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Trade unions and the social enterprise movement – (hopefully) things can only get better
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 16 January 2011 - 5:41pm

As we prepare ourselves for a pretty nasty couple of months, followed by a challenging couple of years (at least), it’s a good time to examine some of the big challenges the social enterprise movement and social enterprises face in navigating a path through the storms ahead.

When it comes to a potentially increase in the role of social enterprise in delivering public services, there’s a clear need for the social enterprise movement and the trade union movement to develop a more positive working relationship. While some social enterprise employers engage positvely with unions representing their workers, at the level of policy rhetoric the relationship could hardly get much worse.

To take some examples, leading social entrepreneur Craig Dearden-Phillips, of spin-out specialists, Stepping Out, isn’t keen on unions’ ...more

Loan dangers
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 6 January 2011 - 7:56pm

My Guardian piece on the Big Society Bank seems to have generated a fair amount of (mostly supportive) reaction so it my typically difficult way I want to start by partially disagreeing with myself. The Guardian’s sharp, engaging headline and intro serves to slightly over-emphasise my scepticism about the Big Society Bank. I am sceptical about the level of hype around the Big Society Bank – in both its current and New Labour incarnations – but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. In fact, I think it’s likely to be a broadly good thing (and the ideas shortlisted by Nesta all sound potentially valuable).

My main concern is that the Bank is likely to be a vehicle to perpetuate the ...more

Looking to the Future
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 30 December 2010 - 5:13pm

Interesting pre-Christmas rumblings in parliament where MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee have published an initial report into the abruptly curtailed youth jobs creation scheme, the Future Jobs Fund (FJF). FJF involved the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) funding 25-hour per week jobs for young people aged 18-24 (and some older people from specific groups). The jobs had to be ‘additional posts’ – not unreasonably meaning you couldn’t fire people and take on someone else to do the same job for free – that provided benefit to local communities.

The programme was obviously particularly useful for social enterprises. I’m not sure how things worked out for those based elsewhere in the country but, for us, Social Enterprise London’s Future 500 scheme ...more

Happy Xmas (Is Social Enterprise Over?)
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 24 December 2010 - 8:11pm

The important question then is whether the different organisational types will feel the need to describe themselves as social enterprises in the future, and whether there remains any value for governments and different organisational types in portraying a strategic unity around the social enterprise construct.

It’s been a big year for social enterprise. A year in which a government which needed social enterprise to fill the ideological void at the heart of its thinking, has been replaced by a government which needs social enterprise to at least help to fill the financial black hole at the heart of the nation’s budget (by delivering public services for cheaper than the public sector).

Some social entrepreneurs and most of the social enterprise lobby got really excited during June and July. With honourable exceptions, most of these people are feeling far less ...more

Beanbags Bookshelf #2 – How to be a social entrepreneur by Robert Ashton
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 19 December 2010 - 4:55pm

“As a social entrepreneur, you have more to consider and build in to your plan. Some will be dismissive of your social mission. To counter this you need to make it a pivotal aspect of your business plan. In other words, the closer you get to making profit the product of your positive impact on people and planet the better.”

This point, from page 93 of Robert Ashton‘s new book, is one of the most complicated but  important issues to consider when trying to start a social enterprise (or take forward a socially enterprising idea). As I’m about to demonstrate, few social enterprise writers manage to express it as concisely and effectively as Ashton does.

Running a successful small business is difficult enough in itself so, ideally, you don’t want your social enterprise (which initially will be a small business) to be cross-subsidising its socially useful activities ...more

Is it time for more charity mergers? No.
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 15 December 2010 - 1:01pm

An interesting piece from David Walker in Guardian Society on the need or otherwise for more charity mergers. For Walker the key questions are:

So why have there not been more charity mergers? Shouldn’t merger and concentration be options, especially during financial stringency? Of course. But the question is whether trustees, left to their own devices, will seek opportunities and work, as it often turns out, towards their own demise.

These are all good questions but what’s missing is the question of who benefits from large national charities merging with each other. Walker reports that:

Eight years ago, when the proposed merger of Shelter and Crisis fell apart, the then head of the government’s rough sleepers unit, Louise Casey, regretted “a lost opportunity to help homeless people more effectively”. ...more

The crisis we’d be waiting for?
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 5 December 2010 - 4:53pm

The reliably provocative Rodney Schwartz of Clearly So kicked off December with some thoughts on the 2007 – 2009 economic crash and its impact on the social enterprise sector. Schwartz believes that the crisis has prompted (at the least the beginning) of a global rethink on the limitations of ‘casino capitalism’:

No longer could the system’s defenders argue that its weaknesses and excesses were offset by its staggering effectiveness. What became clear on that early autumn day in 2008 was that a system so singularly focused on profit maximisation to the exclusion of all else was destined to explode—and it did. Now even the system’s most ardent proponents are squirming.

The result of this, from a social enterprise point of view, is (Schwarz claims) that there’s more cash for social investment, more people starting social enterprises and more support for ‘the ...more

Legislation, that’s what we need
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 30 November 2010 - 1:49pm

Well, possibly. Aside from the joy expressed by the Social Enterprise Coalition(SEC)‘s Peter Holbrook, there seems to have been a fairly muted in the social enterprise world to the (initial) passage of Chris White MP’s private member’s bill ‘The Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value)’.

My guess is that this lack of celebration says less about the event itself and more about the fact that most of us – whether working for social enterprises or support organisations – are so busy scrabbling around trying to ensure our organisations make it to this promised land of social value that we haven’ ...more

The social enterprises’ spinning wheel (for Guardian Public)
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 24 November 2010 - 12:36am

With the comprehensive spending review finally out of the way, councils, PCTs and other public agencies can now get on with the job that most had already started – trying to find ways to deliver the same or better public services with less money than previously.

Social enterprise is the answer. Read the rest here.

...more

Small and a bit frightened
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 20 November 2010 - 4:05pm

I spent Monday and Tuesday managing the delicate balance between running a social enterprise and attending the major conferences where people talk about social enterprise.

Usually even the best social enterprises conferences feature 75% overly positive non-specific bullshit and 25% interesting discussion. This year’s Good Deals and Guardian Conference seemed different. While much of the bluster was still there and the flurry of exciting new financing models continues unabated, the underlying atmosphere was a bit less smug and bit more thoughtful. There seemed to be fewer gratuitous potshots at public sector bureaucrats and less about how social enterprise definitely was the solution to most (or all) of the world’s problems.

I think the main reason for this change in mood is that many leading figures ...more