WORLD FORUM: Vancouver Olympians to stand tall thanks to social enterprise

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada will see every medal winner standing on platforms built by a social enterprise.

The medal winners will also receive flowers provided by a social enterprise and, if someone loses their camera, they will go to a lost and found service run by a social enterprise.

At a packed session, with some people finding standing room only, delegates at the Social Enterprise World Forum today discussed procurement successes from around the world.

Programme manager of Canadian support organisation Enterprising Non-Profits David LePage said he would have liked more 'wins' in the 2010 Olympic contracts but he was sure that their campaign would have an ongoing and growing effect in future Olympics procurement.

He also told of a wider movement towards values-based procurement in Canada, both from non-profit organisations clubbing together to think about the biggest impact they can get from their purchases, and from educational institutions.

'Universities are really pushing for community benefit contracts, and some of that is pressure from students on the universities to be more socially responsible,' said LePage.

A similar story was told by Gerry Higgins, CEO of Scottish social enterprise support organisation CEiS.

Higgins told of the community clauses that have been introduced in the Glasgow 2012 Commonwealth Games and given a weighting of ten per cent on the contract outcome. One-third of the ten per cent weighting involves a commitment to work with social enterprises and Higgins pointed out there was an important role for independent support organisations that help the private companies work with social enterprises. There was also an important support role in helping social enterprises work together in consortia to win contracts.

'After ten years trying to open up the markets in the UK and trying to get governments to recognise the value of procuring from social enterprises we've had a breakthrough. But social enterprise has to deliver or we are set back ten years,' warned Higgins.

John Perry, general manager of employment, education and training at Australian education social enterprise BoysTown, told of the passion of one politician who was determined to have their carpentry social enterprise in the housing estates in his local area.

The politician, who was also housing minister at the time, first organised for BoysTown to sub-contract to the primary housing provider. But, BoysTown realised that they couldn't do their work getting these young people job-ready for the prices being paid, so the South Australian state government then set up a social equity fund that would allow them to tender in their own right at competitive prices but then receive ten per cent extra from the social equity fund to pay for their costs.

'The minister wanted us to be there because housing in South Australia is part of the human services area so the people side is very important,' said Perry.

In another example, in New South Wales, BoysTown received a contract even though their price was (Aus)$20,000 more expensive than another bidder. This was because the Department of Housing, which charges rent based on income, realised that through the BoysTown commitment to employ people in the estate they would receive $40,000 in increased rent.

BoysTown started the carpentry and gardening enterprises because they needed a tool to help their students learn better. That part of the social enterprise now earns $5.64m revenue for $5.44m expenditure.