Forget
the apprentice, if you really want to see innovation and drive
in action then take a look at the new breed of social entrepreneur.
OK, so there’s none of the backbiting and no one shouting
“you’re fired” to dramatic effect at the
end. What there is, though, is raw talent and enthusiasm,
all wrapped up with a genuine desire to make a difference.
Social entrepreneurs are everywhere, setting up enterprises
covering a huge range of activities including recycling, healthcare,
IT training and emotional counselling. The government loves
them – after all they can provide answers to seemingly
unsolvable, unaffordable public and social problems. Business
is getting fonder of them all the time – social activities
do wonders for corporate image – and charities are sitting
up and taking notice too.
Of course, there is plenty of entrepreneurial spirit to be
found within the sector already. Increasingly, organisations
are turning to social enterprise as a means of attaining that
all important sustainability, moving towards the provision
of goods and services and away from reliance on grant-based
funding.
Katy Duke, spokesperson for the Social Enterprise Coalition,
says: “Given the growing financial imperative of declining
grant support from public agencies more charities than ever
are choosing to cope with that challenge by trading on the
market and becoming a social enterprise.
“A good portion of our members are charities with a
social enterprise subsidiary, where the profit-making work
of the social enterprise is used to fund the charity’s
mission.”
This is not really new. Charities have been selling second
hand goods, running coffee shops, renting out space in their
premises and selling their expertise in the form of training
for a long time, and the ideas for new enterprises keep on
coming.
As a separate group, social entrepreneurs tend to do things
differently, though. For one thing, they do not only set up
social enterprises, as Nick Temple, network director at the
School for Social Enterprise explains.
“Social entrepreneurs work across all areas, so I would
draw a line between social entrepreneurs and social enterprise.
They set up a whole range of different projects. It might
be a for-profit organisation with a social objective, for
example.”
Temple cites Cafédirect, the fair-trade hot drinks
company which is essentially run on a for-profit model but
which has its social aims and its ethos running right through
the organisation. Other entrepreneurs set up charities, social
enterprises, foundations and so on – whatever the best
model is to meet their needs.
One thing social entrepreneurs have in common is that they
have an idea, a goal in mind, one that has the good of society
at its heart. And they will do whatever it takes to reach
that goal.
In that respect, then, social entrepreneurs and charities
have an awful lot in common. What drives them is their mission,
and it’s for this reason that the two groups can do
a lot for one another.
Mentoring
“We speak to a lot of organisations up and down the
country who are looking at trading to generate income. What
we find is that business skills and the business acumen,
which a lot of charities moving from grant-based funding
to trading need, are not always there. Skills gaps are prevalent,”
says Graham Collins, sustainable funding project manager
at the NCVO.
Through mentoring schemes bringing together charities and
social entrepreneurs, third sector organisations can learn
to become more ‘businesslike’ and better prepared
to go out and sell their products and services in an attempt
to bring about sustainability.
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Of course, not all social entrepreneurs are born programmed
with perfect business skills. Indeed, in a recent survey
carried out by SustainAbility among social entrepreneurs
across the world, this was one area where many felt they
were lacking.
“It’s a generalisation but the nature of social
entrepreneurs tends to be someone who has an entrepreneurial
mindset and business principles,” says Maggie Brenneke,
director of the social enterprise programme at SustainAbility.
“Often the entrepreneur will see the opportunity and
dive in regardless of their training and background.”
They sense the opportunity but might fail to come up with
a solid business plan. For this reason, the survey revealed
that many social entrepreneurs are extremely keen to work
with businesses.
To quote the report: “Social and cleantech [environmental]
entrepreneurs are equally interested in developing partnerships
with business — but with different expectations. Social
entrepreneurs, in particular, are acutely aware that they
often lack the experience and skills needed. A constant
refrain was the growing need for brokering between the entrepreneurs
and potential business partners.”
And, Brenneke explains, there is a growing appetite in business
for this sort of partnership to be built. What’s more,
the experience in the States, where the report was compiled,
shows that increasingly those who support social entrepreneurs
financially are helping to kick them into more solid shape.
“The communities funding social enterprises are beginning
to pull them through to a more businesslike approach,”
says Brenneke. US organisations such as New Profit, based
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offer funding to social entrepreneurs
but combine this with managerial, development and strategic
support.
And where charities are teamed up with social entrepreneurs
who have come down this sort of route, the chain of education
and support continues. There is no reason charities should
not learn from the mistakes made by social entrepreneurs
to avoid making the same ones themselves.
Of course, it works both ways. Student social entrepreneurs
at SSE usually come with a reasonably well-formed idea or
with a project already underway and need help to get their
plans off the ground successfully. The school then offers
one day a week training and support in a variety of what
Temple terms “hard and soft skills”. The aim
is to provide confidence and credibility as well as the
necessary knowledge and understanding to bring plans to
fruition and to keep them going in the long term.
One of the key areas SSE can help is by brokering mentoring
schemes between its students and more experienced people
in a relevant field. Very often they come from high up in
the third sector, explains SSE’s Temple.
“The experience that we have had is that it is mutually
beneficial,” he says. “It may be set up to help
the individual, but we often find that the mentor also learns
a huge amount through the scheme.”
Partnerships
While mentoring schemes can bring a huge amount of support
and fresh ideas to both social entrepreneurs and charities,
in some ways they keep the two at arms length to a degree.
Partnerships between social entrepreneurs, on the other
hand, can bring the two entities together in a far more
organic way.
Ravi Kapur is the head of the Innovation Challenges programme
at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the
Arts (Nesta). The project’s main aim is to broker
partnerships between visionary entrepreneurs and existing
organisations that have the facilities necessary to make
ideas happen. The first tranche of the programme will concentrate
on mental health projects.
“We are currently working with five mental health
organisations; the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health
Media, Mind, Rethink and the Sainsbury Centre for Mental
Health,” explains Kapur. The organisation is targeting
frontline workers within the mental health sector and appealing
for ideas and innovations within the field.
“The social entrepreneur could work within the system
and have a great idea and just needs a charity to get it
out there,” says Kapur.
Again, this approach of bringing a social entrepreneur into
the fold can be mutually beneficial. According to SSE’s
Temple, it can bring in the kind of dynamism and vision
that charities can too often lose sight of. Again, an entrepreneur
may be already in the ranks with an incredible idea that
just needs a push. Temple gives the example of a person
working for the National Autistic Society who came to SSE
for help setting up a recruitment service for autistic people.
“We are interested in encouraging charities to have
people like this working within their organisations,”
says Temple. “They are flexible and adaptable and
will come up with good ideas.”
So how can a charity go about tapping into these qualities?
By definition, says Kapur, social entrepreneurs are dynamic,
passionate people who are adept at raising their own profile,
which can make it easy for charities to find them. Organisations
such as Ashoka, which supports social entrepreneurs, as
well as the World Bank’s Development Marketplace can
bring organisations together with social entrepreneurs at
a global scale. On a more local level, agencies such as
Business Link and local CVSs can make connections happen.
By definition, says Kapur, social entrepreneurs are “dynamic,
passionate people” who are driven by their ideas.
What charity would not want to tap into an energy source
like that?
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