heery and Chris Allwood

- Finally, I enjoyed this post by Rob Greenland about the "sloth"-like organisations working in regeneration, and the challenges of partnering with them. It might be familiar to some of you...........