The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Thursday round-up: Sunlight, shares, scale, SROI

Quick round-up, as there seems to be lots coming in and lots of interest:

- Peter Holbrook has written a blog post about David Cameron launching the Tory green paper at Sunlight Development Trust, and has some interesting initial thoughts from a practitioner's point of view on its recommendations; more reaction on Bubb's blog (who's on rare form of late), here, and here.

- Paul Miller of School of Everything has written an interesting post about why their organisation is a company limited by shares and how they balance the need for start-up investment (in a silicon valley web2.0 type way) with a social mission at their heart....

- Fall-out from the ECT news continues; apparently the recycling arm is keeping its CIC structure, despite (or as well as?) being taken over by a private sector operator....will be interesting to see how that turns out. In the meantime, here's a piece in New Start about it all; as I mentioned previously, this can be seen as a positive as much as a negative, but I do think that the issue of scale is at the heart of it all

- On which subject (scale), some food for thought: The Fetishization of Scaling Up (Small is beautiful versus Big is essential....and local+local+local = global...) and a magazine/event called De-Growth

- The SROI-UK conference has spawned a network: SROI-UK is chaired by the evaluation legend Jeremy Nicholls, who we'll be doing some work with in mid-June

- DEFRA announced a big £4.6 million deal for the various third sector waste and recycling networks who have come together to form a new organisation, REconomy. Huge kudos to (former SSE Director of Learning) Matthew Thomson for masterminding the deal: word on the street is that the celebrations were substantial.....but well-deserved.

- Interesting article by Matthew Taylor of the RSA on the (independence of the) third sector and the need for accountability and transparency

- How to set up a refugee community organisation; consult this guide?

- And a brief final thought: Word of mouth is not created, it is co-created

Two big stories: ECT takeover + Tory Green paper

BREAKING NEWS. Oh yes. Two big stories, both with a 'green' slant.

The first is that the Tories have just released their green paper on what they would do to/with/for the third sector if they were in government.Launched at Sunlight Development Trust, It's the first salvo in what is intended to be a constructive and consultative dialogue between the party and the sector. I've only just downloaded it and am yet to digest (95 pages over lunch was beyond me), but our friends at Third Sector online have helpfully done so and come up with the 20 headline pledges.

Of particular relevance to this world:

"•    Creating a network of social enterprise zones to provide incentives for social investment in deprived communities

•    Setting up a Social Investment Bank as a wholesaler of 'patient capital' to a wide range of social investment institutions

•    Creating a powerful 'Office for Civil Society' at the heart of government to fight for the interests of charities, social enterprises, co-operatives and community groups"

Looks interesting, pretty well-thought through and pretty sector-friendly, even if a fair bit of it has been announced one way or another in the past. The OCS replacing the OTS would seem to indicate that NCVO's advocacy of 'civil society' as a concept has fallen on receptive ears. More soon after several tube commute reads.

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Second big story is that ECT Group, widely viewed and lauded as one of the leading social enterprises in the movement (and certainly one of the largest) has had the recycling part of its business taken over by May Gurney, a private firm. Their press release includes the following:

"ECT Recycling - part of the ECT Group with 1,100 employees - has been acquired by May Gurney, one of the UK’s most successful maintenance and support services companies and listed on the London stock market (AIM).

First and foremost, it’s ‘business as usual’ at ECT Recycling - the current strong management team will remain in place, led by Stephen Sears, and the focus will remain on delivering service quality for its customers and its customers’ customers – members of the public.

For some time, ECT Recycling had been exploring ways to secure its future and to build upon its successful business formula in delivering municipal waste services to local authorities.

Stephen Sears, who has led the development of ECT since 1980 said: “ECT has been looking for a partner for our recycling and waste management business with a good reputation in the local authority market place and with the commercial muscle to help us to secure bigger contracts. This will allow us to deliver our social and environmental objectives as well as the financial results that are essential to continued success." 

Which leaves the ECT Group back to its original core business: the CT of community transport, having sold its various other businesses (railways, health care etc.). A few questions fall out of this, of course. Not least that ECT Recycling was a CIC, so is this the first CIC to be taken over? (and how does that work re. asset lock etc.?) Is this a strategic move separating out the two businesses, or in response to more fundamental problems? And if ECT generally needed to find a bigger partner (with "more commercial muscle") to secure bigger contracts, what does that mean for procurement/commissioning for all the other third sector / social enterprises out there? (many of whom are significantly smaller).

New Start magazine rang me this morning to comment, and I kept it largely generic (because I don't know enough about ECT's business / governance etc; see q's above) but did say that we shouldn't overreact as a sector or movement. More of this will happen over the coming years, hopefully in both directions, as mainstream business is influenced as well as threatened by ethical and mission-led competitors.

Philanthrocapitalism and new clothes

One of the frustrations of recent events I've attended has been the common assumption that what comes from business into the social sector must be "better": venture philanthropy will revolutionise philanthropy, coherent investment-style metrics will revolutionise social impact, risk investment, social stock exchanges and loan funds will provide liquidity for the sector, and social enterprises will scale up in order to meet the challenges they face. Etc.

As regular readers of this blog will know, SSE's view of social entrepreneurship is an inclusive, broad-based one, not one that insists that social entrepreneurs must "have large-scale impact" to warrant the label, nor one that insists that social entrepreneurs must "earn income and trade", nor one that thinks impact is only delivered by an organisation's services, and not also through its operations in the round. For us, at its simplest level, social entrepreneurship is about entrepreneurial individuals applying themselves for social / public benefit rather than solely personal gain.

Further to this, the sector an organisation comes from, its legal structure, or its financing is not a guarantee of efficiency, quality, greater impact, excellence or even, in some cases, competence. Measurement in this sector is more difficult, intangible, and (at times) nebulous than the financial bottom line. Venture philanthropists have a more sensitive, complex role than venture capitalists....and so on. In reality, there should be knowledge transfer and learning between sectors (and always has been); indeed, the action learning process that underpins the SSE programme was originally pioneered in large companies for senior management. And, when 'business-like' is equated with more professional or making best use of its money (and people), then no-one has an issue with that either...

But, currently, it has felt rather one way (though I wouldn't wish to generalise: there are those who have a much more nuanced understanding all along the spectrum): and focusing more on business practice in the social sector, rather than achieving greater social equity and transformation. Hence my welcome for Paul Farmer's remarks at the Skoll event recently. And hence also my interest in this new book by Michael Edwards: Just Another Emperor? The myths and realities of philanthropcapitalism. It looks at the application of business practices to the social sector / philanthropy in great detail and, as far as I've read, speaks much sense, as well as provoking debate. I won't go on too much more, but would recommend starting with the transcript from the launch downloadable here, and I'll end this rather long post with a short quote from that which gives you a flavour of the argument:

"[Another] area where philanthrocapitalism claims to make an impact is in
improving the financial and the management capacities of civil society organisations.
However, I’ve always been confused by the way venture philanthropists and social
entrepreneurs differentiate themselves from the rest of civil society on the grounds
that they are “results based” or “high performance”, implying that everyone else is
uninterested in outcomes. Now sure, there are mediocre citizens groups, that’s true,
just as there are mediocre businesses, mediocre venture philanthropists, mediocre
social entrepreneurs and mediocre government departments. So why import the
practices of mediocrity into the social sectors, is Jim Collin’s conclusion, of Good to
Great fame.

What separates good and bad performance has very little to do with
business thinking or involvement in the market. What separates them is whether
they have a clear focus to their work, strong learning and accountability mechanisms
that keep them heading in the right direction and the ability to motivate their staff, or
volunteers, to reach the highest collective levels of performance. There’s no evidence
I know of which proves that business thinking, or business experience, can generate
those advances more effectively than experience in other sectors."

   

Wednesday round-up: OTS, Olympics, Obama

In a radical break with tradition, here's a Wednesday round-up for you of relevant news, views and opinion.

- First up, I've tried to capture a fair bit of Skoll, and post-Skoll coverage: that would be a links page on its own, though, so best viewed and checked out via our Del.icio.us bookmarks link at http://del.icio.us/SSE/Skoll which encompasses a pretty decent cross-section....

- A social enterprise business park as an Olympic legacy: sounds good. And most interestingly, put forward by someone who is a practitioner, not an umbrella org looking for funds; and we used Calverts for our last big printing job (highly recommended)

- When Muhammad met Liam (Yunus and Black): interesting conversation transcript

- A compare and contrast on social franchising (US- based) from Social Enterprise Reporter

- CSR as a business strategy

- Decent piece on (social) entrepreneurship / government policy in HBR; incidentally, there is a piece in the current Stanford Social Innovation Review which suggests what the new US president (come on Obama!) should do in this field. More on this soon...

- Also in SSIR is a piece about the relationship between producitivity and impact in the non-profit sector; it's called "More Bang for the Buck" which gives you an indication of where it's coming from. I think I took more from this case study

- Big welcome to the first 4 UK Ashoka Fellows, and congrats to Ben Metz for pulling off a good event the other evening. The Fellows are Camila Batmanghelidjh, Al Harris, Bob Paterson, and Faisel Rahman.

- OTS has released a piece of research from Rocket Science on Social Enterprise Networks. I found this useful and informative, but I'm not sure if that's only because I'm approaching sector-geek status. What the report does do, alongside give a good overview of regional and sub-regional networks, is emphasise the need for more peer-to-peer learning / networks....and wisely pulls out SSE as a case study. :0)

More soon, when the frenzy of the last few weeks calms itself.....do buy some extra reading in the meantime :0)

Blair to be Third Sector envoy

Third Sector have reported that Tony Blair is to take on a more troublesome and problematic conflict than the Middle East: that between ACEVO, NCVO and DSC. Acting primarily as an intermediary between disputing factions, Blair will use his substantial experience...

...oh, ok, April Fool etc. Good effort from Third Sector, though. Up till "I feel the hand of Stuart Etherington on my shoulder", they almost had me... :0)

The Bubb enters the fray...

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

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

Kids Company: Sex Pistols or the Clash?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday round-up: audio, aggregation, and alltop

It's been a while since the last round-up, and lots to link to and write up.

- Will write more about this shortly, but the Ambassadors have started to blog....and there is an uber-feed you can sign up to for all of them combined (http://feeds.feedburner.com/SocialEnterpriseAmbassadorBlogsFeed). Early days, but starting to happen....

- Details of the next Social Enterprise Research Conference announced

- Free audio file from Stanford Social Innovation Review from their Social Entrepreneurship Day, which I shall be listening to on the way home...

- Podnosh has an interesting post on "Why should leaders blog?"; check comments also...

- SSE graduation in London on March 14th (a week today); if you haven't got an invite, and think you should have, then get in touch.

- US article about entrepreneurship and social change (in the Tennessean, no less)

- Updated research from CAF on Social Enterprise in Practice; haven't had a chance to read, but looks very interesting both on the challenges to the sector (quote from PR: "Social enterprises are unlikely to achieve financial sustainability and it is unreasonable to expect them to do so") and on what is needed in terms of measurement and support. Will follow up on this......

- Sally Reynolds is held in high esteem in the sector for her work leading Social Firms UK, and they continue to take an approach focused on quality and delivery; new trade directory of social firms is now online, and their Star Social Firm quality mark is also taking hold. Interesting to hear her discuss the other day how they could develop quality standards for social firms because they are more tightly defined / structured (see definition of What is a social firm?) than the diverse and varied spectrum of social enterprise.

- Related to that spectrum-like nature, NCVO are "unhappy with the government definition of social enterprise", according to this Guardian article on their new 'civil society' approach. I do hope we're not entering a period of definition debate.........

- Social Enterprise Magazine has relaunched (more developments on website to follow), and, IMHO, looks a country mile better in design, focus and content. Massive congratulations to all involved in making it happen and promoting it so effectively: Tim, Claudia, Deniz and the team. Look forward to encouraging our students and Fellows to read and get engaged with it....

- Greed offsetting. Really?

- Interesting Business Week article on the profits (social and financial) of CSR

- And finally, for all your non-profit blog needs, here's Nonprofit.alltop.com; single page aggregation is the future?

Have a great weekend, one and all....

Nonprofit blog exchange: King Jason

Sporadically, I take part in the Nonprofit Blog Exchange Virtual Event, which basically involves nonprofit / third sector blogs writing about each other to create networks and promote the movement more generally. This time I've been allocated King Jason's blog. No, not a little-known monarch operating as a trustee, but a web designer and IT specialist working in the nonprofit sector over in Australia. Called Jason King.

It appears that Jason used to be in London, not unlike myself, and given that SSE is also looking Australia-wards currently, this seemed all too appropriate. Having overseen the redevelopment of SSE's website last year, these types of resources can be invaluable...particularly when there is little resource / capacity / knowledge within a (relatively) small organisation. It's amazing how important IT is to an organisation these days and yet, how often little attention (and money) is given to it. Jason has a good example on his blog of an organisation whose website went down overnight: Quick decisions when a charity's website went walkabout. I've seen even large organisations in our sector be undone by things as simple as domain name renewal, never mind the complications of DNS, MX records and the rest (which I seem to spend half my time sorting out).

But there are some great resources out there, if people get to know about them. Primarily, I'd mention the ICT Knowledgebase in the UK, and Idealware and TechSoup in the US. But it's useful to get a more grassroots-y, personal view of things, which is where blogs like Jason's can come in. Particularly as the format lends itself more to interaction and asking questions. If you're working on a third sector website, or on a redesign, then checking out Jason's post on Give your website a health check is a good start to ensuring accessibility and its status for search engines, for example. And commenters have left some extra tips as well.

Certainly I'd recommend it to anyone with responsibility for their charity or social enterprise's website, especially if they are in Australia, as he'll inevitably be more connected to events and resources in that location. Keeping informed and keeping connected are what it's all about in this sphere, and anything that helps you do that has got to be valuable.

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....