Update from the field

As it now says in the About section of this blog, I’m focusing on my role at Social Investment Business, so this blog is paused, bordering on dormant. Hence no post since January.

I thought it might be useful to give a bit of an update on what we are doing over at Social Investment Business, though, and link to some recent articles from myself & the organisation as a whole. Hopefully of interest to loyal readers of this blog….

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Work Activity

We run a variety of programmes and funds dedicated to supporting charities and social enterprises to become more resilient. Check out the full list here.

I’m particularly excited about the Forward Enterprise Fund, a new investment fund focused on helping those who are coming out of offending and/or addiction. Get in touch if you know of organisations operating in that field looking for support & finance. The Reach Fund we manage for Access also continues to work well – providing grants for short, focused pieces of work to enable social investment deals to get over the line.

We are also providing the project management & secretariat for the implementation taskforce aiming to build a culture of social impact investment. This is focused on influencing mainstream finance, and you can find out more about that via the link. Right now, there is an open call for evidence on better (non-financial) reporting – it’s short, important and closing imminently >> click here to submit info.

Finally, we have entered a new strategic partnership with Social Tech Trust, formerly Nominet Trust. Early stages, but I’m excited about what we can achieve together in digital / tech for good.

Writing & Reports

We’ve released two recent reports; the first a few months back is a hugely important, in-depth look at our work on business support and readiness programmes over the last 5 years and more. It dives into what we have learned and makes a clear set of recommendations for what we (and the wider sector) should do in future. If you work in the social sector, a read is highly recommended >> Strength in Numbers

The second, much shorter report we released this week, which takes a look at recovery, restructures and mergers in the social sector (and what finance & support could help more organisations). We commissioned external experts Eastside Primetimers to write it, and I think it’s a valuable contribution to the thinking on this topic >> Match Points

Other recent blog posts that might be of interest include:

>> The time is now for social value from our chair Hazel Blears (written before the recent government announcements on this topic)

>> Keeping your friends close and your customers closer by me, on putting customers at the heart of our work

>> Our gender pay gap by our head of People, Shelby Bradley

>> Is social investment perpetuating or challenging inequality?by Owen Dowsett from the Centre for Social Justice Innovation at Dartington

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Hope all that’s of interest – a final note: we are recruiting two newly-created senior roles, so do spread the word and share the link: Director roles. It’s an exciting, busy and (hopefully) impact-ful time to be involved.

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A 5-part dose of new (year) thinking

So I’m a fortnight into a new role, and just back from a few weeks holiday, so I’ve had the luxury of doing a fair bit of reading and thinking, rather than ‘doing’ per se. I’m sure that won’t last and the email volume will rise….but here’s the five things I’ve found most interesting, insightful, inspiring or challenging. Hope you think so too:

1) Us white charity CEOs need to talk – my background is the same as Thomas Lawson, CEO of Leap Confronting Conflict, who wrote this powerful call to action. I’m going to be returning to this regularly on privilege, prejudice (personal & subconscious), lived experience and diversity. [a side-note, McKinsey’s latest research reinforces the link between diversity and positive company financial performance; though this shouldn’t be the prime motivator]

2) For this ‘Righteous Entrepreneur’, fighting hunger goes way beyond food – I had the privilege to spend a bit of time with Mike Curtin of DC Central Kitchen at an event, and he’s a lovely, down-to-earth guy. This is a great, in-depth article on the organisation’s work. Their eight rules of ‘righteous’ entrepreneurship are worth repeating:

1. It’s Ok to be a little antisocial in service of your mission (stick to your principles)
2. Maintain a sense of productive impatience (get better every day)
3. Beware the folly of scale (it’s lasting change you are after)
4. Shoot to thrill (capture imaginations by exciting others)
5. Be proactively responsive (have a flexible approach to problem-solving)
6. Failure is an option (if you learn)
7. Don’t take **** from anyone (no-one should disrespect the people you serve)
8. We have a moral obligation to put ourselves out of business (or go out of business trying): NB – does not apply to all models, but many

3) BlackRock’s Message: Contribute to Society, or Risk Losing Our Support – normally I wouldn’t include the CEO of an investment firm sending a letter, but this was interesting in that it is a large player on the investment side (they manage $6 trillion apparently) talking squarely about social purpose, and how every company must make a positive contribution to society. Understandable then that this has been welcomed (and indeed heralded) by many in social and impact investment, especially in the US. Although of course nice words need to translate into action – BlackRock are one of the investors who seem to have profited from ‘shorting’ Carillion in the past year, for example….

4) The power of little: 6 things you need to know about small and micro community organisations – an interesting post from Nicola Frost of the Devon Community Foundation, and an insight into the so-called ‘below the radar’ organisations that are so crucial in communities (and aren’t necessarily conservative) with their understanding of place and connection.

5) Grant-Makers Must Learn New Tricks – this short provocation paper is part of a series from NPC, commissioned by Lloyds Bank Foundation, looking at how foundations and other funders can do more than just give grants: through non-financial support, through direct advocacy, and through building the knowledge (through research) and capacity of organisations they support to influence and advocate too. Recommended reading.

And a bonus bit of suggested listening. The Criminal podcast is unfailingly excellent, and I’ve learned a lot listening to it over the months (years?). One of the most recent episodes, The Choir, goes beyond being interesting though – it is a profoundly affecting interview with Professor Lawrence Lessig (a pretty famous internet-specialist law professor in the US). Not an interview about his day job, but about the abuse he suffered in his childhood. For anyone who doesn’t understand the profound repercussions that such abuse can have throughout someone’s life, or how an institutional environment (& the people who populate it) enables it to happen, should listen. In fact, anyone should listen, if you want to hear what courage, articulacy, and honesty sound like.

6 different perspectives on leadership

It’s been a couple of months since I last updated this blog, and that’s partly because this is always the busiest quarter of the year in the social sector, or at least at Social Enterprise UK. Added to this normal season of awards, events, tender deadlines, research reports and more has been added the fact that I’m changing jobs – in January I start at Social Investment Business, leaving SEUK after 6 years.

When I have a bit of time for thinking and reading, I have somewhat inevitably, therefore, been turning towards articles about leadership. So I thought I’d share six that I’ve found useful, challenging or enlightening in recent weeks.

1) 12 Lessons (Un)Learned from a year of philanthropy. The McConnell Foundation in Canada have long been one of the leaders in their field, and this is an interesting and insightful reminder of humility, being on-hand, thinking as a network and more.

2) 5 things digital leaders do differently – a nice, succinct post from Zoe Amar which, although something of a marketing piece for her (highly regarded) programme with the SSE, has some good content. Some of the points apply regardless of the word ‘digital’ in front of them (“Digital leaders embrace risk”; “Digital leaders have insatiable curiosity”) and there is some interesting stuff on how digital can aid customer relationships, business development and transparency.

3) Leadership in public service is too punitive and too unforgiving – this is an interesting response from a headteacher to Theresa May’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference. A reminder about the importance of empathy and not pretending that leadership is heroism.

4) 4 steps to driving social change through people – while I’m not wild about the title (the article is very much about achieving things with people!), this is a candid and insightful piece from Mark Norbury at UnLtd. I think the part about a constant, continuing clarification of what not to do (or a framework for making those decisions) resonated most with me.

5) How can we build on clicktivism to harness diversity – this piece by Becca Bunce details how she became an ‘accidental’ leader and campaigner (on the Istanbul Convention combating violence against women), and is part of ACEVO’s ‘30’ series to celebrate 30 years of existence. It’s excellent and challenges the lazy thinking of people (like me) who dismiss online campaigning as ‘slacktivism’. It’s also excellent on the ability of online tools to expand diversity but also to restrict it.

6) Good Leaders are Good Learners – HBR articles have a tendency to disappear up their own fundament, but there is some useful stuff here about being in learning mode and supporting the development of that mindset in others.

Enjoy!

11 essential social enterprise & entrepreneurship reads

I was happily scanning Twitter the other evening and came across a tweet from charity luminary Martin Brookes who asked “Charity types – can you recommend good articles, books or thinkers on what modern/21st century charities should look like, please? Thanks.” It’s worth checking out the answers from people more plugged into current charity thinking in response to the tweet. A couple of links that I’ll be following up on include articles on digital futures and ethics particularly.

I threw in a few suggestions, more from the social enterprise perspective, and it got me thinking about what would be the books that I would recommend to someone trying to get good insight and practical thinking for their social enterprise, responsible business, enterprising charity or new ethical start-up. So here are the ones that I rate, use and draw on myself.

1) Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
Written by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod, this follows the Good to Great template of Jim Collins and tries to establish the key factors that make a successful charity or social enterprise. It’s obviously US-centric, but there’s plenty of interest here that still stands up a full decade after the first edition (it was updated in 2012): on leadership, on how to inspire advocates, on earning income (in pursuit of mission) and on combining service with advocacy.

2) Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure
Tim Harford is best known for his Undercover Economist colum in the Financial Times, and for being at the helm of the excellent More Or Less statistics podcast. This book is well worth a read, too, though – because at a time when social sector organisations need to a) test out new approaches b) have constrained resources and c) have no idea what is round the corner, being able to adapt is critical. There are important lessons here on how to ‘bet small’ with new ideas, on how to be resilient, and how to respond to changing conditions.

3) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
This book by Susan Cain has had me thinking more deeply about the ‘workplace’ and ‘team’ than probably any other in recent years. Social enterprise is about inclusion and accessibility, and we rightly focus on the track record of better representation of women, those with disabilities and those from different ethnic backgrounds. But this book too, at its heart, is about inclusion – of those who learn, work, communicate and contribute differently. As someone who chairs networks, convenes groups, facilitates workshops and tries to build a team and foster a culture, it’s a hugely relevant and important read. Unless you’re not interested in how you get the best out of everyone in your organisation…

4) Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck
I read this a long time ago, but still go back to its core essentials. The Heath brothers have written a couple of books since (about making decisions and about making a big change) but I think both pale compared to this, their first, which focuses on how to get messages across. For many in the social and ethical business space, this is a key area – we still underinvest in marketing, we still struggle to refine and articulate a core message (either for individual enterprises or as a movement) and yet we have the best stories: of transformation, of change, of the future. There’s some good practical advice in the Heaths’ SUCCESS formula that’s worth taking note of.

5) The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout
Beth Kanter is one of the most engaging and informative writers on all things social sector (aka non-profit) in the US. For many years, she was my go-to read on social media meets social sector, and this more recent book focuses on self-care – of individuals and organisations. As the oft-repeated saying goes, survival rate is meant to refer to the enterprise not the founding entrepreneur – and the swiftest route to not creating impact is to burn yourself and your team out. Thinking about that from the start – and what a similar approach might mean for your organisation – make this a good, healthy read.

6) The Social Entrepreneur’s A to Z
Whichever way you look at the data, there is a growing number of social and ethical start-ups being established by a whole range of people. And an almost equivalent number of intermediaries giving support, advice, business plan frameworks, funding, investment and legal structures advice. At Social Enterprise UK, we also have a rewritten and re-designed start-up guide coming soon, to respond to the level of demands and enquiries we get. For a more personal perspective and one that I think rings true from what I’ve seen in our world, I recommend Liam’s book – it’s real and honest about the anxiety, about the money, about the basics and about much more besides for budding (and current) social entrepreneurs.

7) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
Underlying the growth of social enterprise and hybrid business models is an increasing understanding and acceptance that the way that capitalism and business is run currently is simply not working. I wrote about some of the aspects of this in my recent post on an inclusive industrial strategy (value, productivity, growth, resources), but there are people who’ve been giving substantive thought to this for years. Kate Raworth is one of those – someone proposing what economics and economic thinking should look like in the future. If you want some intellectual heft and academic clout to back up your arguments, start here.

8) Estates: An Intimate History
Social mobility, creating opportunity and the myth of meritocracy seem to me like some of the central challenges and problems we face. This book by Lynsey Hanley is a memoir but one with universal learning and appeal, particularly on how the physical walls and barriers are matched by psychological ones. A must-read for anyone wanting to get a personal insight into housing, employment and opportunity in modern Britain.

9) Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business
One of the central premises of social enterprise and, even more so, co-operatives and mutuals is that it puts employees, the community, and beneficiaries (or service users or whatever other synonym you want to use) at the heart of the business in a different way: in the governance, in decision-making, in the design of programmes and so on. But this premise isn’t always carried through, and I think there are still lessons to learn from other sectors. This book shares learning from some businesses big and small, and from years of customer service and satisfaction research: good insights aplenty.

10) What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
In this space where charity meets business, where money meets mission, the trade-offs between the commercial and the social are always at the forefront; indeed, they are at the centre of many of the main debates and areas of contention in social enterprise. This book by Michael Sandel is a brilliant exploration of how far the commercialisation and marketisation of our society can and should go – and what those limits mean for the world we want to live in and want to build. Thinking to inform your day-to-day.

11) Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
A final dose of reality. It’s long been my view that much of success in social enterprise (indeed, in most things) is down to passion and perseverance. The imported myths of Silicon Valley incubation and super-speed scaling apply to only a small sub-set of (mostly tech-based) social businesses, and most of the other successes have passion, perseverance and commitment in common. Combined with luck, timing, and a great team, perseverance is as critical a thing to have in your locker as anything. And now there is research to back up this view – which provides the solid underpinnings to this book, which should give hope and succour to every entrepreneur who is battling to not only stay afloat but do more and do better.

Happy reading!

Back to busyness: 9 interesting reads on innovation, Brexit and social enterprise

It’s been an extremely busy start to the year. I know that saying “I’m busy” is often code for saying “I’m important” but I’m using it in the literal rather than the self-puffery sense. We just had one of our flagship events, the Social Value Summit, with 340 people from across sectors, and have our health conference coming up in early March. Both gone/going well, but logistically stretching. Along with some interesting work with members like HCT and SASC and with councils like Staffordshire and Cheshire & Warrington, a new chair, business planning, Buy Social training with companies, the next State of Social Enterprise (& international versions), advocacy with a (new-ish) government, and the core work of membership recruitment and retention. It definitely feels like we are doing more for less (or more with less people, certainly – I’m thinking of including ‘how many people do you think work at Social Enterprise UK?‘ in our membership survey as a proxy indicator for ‘punching above our weight’). And it’s enjoyable as well as hard work.

It’s also been a very non-London January and February, which is great. So far this year, I’ve been to Birmingham (x2), Bolton, Leatherhead, Liverpool (x2), Oxford, Stafford, and Wolverhampton. Cardiff, Leeds, Middlewich, Plymouth and Totnes all follow before the end of the month. As ever, the benefit of racking up the rail miles is a chance to listen and read interesting material, as well as try and catch up on the emails. So here’s a few things I’ve read recently that I found interesting – well worth making time / train trips for.

1. Dominic Cummings: How the Brexit referendum was won – Amongst the infuriation you may feel if you voted Remain, there is much of interest in this (long) article from one of the architects of the successful Vote Leave campaign – on the use of digital, on the bubble of Westminster / media, and much more besides
2. A new paradigm – towards a user-centred social sector – interesting provocation from Tris Lumley at NPC on increasing ownership, engagement and accountability with those normally called ‘beneficiaries’ or ‘service users’ in the social sector. I think it goes a bit far towards the end on the potential of investment to scale specific solutions (language we have heard for years without any evidence any of the approaches has worked), but the point about the disruptive nature and potential of tech is well-made and important.
3. The Year In Social Enterprise – a 2016 Legislative Review – just as scanning the recruitment pages is often the best way to find out what an organisation is doing / planning, so looking at the realities of what is being brought in in different countries can help document progress of social enterprise. For example, ‘renewed interest in L3C’ isn’t something you hear over here from the US. Likewise, a look at the European Social Enterprise Law Association‘s updates reveals new legislation in Greece, with Bulgaria, Slovakia, Malta, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Estonia also in the process of enacting laws to support social enterprise.
4. Making Technology Work for the Most Vulnerable – the headline says it all really, and although the article outlines the beginning of thinking rather than any concrete conclusions, this will be one of the key debates of our time. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we define productivity particularly ‘labour productivity’ – it strikes me that we need to invert our thinking on this in the same way that Greyston Bakery does in its famous social enterprise strapline: We don’t hire people to bake cookies; we bake cookies to hire people. Might outputs:outcomes be a more sensible way forward, rather than inputs:outputs?
5. Why Collaboration Does Not Equal Innovation – a nice piece from Paul Taylor who works at Bromford, a Midlands-based housing association. Although the headline should probably be ‘why short-term collaboration does not equal innovation’ as that is the primary thrust of what he’s saying here. I agree with everything else here. [On which note, you could check out the 2012 SSIR article on how Innovation Is Not the Holy Grail in the social sector]
6. Why Being Results-Oriented is Actually Bad – I’m not sure about using poker as a benchmark for business, but I like the contrarian view here, and the focus on making good decisions and trusting the process.
7. Faulty by Design – the state of public sector commissioning (pdf) – not cheery reading, but some good detailed analysis of the fragmentation and barriers to getting more from public services. Unfortunately, it is just an analysis of everything that’s wrong….presumably a follow-up with some solutions is coming!
8. Reflecting on Millions Learning: Lessons from Teach First’s scaling story – Teach First isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I have some doubts about the transfer of the model to social work and policing. But there’s no doubting the scale of its achievement – to become one of the largest graduate recruiters in the UK in 15 years and support over 1 million people. There’s some interesting lessons here from their outgoing CEO Brett Wigdortz on scale: timing, luck, being ready, thinking system-wide, have the right mindset and more.
9. Industrial strategy and the challenge of inclusive growth – two phrases bandied around a hell of a lot at the moment (in policy wonky, political and media circles): industrial strategy and inclusive growth. For me, this starts to tentatively put some ideas forward on how the two can be sensibly linked, but it’s very tentative and framed within current confines of thinking. There is a lot of think-tank action on these topics, and a lot of analysis – but few looking at those organisations (including social enterprises) which have developed inclusive, growing business models. I find that odd – work to do.

Happy reading.

 

 

Current (social enterprise) reading…

It’s been a while since the last post, so I thought I’d cheat a bit and do an update with some links that I hope are of interest (I now use Pocket for this bookmarking, after a recommendation from Toby Blume). I’ve grouped them into arbitrary random themes….happy reading.

Brexit signs:

• Are reports of the death of English devolution exaggerated? – in short, probably not, but it might be different…it might be more genuinely devolution too…
• Immigration and the ‘left behind’ – Flip Chart Fairy Tales is unfailingly interesting and a must-read blog for me; this delves into the statistical realities of demographic and employment changes since 2008 and much more besides….
• …and this Brexit: Enough David Brent, this is serious is brilliant on what our relationship with Europe might be (or even what the possibilities are)
• What wellbeing inequalities tell us about the EU Referendum result is another different take on ’causes’ or ‘revelations’ from the result…
• This is a provocative (if perhaps written too swiftly after the event) piece from Charles Leadbetter too: Brexit: How systems change – or don’t Was it all down to ‘enough of a split’ being formed in the establishment by BoJo?

 

Technophilia & phobia:

• Bullshit: 10 reasons to doubt your ambitious digital disruptor really has the answer to your social problem is a scathing and entertaining take-down of the worst excesses of tech-for-good
• On the flip side, there’s more coming: The Rise of Social Enterprise Accelerators
• All this tech-based internettery might not be good for our health (he says, blogging and then tweeting the post round): Is tech addiction making us far more stressed at work?
• And for a more positive view: Tech for common good – why a collective approach would work for the social sector – Tris Lumley at NPC making a strong and persuasive case; a good accompaniment to this is Stian Westlake’s Why can’t workers benefit more from the tools of the sharing economy? (why indeed)

 

Random miscellany (or ‘other’):

• Why we’re post-fact – interesting, discursive look in Granta at what could be causing the politics we have…
• The soup revolution: changing cities over dinner from Detroit to Liverpool – a great thing, having helped organise one in Plymouth. Simple, shareable, works.
• No-one should have the word ‘strategy’ in their job title – well, it’s a view, and I have some sympathy with it
• And perhaps not unconnected, Luck is a Bigger Contributor to Success Than People Give it Credit for – how to avoid overestimating your own role in success… #humility

Till next time…

 

 

 

The Future of Doing Good: 7 thoughts

A couple of weeks back, I attended the Big Lottery Fund’s ‘Future of Doing Good’ event. If you haven’t come across this yet, they are convening and ‘catalysing’ a conversation which aims to step back and think about what the future of doing good looks like – this is important for their own work, but also for the whole of civil society or, even more broadly, society in its entirety. Or as Dawn Austwick, Big Lottery Fund’s CEO puts it on her introductory blog, it’s a chance to think about how we might achieve “a radical rethink of the way people and communities can shape and improve their lives“. They also commissioned a journalist, Sonia Sodha, to do an overview report on the Future of Doing Good as part provocation, part summary, part mapping of some of the main things to think about. I found it a very interesting, if occasionally frustrating read: which may be inevitable when you are trying to cover such a lot of ground in a relatively short report.

 The event itself aimed to continue, expand and grow that conversation. Below are a few of my reflections both on what we heard, and on what I think should be one of the main focuses of work going forward.

Firstly, I should be honest and say it felt incredibly indulgent for me to spend a day away from work just having a conversation – with no clear remit, plan of where it will go, what it might lead to, or whether it would (ultimately) benefit our members. I was glad I was there, but plagued by a constant nagging awareness of the to-do list and the operational realities in what is now a very lean and busy team. I don’t know if others felt the same: what I do know is that this itself demonstrates one of the challenges we currently have – my internal reaction was a microcosm of the current reality: strained (human) resources, an urgent mindset and an increasing divide between those with money and those without: more parochially in this sector as well as in society at large.

Secondly, there was lots of the discussion of relevance to social enterprise – we were given cards with some of the main trends / areas to think about, and these included: creating opportunity from austerity, blurring of organisational boundaries, people driving change, new ways of resourcing, , environmental change, cross-sector working and so on. If this is the future, then social enterprise and entrepreneurship will continue have a significant role – and should be at the centre of people’s thinking, not in the margins or afterthoughts. And that this needs to not be all about individuals – but about networks, about teams, about recruiting great people (millennials, yes, but also those ‘finishing’ their first set of careers at 65 or 70), about investing in better systems, about incentives to collaboration and more.

Thirdly, there was a lot of ‘the future is sector-less‘ chat. As long as we’re ‘mission-led’ it will be OK. Which I go with to a point, but as I said on the day, that blurring of boundaries is being matched by a growth in transparency and actually a growing interest in ownership (and who owns what). It’s fine to say you are mission-led and (plan to) reinvest your profits, as one of the speakers did, but when you can look up their accounts & governing documents before they finish speaking and (if one wished) share that with the world…well, we are operating in a different time: good intentions aren’t good enough. And anyone reading the papers about, to take two topical examples, BHS or Land Registry, might actually think that who owns assets and how they treat them has never been a hotter topic.

Fourthly, I think new technology (is it new anymore?) rightly featured highly: there is little doubt that increasing digitalisation is having a really significant effect on many organisations and programmes (my example above about transparency being one). It’s hugely significant for membership bodies such as SEUK where I work – we now convene, facilitate, broker, advocate, campaign, use data, communicate and promote in totally different ways. But there still seems to be a lot of superficial jargon being lauded over more reasoned, complex thinking. In the last week alone, I’ve read about ‘impact derivatives’ and a ‘refugee impact bond’ – I may not understand either and both may prove wonderful, but I can’t help feeling that, at times, the product name or intervention is coming before any recognised need for it or clear sense of how it will work. Collateralised debt obligations for social value can’t be far away. Karl Wilding and I started the day joking about proposing an ‘uber for charity’ only for ‘uber’ to be the most used word of the day (without any notable reference to the fact that Uber-type platforms arguably entrench inequality, for all that they bring us in convenience & excellent technology).

Fifthly, I was struck by the really interesting conversation about anger – how the original drivers of charity and social entrepreneurs were (are?) anger and injustice, but that now they feel increasingly dissipated by a focus on scale, organisational professionalism and managerial effectiveness. I think there’s truth in that, and there is a challenge to us all to maintain and foster our activist and campaigning edge – the balance between working to change the system from within and from outside, perhaps. It also struck me that, when people were talking about truth to power, the Big Lottery Fund itself is arguably at least as powerful than most government departments now.

Sixthly, it was interesting to listen to a lot of the conversation turn to local systems and place-based change (Immy Kaur from Impact Hub Birmingham was spot on with her thoughts about key leaders across sectors driving change, I thought, as was Diane Coyle saying that system change didn’t happen top-down). I entirely agree: it’s increasingly clear that the mayors of big cities have the most interesting jobs and portfolios and power. And that one of the effects of austerity in central government combined with various pieces of devolution is that Whitehall has diminishing relevance. The most important work we do (such as the Social Enterprise Places programme or our Health & Social Value work) is all with and through local partners, trying to change things in local areas.

But it requires infrastructure, particularly because devolution can actually mean aggregation at regional or city level (as things join up into ever bigger bodies…) – and I was amazed (at least in the conversations I was in) on the lack of discussion about local infrastructure. The sector seems, largely, to have spent nigh-on 7 years analysing the problem in as many different ways as possible without genuinely committing to trying new approaches and solutions (NB – of course not true of all!). We are piloting a whole load of different approaches and joint deals with local networks and partners to try and work out what might sustain us all: what does a lean, local, effective, cross-sectoral infrastructure look like? and how is it resourced? Given the huge need for such networks and organisations with the way things are heading, it should be front and centre for foundations and those thinking about where they put investment. And let’s act not analyse on this one: we know what the problems are, and there are solutions and great examples out there.

Finally, I ended the day in a really interesting conversation about money (who pays) with a range of colleagues from a diverse range of backgrounds (charity, infrastructure, youth, foundations, entrepreneurship etc). It was a more tangible, realistic conversation that covered a lot of interesting ground. For me, the main thing I took away was the ongoing need to maximise the opportunities and value from all of the assets we either have already or can influence now and in future: which means everything from the small charity switching to CafeDirect coffee through to how a foundation manages its endowment; from a big social enterprise providing a standby facility to a smaller peer through to big charities and universities buying social in their supply chain; and from a local council applying social value across all its services to a company using its reserves to invest in new innovation.

It is these last two which for me have to be key elements of the Future of Doing Good. Place-based plans and approaches will only work with significant investment and innovation (in the real, rather than novelty sense) over the long-term in (new) infrastructure. And we will only be able to tackle the problems of the future if we mobilise all our collective assets and resources and skills towards them. That is a future worth trying for, and to start building now.

The First £1.5 billion – and what it tells us

As one (tough) financial year passes, and another (as tough) begins, it feels like a useful time to delve into the sector’s finances more broadly. More specifically, to take a look at Big Society Capital’s report on the Size and Composition of Social Investment in the UK, released a couple of weeks back. (NB – the report was Matt Robinson’s swansong at BSC, as he leaves for international development pastures – he’ll be missed as a clear, reasoned, and principled voice).

The headlines are impressive: £1.5bn worth of social investment (that’s the total value at the end of 2015, not deals done in the past year). Dealflow in the year c. £430m (which is up from the £200m figure reported two or three years back) demonstrating 20% growth or thereabouts. And some evidence of a shift from secured lending to more unsecured lending and different types of products.

[in passing, it is worth mentioning that I enjoyed the “We are confident to a reasonable degree of accuracy (+/- £tens of millions)”, which rather illustrates that the data is still not great. Oh for that margin of error….]

There is much else of interest in the report, not least the fact that this total is dwarfed by about £9bn in bonds and bank loans to charities and social enterprises, not to mention a further £59bn or so if housing associations are taken into account. An alternative version of the report could be titled “Social investment: putting it in perspective”, as some have argued for some time. Nevertheless, there are some signs of progress, and they should be welcomed.

I liked the definitional / segmentation approach too, as best demonstrated by these two diagrams:

This approach to thinking more clearly about social investment and the terms we use (impact investment, ethical investment, positive investment) is a useful contribution; it also came up recently at the release of some new analysis of social investment research by Jess Daggers and Alex Nicholls – also well worth a look – as well as in the Alternative Commission report. This segmentation of what we mean when we talk about different things seems increasingly important to me where social investment is concerned: so much of the heat and light and baby-bathwater debate flows from misunderstandings, often between (potential) investors and investees.

The percentages table on page 9 is where it gets very interesting: this is a breakdown of social investments by proportion / type. Here it is:

[The categorisation on the left relates to BSC’s strategy (Social Innovation, Participation, Scale etc). ]

So to draw out a few things here:

• there does seem to be a bit more unsecured lending going on: this is good news from a social enterprise perspective, as we know this is what a lot of organisations want/need – although we don’t know how much of the 47% lending figure relates to property; when one adds this to 9% in ‘high impact social property’ and whatever might be in the 30% to ‘non-asset locked’, then the figure could still be quite high. Indeed, if one takes the 30% not going to charities and CICs out of the equation (called Profit with Purpose here), even a cautious estimate like the Social bank lending + the high impact social property give you 45% / 70% which would be equivalent to around 65% secured lending. Not the 80% / 90% figures we used to see, but still a significant majority

• Social Impact Bonds are responsible for 1% of all social investment in the UK. 1%. Even though the report mentions that this could have been double if calculated mid-way through 2015, that would have only taken it (by my maths) to, er, 2%. If data beats opinion, as someone wiser than me once said, then let us hope that due notice is given to this figure – community shares are responsible for 6 times as much; charity bonds 6 times as much (from the same number of investments), unsecured lending 10 times as much etc.

• Social Investment Tax Relief-related investments are small but there’s been some decent progress in year 1; it will be interesting to see if they can grow as fast as Community Shares, and add to the ‘democratisation’ and ‘retailisation’ of social investment: 353 investments in total for community shares, involving thousands of people.

• it’s a bit unclear what’s in the 30% at the bottom; in the annex it says this largely includes work by ClearlySo, Triodos (eg. loans to co-operatives), work by Mustard Seed and more – estimated at £462m through 807 investments, £118m dealflow in 2015 through 46 deals. Would be interesting for someone to disaggregate this a bit more, see if there is overlap with some of the sections above and what extent is just companies limited by share and what is social enterprises or co-operatives with pre-CIC or non-ben-com structures etc

I’m sure that the data isn’t perfect, and I’m sure Matt knows that too – indeed, he has some excellent recommendations on how to continue to get better with the data and reporting. More transparent reporting like this will also help eliminate duplicates (eg. with co-investees arranged by a broker) more comprehensively, and also create benchmarks that can allow for better understanding of progress. I’ve learned whilst being in charge of the State of Social Enterprise survey, that improving the data and the questions is an incremental process and one which is best improved by openness (see our report for Access, Prospecting the Future, for example).

So what are the take-aways?
– welcome the evidence of progress, especially with riskier, unsecured lending
– segmentation, segmentation, segmentation
– let’s use data to inform our policies, programmes and practice- let’s be as open about that data as possible (esp. its quality and how to improve it)
– let’s keep this stuff in perspective

 

100 social enterprise truths – revisited in 2015

It’s almost four years ago that I took part in PopSE!, the first ever pop-up social enterprise think tank. I remain proud of what we got up to that week, the report we produced (which still bears reading), and the people who I got to know, meet and work with. It was also a lot of fun, and a refreshing break of new thinking, unfettered by organisational strictures and political agendas. One of the most read pieces was the 100 social enterprise truths that I tweeted throughout the week; they have been translated, re-blogged and continue to get sent round occasionally as they get re-discovered. Somewhat inevitably, the quality went down during the week, and there’s an air of desperation to some towards the end….as you will see. At the risk of extended navel-gazing, I thought I’d have a bit of a revisit of them and see what still holds four years on…

1. Measuring social impact is about improving what you do, not just proving how well it works
Stating the obvious, but still needs saying now – evaluation needs to be of use internally: for decision-making, to improve a product or service, or to motivate and retain staff and supporters. How many are doing social value forecasts looking ahead to the year?

2. Choose legal structure after getting clarity on mission, activities, financing, governance
Yep – still stands.

3. It’s not the size of the profit, it’s what you do with it that counts
Sort of – although you can do more if you make more, arguably. I have a feeling I may have just been making a crude sexual allusion rather than a serious point.

4. More-than-profit is better than not-for-profit (profit’s not a dirty word)
I still don’t think profit is a dirty word – but I don’t think more-than-profit is great. I’m a not-for-dividend-distribution guy now.

5. Successful social entrepreneurs build trusted, authentic relationships
Still think this is true, and still overlooked when people look at success factors. You can’t accelerate trust and authenticity, generally.

6. Social entrepreneurs aren’t individual heroes; they build teams, create networks, mobilise movements
Yep.

7. Social entrepreneurs can work at community, local, national and international levels
Yep.

8. If a pound was donated each time a social entrepreneur quoted Gandhi, no-one would need to fundraise
This has only got worse as Twitter has taken hold. The web is awash with platitudes.

9. Teach too many men to fish and you screw up the entire marine ecosystem and deplete the fish stocks
The serious point about the complexity of problems we are trying to solve still stands. It’s why people are banging on a lot about systems these days; and collaborative impact. Stuff like that.

10. Scale of impact is more important than scale of organisation (or scale of ego)
Yep.

11. A particular legal structure doesn’t guarantee an organisation won’t be rubbish (or that it will be brilliant)
Yes. On a run of stating the obvious here. Although I did see one organisation say that being a social enterprise “guaranteed social value” in the last year or so, which is obviously hogwash.

12. You don’t need an MBA to be a social entrepreneur; you need a JFDI
I’ve probably mellowed on this a bit; I still think people can get lost in the theories and the plans, and never see if they have a customer…but the wave of activity from universities and business schools isn’t a bad thing.

13. Successful social enterprises have a ‘network mindset’ not an organisational one: focus on the mission
This is one I feel more passionately about – seems like everything we do of any value is in partnership, or beyond the boundaries of our organisation.

14. All money comes with strings attached; that’s fine as long as you know what they are
Sort of – although some come with a hell of a lot, and some with barely any.

15. Social enterprise isn’t a panacea; but it can provide a treatment for some social ills, and help prevent others
A bit trite, but true enough. Social investment is the solution to everything now, so I’ve been able to say this a lot less recently.

16. Social entrepreneurs’ work has a ripple effect: mobilising and inspiring others to get involved
The best do, but not all move beyond themselves.

17. There is nothing more tedious than a social enterprise definition debate (apart from two of them…)
The wifi connection on Virgin Trains is beginning to be a serious rival.

18. Not everyone is a changemaker (FAO Bill Drayton)
This was a reaction against the Ashoka mantra. Actually, their university work is more democratic and wide-reaching than the Fellows programme, and I saw them use the phrase ‘Everyone a contributor’ recently (hat tip Eli Malinsky) which seems more realistic to me.

19. The thing that connects most organisations that have successfully scaled is length of time
Still banging this drum. Still being ignored, largely. My fledgling plan for a ‘decelerator’ will have to wait.

20. Social enterprises overestimate what they can achieve in the short-term, and underestimate it in the long-term
I think I was trying to say stick at it, because good things happen if you keep going at the right thing. Still believe that.

21. Organisations are powered by people, and they should be trained, supported and invested in
File this one under obvs.

22. Networking is important for social entrepreneurs: be generous and genuine, and it will be reciprocated
Networking is important, but only if followed-up and leading to something tangible. As the saying goes, networking is only one vowel away from ‘not working’

23. Even if you call them a client, an end-user or beneficiary, the customer is still king
Yes, yes, thrice yes.

24. Social enterprise leaders need to look after themselves; if they burn out, often so does the organisation
Still true, though not just of the leaders.

25. Populate the organisation with radiators not drains
Believe this more than ever. A drain can occasionally do a passable radiator impression at interview.

26. Before you get the right people in the right seats, be sure you’re driving the right bus
Yep – persistence is only good if you’ve got the right thing to aim at.

27. Enjoy it: it’s not called “earnest-and-worthy-and-dull” enterprise; humour is allowed (& often necessary)
Humour in the right context and at the right time.

28. All organisations live or die by the quality of what they deliver (at the price they do it)
Yep. A cynic might add “who they know”.

29. Buy from other social enterprises, and get them in your supply chain: but only if they deliver
Ahead of its time – Buy Social now a big campaign and initiative for us.

30. Underpromise and overdeliver: all too rare in social enterprise
A bit harsh perhaps, although still too few seem to know the old maxim that success = performance minus expectation

31. A crisis might be a terrible thing to waste; it’s also a terrible thing to cause (#bigsociety)
Bit dated this….but you get the gist.

32. There are more holy grails in social enterprise than in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Sort of – certainly there’s always another person with “the answer” though I think that happens in every field.

33. When talking about asset transfer and finite resources, don’t forget the most important assets + resources are human
Yep.

34. For ‘niche in the market’, read ‘need in the community’ (and vice versa)
Yep.

35. Addressing market failure probably won’t have a commercial rate of return
Yes. Much of social investment would do well to return to this; of course, not always true, but often enough.

36. Learn by doing, learn from others, learn from failures, keep learning
Still believe in being prone to action where possible, and being open to learning.

37. A 3-year government contract is no more sustainable than a 3-year grant
Sustainability comes from diversity these days, I feel (see below).

38. Sustainable financing comes through not being over-reliant on any one source of money
Easier for some than others, but diversification remains important.

39. Optimistic pragmatists and realistic opportunists flourish
I think this is true – but now I think that the optimism + pragmatism (or realism / opportunism) don’t have to be in the same person; they can be in the same team or senior leadership.

40. There a lot of good social enterprise business plans, not many good businesses
I’m not sure there are that many good plans, actually; the business plan obsession may have lessened a bit.

41. If the motivation isn’t really there at the start, it certainly won’t be when times get hard
Bit meaningless this one.

42. Charm and ‘being nice to people’ are enormously underrated
Yes, although it also doesn’t equate to delivery or to speaking truth to power. All things in balance + moderation.

43. Edison was right (1% inspiration, 99% perspiration)
If anything, he overdid the 1%.

44. The “Facebook for social entrepreneurs” is Facebook
Still true – I got a call about “developing a digital social network platform for social entrepreneurs” this week!

45. Newsflash: your social network for a niche community won’t fund itself by advertising
I think I saw a lot of these as applications to Big Venture Challenge round 1, so was a bit bitter.

46. Honesty builds trust builds credibility builds support: ‘calculated candour’ is the way forward
Probably the most important thing on here; with the exception of the ‘calculated’ which implies cunning and planning, whereas it was meant to mean ‘don’t be nasty for the sake of it’.

47. Diversifying too early usually means doing lots of things averagely rather than one thing well
Yes, though tough to square with 38 above. Diversifying at the right time (whatever that is) seems the key.

48. Don’t scale up before the model’s proven, however much noise & encouragement there is
A version of 47 really, but still true. And we still see start-ups talk social franchising.

49. There’s more truth spoken over drinks and meals at a conference than on the stage
Yes. Still not cracked how we create more of that at events – perhaps one can’t.

50. BigSociety, Social Enterprise, Civil Society, Third Sector: it’s more important what we do than what we call it
Well, no-one calls it Big Society any more.

51. Believing your own hype is the start of the downward spiral
Erm, OK.

52. The biggest challenge for spin-outs is not technical but cultural
Yes. And for charities “becoming” social enterprises too.

53. The UK is a pioneer in the field; but first mover advantage also means first mover mistakes
Yep. What’s worrying is not being aware of that when we start to export…humility and caution!

54. If the government created an investment fund for construction, it would be called BuilderBuilders
A bad and dated joke. Now it would be called the Builder Investment Readiness Fund.

55. Measuring social impact is where financial reporting was 200 years ago (so don’t beat yourself up)
196 years ago now. I *think* we’ve made some progress.

56. Too many people confuse innovation with novelty; an idea is easier than continuous improvement
Yes – although now people confuse innovation with everything. It’s a miracle I haven’t been disrupted while typing this.

57. It is possible to go to a social enterprise conference or seminar every working day of the year
No it’s not.

58. There is a difference between having great contacts and actually making use of them
See Networking above.

59. Work is needed on better exit strategies for social entrepreneurs (no more ‘life president’ stuff)
Remains an issue across the social sector, though there are good examples too.

60. More than 146,000 new species have been discovered since the first Social Investment Task Force began
At this point, it seemed like Big Society Capital might never open.

61. UK social enterprise debate is too internally-focused: huge amount to learn from international models
Yes – I think we have a lot to learn, and haven’t brought enough of the learning back to the UK.

62. Mission isn’t about a nice statement: it’s for decision-making, communication & planning
Obvs.

63. Beware the ‘self-styled’ social entrepreneur; normally means it’s more about ‘self’ and ‘style’ [see Melody on the Apprentice]
Here’s one I got totally wrong – I still think people calling themselves a ‘social entrepreneur’ without having done anything need to chill their pants a bit. But I was entirely wrong about Melody Hossaini – she’s shown herself to be absolutely committed to social enterprise and doing a load of good work enthusing future generations in recent years. Apologies.

64. Empowerment means giving power to and equipping with skills, not ‘asking a few questions’
Yes – I think there was a rash of government consultations about empowerment at the time.

65. You can’t really solve or change much from your desktop #slacktivism
Yep.

66. Entrepreneurship is a mindset, an attitude, a set of behaviours (so is social entrepreneurship)
Yep. And skills, and knowledge, and networks etc.

67. You can’t teach entrepreneurship, but you can learn it; learn it by doing and from others
This is a stating the obvious section, I think.

68. Look back after you leap, and work out how you might leap differently next time
Same point as giving things a go and learning from failure.

69. There are many social impact measurement tools, with more in common than they care to admit
This has become a bit more apparent since – the principles of reporting are now largely agreed by most of the main social value measurement agencies.

70. Social entrepreneurs are often ‘biographical’: powered by a personal injustice or experience
Yep.

71. The word ‘synergy’ should be outlawed from daily use
There are worse crimes.

72. Risk literacy and risk awareness are where we need to get to (not just risk vs risk aversion)
I think there’s a nugget of something interesting here.

73. The best CaféDirect coffee is the Machu Picchu: not too strong, but smooth + robust
Still drinking it in the SEUK office.

74. (Social) entrepreneurs are a little bit born and a lot made
Probably. But depends.

75. A group of social entrepreneurs always ultimately revert to gossip
One could replace ‘social entrepreneurs’ with ‘people’, probably…

76. Bad partnerships mean muddied thinking, a multitude of meetings, & compromised delivery
Yes. And even good partnerships take a lot of time. Agreement on the way in is key….

77. There are a spectrum of replication options: it’s not ‘open source’ vs ‘command and control’
Yep.

78. Social enterprise blends outlooks and approaches; so a blended return makes sense
Yep.

79. Understanding the problem is part of the solution (tackle the causes, not the symptoms)
This is important, if seemingly facile. We still treat a fair few symptoms – that’s not always a bad thing, but reflection on where we can have most impact is always useful.

80. Imperfect action is almost always better than perfect inaction
Testify.

81. BigSociety is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma (apols to Churchill)
And now it’s a memory, wrapped in a sheet, buried in the ground. Pretty much.

82. Financial management matters; you need to know your way round a P&L and cashflow
Obvs.

83. Investors and social entrepreneurs don’t speak different languages, they speak different dialects
I’m not entirely sure what I mean here, apart from trying to sound clever or possibly repeating someone cleverer than me without understanding their point. There is still definitely a job to do around language, as I’ve been hearing this in recent weeks still (from both parties).

84. There are as many social enterprise support agencies & networks as actual social enterprises
Not any more.

85. “Build it + they will come” only works if you build it right (& listen to the people you’re building it for)
Still important reminder for those at the levers of power…

86. Social enterprise isn’t an easy option; starting a business never is
File under obvious.

87. Finding a good social enterprise web designer is like finding a needle in a haystack
We have some better ones now!

88. ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’: with fewer ‘deep’ quotes and more doing
Same point as the Gandhi one above, really. Well was clearly a bit dry at this stage.

89. If London-Edinburgh trainline was a social enterprise, it would stop outside Newcastle when it ran out of funding
Ironically, our former Director of Comms got stuck outside Newcastle on a train to the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow, which is about as close as this metaphor got to ringing true. Of more interest should be: can we have a social enterprise rail franchise?

90. Most investors, funders, policymakers to do with this space are in London (it’s not an anti-Northern conspiracy)
Bit lame this – no excuse, and lots of the best stuff is in not-London. We did recommend Big Society Capital should be based in Leeds….

91. The dark Divine Chocolate is a bit full on: go for the (lovely) milk / mint / orange / hot chocolate
This is obviously made-up as I ran out of inspiration. The Sea Salt and Caramel is the actual flavour to go for.

92. Sectors are diverse + contain multitudes; don’t talk about the public or private sectors (or social enterprise sector) as if they are uniform
Obvs.

93. Survival rate is meant to refer to the business, not the social entrepreneur
Still holds – largely same point as burn-out point earlier.

94. There is an over-supply of loan finance already, with not enough organisations fit, able or willing to take it
Interesting to reflect that I wrote this in May 2011, well before people started talking about the lack of pipeline. If anything, that supply has only been (substantially) added to.

95. Social entrepreneurship isn’t a career, it’s a calling (do something before you take the label)
Bit trite.

96. Secretly, most social enterprises are still pursuing the “hope for a sugar daddy or mommy” business model
I’m not sure this is true – most are hoping to achieve what they set out to do, but they tend to also be fairly independent.

97. The first social entrepreneur was a Sumerian who started the first library / tax system in 1500 BC
Fact.

98. Enterprise support agencies are often amongst the most un-enterprising organisations around
Not always true, but I think it certainly can be.

99. Despite the cynicism + in-fighting, there are great orgs, great people, real change happening
This is still true if a bit “hug-it-out”. Our job is to not let the internal debates cloud or mask the large swathes of great stuff happening.

100. Don’t believe anyone spouting supposed social enterprise truths at you; they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about ;0)
Clearly desperate to make 100 at this point.

---

I was trying to think about what I’d add to these now. Here’s a few:

101. Just enough anxiety propels an organisation forward
Organisations who are completely secure can get complacent or lazy or try and do everything. Ones that are fighting to survive often miss the larger picture or opportunities due to fear + panic. There’s a book called Just Enough Anxiety too.

102. The big problems require answers and partnerships from all sectors – public, private and social.
I’m frustrated by the binary conversation of the main political parties (public vs private) and in the fact that they are behind much of the private sector itself in how to create a more sustainable, social economy. It will come from the do-ers on the ground.

103. Drink enough water, get enough sleep, keep things in perspective
If the last few years have taught me anything, it is partly to go for it but also to keep things in perspective. Some things are out of our control, some things happen by chance; all we can be is prepared and resilient.

Weighing up scale

Just before Christmas, I was invited by NPC to speak at a breakfast discussion/debate about scale in the charity and social enterprise sectors. It was to go alongside a publication from them called Growing Pains – which is worth a read. Scale is something we seem to come back to over and over, always looking for the answer – how can we share / replicate / grow what works, and solve more of the problems that we face? Is it about letting a thousand flowers bloom, or should we be consolidating and encouraging organisations to merge and combine to be more effective? How do we help grow what exists and works whilst being open new ideas and solutions? Are we talking about scale of organisation, scale of turnover, scale of entrepreneur’s ego or (what we should be), scale of impact or value created?

Yes, lots of good questions and few answers. I’ve been grappling with this stuff in theory and in practice for lots of years now – I was trying to remember when I’d presented the idea of the Long Tail of Social Entrepreneurs at the Skoll World Forum; turns out it was 2007. Here’s the presentation:

Later, I grew (a bit) and ran SSE‘s franchise, and helped develop the brand and evaluation system to help it grow. And then tried to help other organisations replicate, first with a replication learning programme (which is still running) and then a social franchising manual for my current employers, SEUK. I also did a few bits of consultancy as a freelancer, trying to help organisations grow and scale directly. There were some minor successes, but also a dawning realisation about how hard this stuff was: there are a hell of a lot more toolkits, guides, pieces of research and learning programmes (yes, including from me) than actual organisations that have scaled or replicated. Successful social franchises are still extremely thin on the ground – and that’s with good people (like ICSF) trying to make it happen; but still it’s mostly research + accelerators, not organisations growing their impact on the ground.

Now of course the focus is all about how social investment can help you scale – it’s just been the wrong type of finance till now that has prevented scale. But if we combine the right type of finance with the right type of support, it will happen – there’s limited evidence this is the case (albeit there are some individual successes emerging from the likes of Big Venture Challenge and the raft of incubators that have been supported). As I said at the NPC debate, finance and support are absolutely necessary, but so is market readiness. If commissioners or the general public or private sector supply chains aren’t ultimately buying/paying for the products and services provided, then scaling is inevitably difficult or impeded. The other point I made in relation to the incubators + accelerators was that most of the evidence pointed to one common factor in the charities and social enterprises that had scaled: time. Most had taken time. So, unless technology allowed something to grow at a more exponential pace, the most common thing the scaling debate has lacked is a reality check about time – even if we are impatient for things to change.

So, any answers? Well, after making my usual reference to Forces for Good (still the best book on scale / charity + social enterprise I think) I had a stab at a few things I thought might help the sector in my presentation. These were:

1) Collaboration Prize – this one dates back to PopSE! days; there used to be a US prize which rewarded and recognised the best piece of collaboration in the sector. I think a trust or foundation could usefully set up something along these lines to foster, encourage and recognise the sort of behaviour and action we need.

2) Systems Fund – as I say above, finance is obviously important; but it’s often the timing and the type that is key, not just finance per se. Most of the small-to-medium social enterprises we work with who are looking to grow their work are grappling with when to invest in: new CRM systems; bringing HR functions in-house; new technology; new measurement / impact systems; and so on. Where is the investment fund that suits these needs, or focuses on them?

3) Buy Social commitment – small piece of organisational promotion, but the point is a general one. We can all help grow the market and grow the potential impact of organisations by changing how we buy. The sector itself has huge collective purchasing power – channelled for good, it can help us all achieve more (and change the reductive overhead debate).

4) Peer networks – a bit banal this (every support document I read always has peer-to-peer in at the moment….but probably with good reason), but I do think networking organisations at similar stages, and networking the people within them who do similar functions and are facing similar challenges might help. Trade associations and support organisations have a role in making this happen well.

5) Big-small mutuality – this is connected a bit to 3 + 4 above, really; we have started to see more of this, between housing associations and local social enterprises, or between big healthcare organisations and smaller peers. There is much more that could happen though – secondments of people at difficult times; sharing of documents; help with cashflow + bridging loans (without an intermediary); etc. Some of this can be facilitated and brokered; but much is also about relationships and providing the space for trust to be built.

All of these are thinking a bit more systemically, even if still thinking about finance, support and markets – while I don’t think we necessarily need a new buzzword (“systempreneur” ahoy), bringing an entrepreneurial mindset to systems makes a lot of sense to me. And that’s got partnership and thinking beyond just our sector at its heart. More of both would help get us towards the answers (and putting them into action) on scale, and not just generating more questions.

Here’s my slide set from the debate: