The School for Social Entrepreneurs

The Life of an Intern

Hey everybody, it's Ryan the intern!  I just wanted to take a few minutes and write about my experience here at the SSE so far.

From day one, it has been fantastic working here.  I've never had an office job before, although I do have a bit of other work experience.  What I thought was going to be a month of being bored to death, cooped up in an office with a bunch of old people turned into being one of the most inspiring, exciting jobs with the greatest bunch of people I have ever worked with (and they aren't even old, or at least you can't tell)!!  

Business, for me, has always been something I've studied only because it seemed like a practical way to get a job in one of the worst economies that the USA (yes, I'm American so excuse my different spelling of words) has ever seen.  I don't know whether it's the English charm in this office, the fact that I feel like my work has meaning, or just the overall vibe in the office that we are all helping other people, but whatever it is, coming to work is a great part of my day and I'm sad to say I will have to leave at the end of the month to go back to school for my final semester before heading out into the real world.  That said, I must repeat the first thing I learned in this office and that was where the tea is.  How English! :)

Specifically, I'm working under Nick doing things like contacting the press, working back and forth with fellows and current students to finish up certain jobs, and organizing/analyzing (not analysing haha) data from evaluations and such.  It's been great fun as every day is a bit different, so it keeps me interested.  

Finally, it's just really interesting seeing how a non-for-profit works; it's neat how we have to go about different strategies to keep things working like obtaining grants and the like because the SSE doesn't rely on its program as its only source of income.  

Well, that's all from me for now.  I'll be back next Monday with another update of sorts, I'm sure.

Cheers! 

Hopes and wishes for 2011 for civil society

Social Investment Business have done an interesting powerpoint which shares the views of various sector leaders' wishes for 2011. Including (Sir) Stephen Bubb, Matthew Taylor from RSA, Rod Schwartz from ClearlySo, Julie McEver from Local Partnerships...and more. Including, first up, our own CEO Alastair Wilson....enjoy.

[You might also be interested in Third Sector's Austerity Panel's advice for the year ahead.]

Civil society wishes for 2011

View more presentations from thesocialinvest.

New podcasts: leadership, social entrepreneurs and numbers

The benefits of having lost the argument over who should have the long commute with my wife is that I have plenty of time to catch up on podcasts and a bit of work-related listening on the way in (and back). Though the journey itself is routine, it also provides a chance to listen to things that are outside the normal sphere of work stuff, and stretch the brain a bit.

At the moment, there's a few programmes I'd heartily recommend:

1) Guardian Charity Effectiveness Podcast: this time on What makes a good leader? and withan excellent line-up including Debra Allcock-Tyler from DSC and James Partridge from Changing Faces (who is one of the most admired leaders here at SSE). And a bit of SSE representation from SSE Fellow Debbie Ariyo from AFRUCA, phoning in on the lack of diversity in leadership in the sector. All produced by another SSE Fellow Jude Habib's organisation SoundDelivery.  Plenty of nuggets here on leadership, challenges ahead in 2011, and keeping focus whilst retaining a long-term view.

2) Peter Day on Not for Profits: Peter Day is a genius, as far as I'm concerned, and have often mentioned his great podcasts about the world of business here before. This episode includes his recent appearance at the Good Deals conference a few weeks back, and looks at the recurring issue of scale. Does the non-profit sector need to become more like the market? Challenging and valuable listening.

3) More Or Less: There are, of course, geeks in the sector, many of whom are operating in the evaluation field (I was delighted to learn on a recent visit to New Philanthropy Capital that they had a feedback form after their Xmas party: that's devotion to the evaluative cause right there...). My own inner geek loves More Or Less, which is all about looking at the numbers behind the stories: this week it looked at the issue of student debt, and how much people would actually pay. The sanest, most reasoned take on that issue heard all month.

4) An interview with Matthew Taylor: Podcasting in the sector is rare, so also been enjoying this recent initiative from Social Investment Business; Matthew Taylor, Chief Exec of the RSA is a really interesting thinker on a lot of big current issues: Big Society, civil society, engagement + membership, citizen-centred social action, the power of networks and more. Very much worth 10 minutes of your time

Happy listening....

A small and clear presentation about the Big Society

There's been much written and said about the Big Society but it's been sometimes difficult to get clarity on what it means, what's happening, and what the opportunities are. In some areas, that's still unclear (and will be until post October 20th, when government announces its spending plans in the Comprehensive Spending Review), but this presentation by Karl Wilding over at NCVO is as clear as it gets. Enjoy.

 

A small presentation on The Big Society on Prezi

 

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.”

Partnerships 2: should social enterprises date, co-habit or marry?

Typically, two days after I write a long post about partnership (and thanks for those who've commented, tweeted etc positively), a great podcast comes up on my commute in to work on....partnership. So I'll keep this brief: this podcast, Strategic Restructuring by David La Piana, is brilliant. On mergers, on partnerships (of different types), on what role funders and practitioners can play, and much much more. Some quick highlights:

- great comparison of non-profit partnerships to relationships: know whether you are dating, living together, or getting married for ever...

- effortless demolition of the "there are too many charities and social enterprises" argument

- realism on mergers: they normally don't save money, culture is most important, it needs to start with mission, economies of scale (or lack of therein) etc, etc

Highly, highly recommended for social entrepreneurs, funders, policymakers and all in the sector (+ check out all the various materials at the bottom of the page for more). I've also added it to our list of recommended podcasts, and you can find more sense-making stuff from David La Piana at LaPiana.org

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?

Social enterprise + entrepreneurship links from July

Currently, on my return to work, I am somewhere between B and C in the image to the left. Cleared the inbox (almost) yesterday, and now catching up on everything that's happened since I've been away.

To which the short answer is "far too much to put in one post". So I'm taking the easy / sensible way out, and posting up a load of the most interesting and relevant links during the last month that have passed through the inbox / twitter / etc Hopefully they are for you too.

• social.entrepreneurship.survey.2010.pdf (application/pdf Object) Pdf of findings from Echoing Green survey about people applying to them

• Charities Evaluation Service: strategy Useful, short guide to implementing strategy

• Demos | Publications (SROI etc) Demos report on Measuring Social Value (pdf)

  
  
• Getlegal Legal Structures advice + decision-making website for charities, social enterprise etc from NCVO et al
  

•   Greater Manchester Endorses FranchisingWorks Project | The Shaftesbury Partnership Interesting franchising project set to take off in Manchester

• The science to Big Soc(k)s. « Peter Holbrook's Blog Peter Holbrook's latest take on Big Society, drawing on his Gillingham experience

• Dan Pallotta on "misfit entrepreneurs" - Leadership :: Real Business - The Champion of UK Enterprise Vulnerability as the key characteristic of entrepreneurs?

•  Sparkbox New London social enterprise venue / event space from SSE Fellow James Greenshields' Media for Development

• Riverside market garden - local food for Cardiff Amazing Riverside Market Garden initiative from SSE Fellow Steve Garrett: buy shares!
  

• Interview: Andrew Haigh - Third Sector Article on Coutts' new social enterprise advisory service, including SSE

• Schumpeter: Profiting from non-profits | The Economist Economist article on what business can learn from charity

• Is the British middle class an endangered species? | UK news | The Guardian Alison Ogden Newton of SEL in middle-class Guardian piece

• The Daily Networker » Blog Archive » Exploring the Big Society Good round up of Big Society thus far from Oli Barrett
  

• We need a new name for the coalition’s idea of localism: New Start Centrally-directed localism? Critical comment from Julian Dobson

• World's largest reuse network launches with £8m funding | Social Enterprise Great new reuse and recycling initiative in London, led by SSE's former Director of Learning Matthew Thomson

• Health secretary challenges ‘narrow’ definition of social enterprise | Social Enterprise Definition debates anew (sector yawns)
  

• Beyond definitions - building a social future | Growing Business Coutts / Growing Business lunch discussion on social entrepreneurs

• Yunus to star in The Simpsons | Social Enterprise Looking forward to Homer being entrusted with a loan....for beer and donuts?

• Six New Rules for Social Enterprise Start-ups | Social Enterprise US advice for #socent start-ups

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]