Social Enterprise Mark isn't failing, says its boss

The boss of the regional organisation spearheading the Social Enterprise Mark has refuted claims that it is falling flat and says that national interest is picking up.

Lucy Findlay, CEO of Rise in the south west of England, told Social Enterprise that a recent article in the charity press was incorrect to suggest that only a few social enterprises had shown interest in taking up the mark a 18 months after its regional launch.

However, Findlay admitted that Rise did not realise the mark's potential in November 2007 when it was launched by Eden Project CEO Tim Smit. She said that keeping the pilot in the south west could have hindered its progress.

'The momentum of the mark is just starting to pick up,' she said.

'It's taken a while for people to get to know about it, but now we're now seeing a huge rise in the number of applications in the last couple of months, mainly thanks to some of the regional support organisations getting on board.

'What we're trying to do is quite ground-breaking and we didn't realise that when we first started out. The fact we're doing something really new and different has meant it's taken a while to grasp the essence.

'We always envisaged it as a nationwide initiative and we never thought it would be just south west, but we didn't anticipate how radical it would be for the movement. I think staying in the south west for longer could have hindered it, so we brought the roll out forward.'

The UK currently has 40 Social Enterprise Mark holders and another 23 in the pipeline. In 2008, the average number of applications was two a month, but this has increased to two a week over the last month, according to Rise. There has also been interest from France, Finland, Australia and America.

Findlay said the success meant the three-year pilot scheme in the south west of England needed to be rolled out across the UK a year early and that Rise had started to issue 'certificates of commitment' for social enterprises wanting the mark and working towards its strict criteria.

Its timing had also been ideal for the government's search for a way to define and promote social enterprise more widely. The mark is now being used to promote the movement and Findlay is part of the government's social enterprise identifier steering group.

Findlay added that the Big Lottery Fund, which gave Rise almost £470,000 for the initiative, along with funding from Co-operative Group and Triodos Bank, was supporting the roll out, although admitted there were some concerns about the extent of the government's involvement.

'They [the Big Lottery Fund South West] want to see the mark go nationwide; even Sir Clive Booth [chair of the Big Lottery Fund] signed our petition,' she said.

'The issue is that they want to be recognised and be part of what we have developed together, and they don't want it to be overtaken by government.'