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Social business and CSR – same, same but different?
Posted By The New Pioneers
On 11 April 2013 - 5:15pm

Are social business and CSR two sides of the same coin? And do you have to be driven by ethics and morality in the pursuit of bridging solutions to social problems with business?

A while ago the originator of micro-loans and founder of the social business company Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, was guest of honour at a conference in Copenhagen, where I was invited to contribute to a panel discussion about the possibilities for social entrepreneurship in Denmark.

The panel discussion was opened with a presentation by the chairman of The Danish Council on CSR and CEO of Novo Nordisk, Lise Kingo, who, among other things, spoke about the necessity of focusing on how we, across sector boundaries, can collaborate on developing solutions to our social problems.

Letting a representative of a multinational company open the panel discussion about social entrepreneurship was to me very symbolic. Because even though it is tempting to glorify social entrepreneurship and ...more

The Classic Pamela Positive: “When the Child Welcomes the Mother, the Mother Rushes Off to Her”
Posted By Living and Giving - Pamela Hawley's blog
On 11 April 2013 - 5:05pm

“When the child welcomes the mother, the mother rushes off to her.“  - Deborah Santana

I am not someone who cancels meetings or dinners very often, simply because it’s something to reschedule and I like to stay committed.  And yet the main reason I will cancel — as would one of my cherished friends, Deborah Santana — is for family.

Deborah emailed me that she needed to move our dinner, because her daughter invited her to a weekend together in Seattle.  I love what she said, and it warmed my heart… “When the child welcomes the mother, the mother rushes off to her.”  A mother should go to her child first.

There is no more important reason in the world.

Read more about Deborah Santana in my post about her work and her writing.

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12 Steps to Spiritual Awakening?
Posted By Addictions UK
On 11 April 2013 - 1:15pm

Addictions UK Sponsored Conference ...more

No Cheap Booze
Posted By Addictions UK
On 11 April 2013 - 9:00am

Crackdown on cheap, super strength booze cuts drinking crime by half in pilot programme ...more

The Classic Pamela Positive: Juliana Margulies – Smile at A Stranger, and The Important Reason Why
Posted By Living and Giving - Pamela Hawley's blog
On 10 April 2013 - 5:05pm

“Walk down the street and smile at a stranger. He’ll smile at the next stranger passing by, and then the whole street is smiling. And no one knows why.”  — Juliana Margulies

I love this quote. The only reason why we need to smile…is simply to give joy.  Give joy to ourselves and to others…it’s one of our main reasons for being.  And while people may not know why you are smiling, they’ll soon find out:  It makes the world go around with peacefulness, graciousness and loving kindness.  That’s reason enough. :)

Juliana Margulies is an American actress who achieved success as a regular character on ER, for which she received an Emmy.  More recently, she took the lead role in The Good Wife, and has received a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards.  She grew up in New York, the daughter of Jewish immigrants.  She is married to Keith Lieberthal, and they ...more

Mythbusting: People buy from social enterprises purely on ethics
Posted By Beanbags and Bullshit
On 9 April 2013 - 2:04pm

“… many Fairtrade brands have progressed from the stall at the church coffee morning to the shelves of the major supermarkets, while many of their corporate rivals are now also producing their own Fairtrade products.

Unfortunately, many in the social enterprise movement observed the success of the Fairtrade brand and made some giant leaps of thinking that were superficially comforting but ultimately wrong“  – my latest mythbuster for The Guardian‘s Social Enterprise Network.

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Having and being – thoughts after the death of Margaret Thatcher
Posted By Ed Mayo's blog
On 9 April 2013 - 11:34am

“What we think, we become. My father always said that…” was something that Margaret Thatcher said and signed up to. Given the influence of her ideas on political and economic life, it seems right, on her death, to consider what we think and who we are.

Her idea that society is simply the sum of individuals was clumsily put and widely and probably unfairly pilloried, but it is a prompt to think about something fundamental, which is the extent to which we act alone or act together. Martin Buber, last century, characterised this as looking to the ‘I’ or the ‘we’.

Eric Fromm, who wrote The Sane Society in 1955 – a powerful case for co-operative economic democracy, builds on this distinction between individual and society by looking at what we have and who we are. His ideas on ‘having’ and ‘being’ are set out in a short interview before he died.

In conversation with Pat Conaty, Robin Murray and John Restakis ...more

The Pamela Pensive: “Ignorance of Certain Subjects Is a Great Part of Wisdom.”
Posted By Living and Giving - Pamela Hawley's blog
On 8 April 2013 - 5:05pm

“Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom.” –Hugo de Groot

Ignorance is Good.

Ignorance of gossip. Ignorance of unnecessary negative thoughts.  Ignorance of self-doubting thoughts, and ignorance of unhelpful suggestions which come to our thought.  A lot of these thoughts are just not true… and don’t find yourself accepting them as part of your normal experience.

We all go through a tough day.  Yet we need to defend our thoughts, and therefore our life. Our life is based upon our thought. What you think will come through to fruition… It does not mean we ignore life lessons, a candid talk with ourselves; and at times, gently with others; it does not mean everything is perfect.

But in general, we pursue being, doing and recognizing good.

Hugo de Groot (1583-1645), also called Hugo Grotius, was a philosopher and a theologian, and worked as a jurist in the Dutch Republic.  He was extremely influential in the creation of international ...more

Is local government ever going to embrace social enterprise?
Posted By Craig Dearden-Phillips
On 8 April 2013 - 10:03am

Will there be some kind of tipping point for social enterprise in UK local government?  So far we are in the Innovator / Early Adapter stage with many watching to see what happens in the first wave. 
But my view, which is of course not a disinterested one, is that we will get there.
Why?  Because of three related crisis': financial, services and political.
1. THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
The knock-on of austerity for the public realm in the UK is not yet apparent, except for a very small minority of people at the wrong end of welfare or social care cuts.

For the rest of us it is still an abstraction.

But this will change as local authorities face up to an existential challenge from 2014-18.  The hard facts are that English local councils will have lost up to 40% of their income between 2010 and 2015.     
Many Councils, among them Newcastle upon Tyne, will, by 2020, only have enough in the kitty to fund statutory social care costs, leaving nothing for ...more

The Power of Good Old Fashioned Care: Love, Chat and Adele
Posted By June's blog - A better future for London's children
On 8 April 2013 - 9:40am

A few weeks ago Wave Trust in partnership with the DfE published its report Conception to Age 2 – The Age of Opportunity. I was part of the Special Interest Group that helped shape the report, along with an eclectic group of colleagues representing a variety of areas affecting babies – such as mental health, training, health visiting and psychology. I learned much from this group, chaired by the erudite and softly spoken George Hosking, CEO of Wave Trust. The full report is 135 pages long and a text book in its own right, but the shortened version designed for local busy commissioners is a useful summary with reference to all the relevant links.

The report ...more