Social Enterprise shorts - 2/9/10

S**t hits the fan in Hastings

A Hastings social enterprise has caused a stink in the town with its council-commissioned posters urging dog owners to pick up their pets’ poo.

Design co-operative Wave created the range of posters, which all feature a blanked out swear word.

The poster slogans include  ‘Oi! Sort your s**t out!, ‘We're not taking your s**t any more!’ and ‘Have you got s**t for brains?’, all followed by ‘Bag it. Bin it. Or get fined’.

It has lead to a raft of complaints made to Hastings Borough Council, which have been covered in the national press. However, the council is remaining supportive of the campaign.

Councillor Phil Scott said: ‘Yes these posters are hard-hitting, and yes they make you look twice, but we want the small minority of irresponsible dog owners to be very aware that we will not tolerate this behaviour.’

A council spokesperson added that more messages of support had been received than complaints.
Find out more about the campaign at www.hastings.gov.uk/dogmess

Local food programme exceeds targets two years early

More than 1.4 million people are benefitting from a nationwide initiative to support community food enterprises, the Plunkett Foundation has announced.

Making Local Food Work, funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme, supports urban and rural communities that want to run their own local food business, like farmers’ markets, community supported agricultural enterprises and community-owned shops. Its target was to reach one million people by 2012.

Jennifer Smith, head of managing at Making Local Food Work, said: ‘Initially we thought the targets were ambitious, but we found a real need within communities for our support, emphasizing the importance of supporting communities to take ownership of their food and where it comes from.’

www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk

UnLtd opens autumn awards

The autumn Level 2 challenge from UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, is now open.

The challenge aims to find the most promising social entrepreneurs in the UK who have existing, scalable projects and can demonstrate a track record of delivering positive social change.

Award winners get up to £15,000 and a year’s tailored support to help them develop their projects and make them financial sustainability.

The UnLtd Level 2 Awards are open from now until Friday 24 September 2010. Apply online at www.unltd.org.uk/level2. Award winners will be announced in November.

ClearlySo expands to India

Social enterprise support network and marketplace, ClearlySo, is expanding into India.

Shell Foundation funding of £100,000 is helping the organisation set up a new business and online platform adapted from the model currently used in the UK and Canada.

The Indian ClearlySo will be taken over and run by a social entrepreneur in the country, who will be picked by the end of the year. It aims to launch in 2011.

ClearlySo CEO Rodney Schwartz said: ‘In making this move we aim to provide India with services to support the nuts and bolts of truly innovative social enterprise building, with an eye towards galvanizing a vibrant Indian investor community.'

Launched in March 2009, ClearlySo offers a range of services, information and support to more than 1,400 social businesses from over 40 countries.

www.clearlyso.com

Just one month to go for Social Vision applications

There’s just one month left to enter your social enterprise photographs into the Social Vision competition.

Social Vision: business at its best, run by the Social Enterprise Coalition, Triodos Bank and Social Enterprise magazine, is looking for images that capture the work of social enterprise.

Cash prizes for the photographer and featured social enterprise are up for grabs, as well as a year’s subscription to Social Enterprise.

Regional finalists will be picked before the overall winner is announced on Social Enterprise day in November.

Find out more here.