Is social enterprise a red herring

grahamgardiner · 19th April 2010, 06:17 PM

Hi

I am an experienced social entrepreneur who has been commissioned by a local council to research the barriers & opportunities for the growth of social enterprise.

This has raised some thoughts in my head and have no where to discuss them at the moment. I hope you don't mind if I set them down here and would absolutely welcome your ideas, comments, feedback.

Social Enterprise.....

Firstly, no one knows what one is. Everyone seems to have different ideas & definitions. The Council want more of them...but why? I think they want the Third Sector to be more sustainable, essentially not reliant on them for grants.

So, do they actually want a thriving third sector (by thriving I include more sustainable. This in my mind is a different kettle of fish.

I'm beginning to think of the Third Sector more of a continuum going from mutual aid groups through to out and out social enterprises. In between there are community groups, charities etc. Some of those groups will want to increase their income streams, some of which will be through contracts &/ or trading.

Thinking it of a continuum helps me understand the support and resources that is needed. for example, in England, all social enterprises are expected to get business support from Business Link. Yet even within the social enterprise world there is a range of organisations, including small community cafes (for example) which consider themselves a social enterprise but are wanting to remain focussed on a small locality. Would they want to use Business Link; unlikely. They might be better off getting support from their local CVS. Others want to challenge Virgin and are looking to provide any business that the Private Sector does. Again, who would be best placed to offer them support?

The other main thing that springs into my head is that everyone wants to grow. We've got to be bigger. Have great visionary plans. Surely if nothing else the current economic crisis should remind us of the folly of going just for bigger and better all the time!

Should the Third Sector recognise that every organisation should examine its vision & mission. And stick to it (unless there are absolutely compelling arguments for not doing so). That we don't all need to take over the world as an individual organisation but what we do best as a sector is impact positively on people's lives.

Any thoughts??

look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers

Graham

MJR · 22nd April 2010, 08:21 AM

"in England, all social enterprises are expected to get business support from Business Link" - there, you've just identified a huge obstacle IMO. My enterprise is now getting support from the co-operative enterprise hub which has done more for us in a five months than Business Link did in the last five years.

"everyone wants to grow" - not sure if this is true, at least not for its own sake. Cooperative values and principles explicitly say that development should be sustainable, which I suspect can mean not growing sometimes. I'm sure others have examples of groups which achieved their social goal and dissolved.

Top10Tips · 10th May 2010, 06:19 PM

Think "ecology".

Think "are you exchanging services for money"
Or "are you awaiting funding from a third party"

There is no reason why something that is a trading body, cannot support itself... unless it is not fit for purpose.

I fear for social enterprises that are non-sustainable...

Haworth Cat Rescue · 25th May 2010, 12:23 PM

Here's my take on it (though that may not answer your question).

Increasingly, charities are being asked to take on roles that should be undertaken by local and/or central govt - I'm thinking (for example) of the areas of medicine and education. Because there is less money in "the pot" for these, the charities that deal with these issues are increasingly having to appeal to donors to give their own - private - money to pay for the work. This pushes those charities who could never rely on govt funding further down the heap (I'm thinking animal charities here - you may have guessed that).

From our point of view, if we don't find sources of income from places other than the generosity of donors, we will struggle (the myth that animal charities receive lots of big legacies is just that, a myth!!).

It makes sense that (most) people with a bit of spare cash, major donors and corporate sponsors will look to fund "human" charities, and often national ones, before they fund animal charities and local ones.

So we realised some years ago that if we wanted to continue on beyond the next decade or so (when the individuals who run it retire) we would need to generate income in other ways. And one of those ways is "trading". We are in the process of setting up various trading opportunities. Currently it is called "social enterprise". In a few years it will be called something else no doubt. But at the end of the day, from our point of view, it is a business where the profits are donated to (our) charity, not to an individual or a group of shareholders.

Not sure if that is what you're looking for. In a nutshell, we didn't go looking for "social enterprise" - we decided that we needed to trade and found out that that is what it is called.

grahamgardiner · 26th May 2010, 05:52 PM

Wow! Thanks for such a great response Sara.

You have encapsulated what many people we have spoken to have said. Would you mind if I used a bit from the end as a quote. (happy to send you a copy of the report when its done).

Indeed, if anyone is interested, I have just put up a blog exploring this confusion You can find it at:

http://aspiren.net/blog/2010/05/soci...is-not-a-noun/

Thanks

Graham

Haworth Cat Rescue · 26th May 2010, 06:15 PM

Hi

Quite happy for you to quote me (and if poss to credit the quote, but understand if you can't), and would like to see a copy of the report - it will make interesting reading.

Glad my waffling helped

lehua768 · 12th June 2010, 07:48 AM

You have encapsulated what many people we have spoken to have said. Would you mind if I used a bit from the end as a quote. (happy to send you a copy of the report when its done). I'm thinking (for example) of the areas of medicine and education. Because there is less money in "the pot" for these, the charities that deal with these issues are increasingly having to appeal to donors to give their own - private - money to pay for the work. This pushes those charities who could never rely on govt funding further down the heap (I'm thinking animal charities here - you may have guessed that).

Susana S · 21st July 2010, 11:40 AM

The councils want more of them (social enterprises) so that they can save money - that's the bottom line. They really need to invest in more social enterprise support with dedicated officers if they want to develop the sector. B/link is rubbish in terms of SE support and with the loss of the RDA's I wonder how the social enterprise support services such as SEER will fare?

It's a time of great opportunities for social enterprise, but it needs much more backing. The whole 3rd sector needs some serious skilling up.

MJR · 21st July 2010, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Susana S

They really need to invest in more social enterprise support with dedicated officers if they want to develop the sector. B/link is rubbish in terms of SE support and with the loss of the RDA's I wonder how the social enterprise support services such as SEER will fare?

I agree with you. After years of refusing to fund SE support or Cooperative Development Bodies (CDBs), many councils are now wondering why they have such an uneven SE scene and why it distrusts them so much!

I've heard that the general social enterprise support services (GeSESS?) don't know how they can continue at their current level. I expect them to be really buttering up Local Enterprise Partnerships to try to get some funding from them - but it's not clear yet what funding LEPs will control.

Of course, LEPs funding unreformed GeSESS would be a pretty bad outcome for co-ops, who I feel were fairly ill-served by the RDA-led regime (unsurprisingly, as RDAs were themselves private-sector-led). The only thing worse would be if the GeSESS managed to diver any of the recently-increased co-op-provided funding away from CDBs.

What would be the best thing? I think it would be LEP funding of CDBs and SFEDI-accredited SE advisors directly, including an element of general outreach funding.

Susana S · 22nd July 2010, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJR

I agree with you. After years of refusing to fund SE support or Cooperative Development Bodies (CDBs), many councils are now wondering why they have such an uneven SE scene and why it distrusts them so much!

Absolutely! And that's if they managed to survive. I used to work for a coperative development agency which is now gone due to lack of investment. Local and county councils are so short sighted it drives me mad! We had all the skills and knowledge needed to take the social enterprise movement forward and now they'll probably pay consultants to do it instead. (Hey, that's an idea, lol!)

Most of our functions have now been taken over by the local CVS but with their funding extremely likely to be cut too, I don't know how the gov't think this it's actually going to happen. What are they going to put in place?

My view is that each council needs a dedicated SE officer/team, with back up at regional level.