Well, this is a job some of you out there might fancy?
A high level position to develop the new West Midlands School for Social Entrepreneurs
Application pack (click to download) it includes:
· Overview information on SSE
· Brief overview of West Mids SSE
· Introductory paragraphs on the role and the person we’re looking for
· Revised JD with new salary range, hours negotiable and revised priorities, experience and skills
Deadline for applications is 10am Monday 15th April.
Good Luck!
The School for Social Enterprise (SSE) is launching in the West Midlands and only has two weeks to go!
SSE West Midlands are currently recruiting social entrepreneurs and also want to see organisations / support providers that are interested or want to find out more.
Here’s the detail from our friends at SSE
Things are moving fast now for the new school and we have decided to hold some taster sessions for potential students to find out a little more about the school and what we offer them during the upcoming Lloyds West Midlands SSE course (www.yourideastartshere.co.uk) in the West Midlands.
Come and meet us at the following venues:-
*As this is a new school to the region we have also booked the venues for a three hour session prior to the taster sessions to enable interested parties (eg. established social entrepreneurs, social enterprise and business advisers, local authorities, charities and third sector organisations etc) to just drop in and find out more about the school.
For further details please see the attached flyer
The Enterprise catalyst Project
I recently started working on the Enterprise catalyst project with Digbeth Trust. The project provides intensive support to individuals who want to start a social enterprise and even has some seed funding to get the idea going.
In addition the project helps and grows existing businesses in the area with the possibility of support with business development grants of up to £10k.
“The project titled Enterprise Catalyst, seeks to raise entrepreneurial levels to help new businesses get started, and offers customised enterprise coaching and financial assistance (where required).”
A mentoring and support service is also available to existing businesses ensuring sustainable growth.
To be eligible for the programme you must be:
Please note that this is a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programme, and as such we cannot support retail activity. Existing retail businesses that wish to diversify into other markets may be eligible for support.
To discuss your business idea or check eligibility please call 0121 675 7580.
*List of qualifying wards:
Don’t miss the opportunity, get in touch today! Who now’s you may even get some free business support delivered by me as part of the project [there are others working on the programme too]
Just a quick post to update you all on the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) legal structure. Interestingly I was discussing this as an option with a client the other day, but advised him to ‘not hold his breath’, as it had been talked about for years and seemed to be at a standstill.
However, Anthony Collins Solicitors, have recently updated us and noted that two key pieces of legislation have been passed in October which suggest that the CIO structure may be accepting its first applications ‘by the end of this year’.
If you would like to find out a little more then Anthony Collins have an update here
“Forget government grants” that was the message from the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd at the Social Finance Fair at the beginning of the week..
The fair was organised by Social Enterprise West Midlands (SEWM), the regional network for social enterprises, supporters and entrepreneurs in the midlands.
Over 200 people from across the sector attended to listen to the Key Note from Nick Hurd MP and to hear from social enterprises that had achieved success in social investment, including the midlands own My Time CIC, a social enterprise providing counselling and other support services for those with poor mental health.
Delegates were fed and watered by many of the midlands catering social enterprises who put on a fabulous variety of food that was simply delicious.
Other social enterprises including Development in Social Enterprise took part in a social enterprise exhibition demonstrating the wide ranging businesses and services that are provided by the social enterprise sector in the West Midlands there were:
Catering businesses
Business support
Textiles
Website development
Social media
Wifi and telecommunications providers
Bakers and Macaroon makers
So perhaps it is time to forget the grants and consider how your business (and by business I mean any not for personal profit organisation) can contract, attract investment, consider crowd source, or even loans to grow and sustain your enterprises. Whatever you do it’s sound advice to ensure you consider your funding mix, as one thing is for sure, the cuts are going to continue for a few more years yet, so even if you’ve managed to hold onto a grant for now, the chances of it going or being reduced in the near future is a “clear and present danger”
If you need help to review your business strategy call us 0121 667 6810 or visit us www.disecic.org
Flicking through Twitter I noticed that the CIC Association are continuing a debate about whether there should be another quality mark, that differentiates CIC’s which have a stricter criteria than the SE Mark currently has.
As a Founder and Managing Director of Development in Social Enterprise CIC and a proud holder of the Social Enterprise Mark I can understand the points made, but think it may be time to stop debating and get behind the Mark to promote the wider concept of social enterprise to the masses.
Now I understand that the Mark criteria [at the moment] is weaker than I [and perhaps the CIC Association] would like, as it only requires organisations to demonstrate that 50% of profits are re-invested in the social or environmental purpose.
The CIC structure has a much stronger ‘asset lock’ and dividends are capped meaning 70% of profit needs to be re-invested in the social or environmental purpose.
I would like personally to see social enterprises re-investing 100% of their profits, as Development in Social Enterprise does, but again recognise that not all will or indeed can.
However, with the current public and media scrutiny on businesses that waste public money [we wont mention any names here] and the introduction of the Social Value Bill and the confusion as to what social enterprise is
it may therefore be time to get behind the mark and strengthen it for the good of all social enterprises, because, let’s face it, there are many legal structures that social enterprises can adopt and the CIC is just that, a legal structure.
Many enterprises out there who are using the social enterprise term are not able to demonstrate that they are a social enterprise, at least the Mark creates a benchmark which can be easily communicated and encompasses any organisation trading for social good no matter what legal structure it is.
Now here’s a suggestion on a possible way forward.
Now I know some work would have to be done to sort this out, but to the wider world and general public such a move may help to clarify and build confidence whilst strengthening the social enterprise movement, rather than cause even more confusion and division?
One final point on cost. Now I don’t like paying for ‘badges’, but we need to recognise that organisations that are working to assess organisations can’t do it for nothing, all of us need to charge for what we do, or we wouldn’t eat and indeed we would have no profit to put to our social causes.
The Mark in comparison to say Investors In People [IIP] for example is tremendously good value and just think how much better this value would be if we get behind it and the mark holders’ increase to a significant number, because then it’ll gain some more clout and I say this noting that the National Offender Management Service and some private companies e.g. WATES find the mark a useful reference when considering contract and purchasing from social enterprises [respectively].
And let’s just imagine if the Mark gets enough people behind it perhaps – economies of scale come in and the mark company starts reducing costs [putting profits back in]! Now there’s a thought [or two]!
Big Society Capital, formerly known as Big Society Bank, had its regional [WM] launch at All Saints Action Network today and I was fortunate enough to be there dead centre on table 5. The event was organised by Social Enterprise West Midlands and there’s also a little coverage on Midlands Today which can be seen here.
What’s it about?
Big Society Capital is the long-awaited social investment programme that will use dormant bank accounts and some other finance from Merlin banks. Altogether this amounts to £600m worth of social investment capital. It must be noted here that this is investment and therefore has expected returns on investment, it is not grants. After all BSC will need to pay for it’s estimated 40 or so staff! [see also below a second tier of administration]
How does it work?
Nick Hurd MP and Nick O’Donohoe [CEO] introduced the aims and objectives of Big Society Capital and outlined how it expected to work.
BSC is not going to invest in social enterprise directly, but will do this through intermediaries such as Community Development Finance initiatives [CDFI's] and other social investment intermediaries such as Clearly So, or Big Invest. One thing to note here is that both Nick’s said that there isn’t enough intermediaries and many are not big enough and therefore some elements of the work will be to increase the size and capacity of intermediaries. Market opportunity number one, it strikes me that crowd funding sites, business angel organisations etc… could be ‘quids in’ here [couldn't help it].
Timescales
Don’t be holding your breath now, but it may be worth getting your business plan in order to become investment ready. Whilst BSC is now in existence and has around 6 staff [which will grow as indicated earlier], there are though a number of hurdles that need to be straddled first:
Nick O’Donohoe suggested a timescale of 4-6 months, so set your Outlook calendar to remind you in the new year and get your business plan sorted! [Don't forget my CIC can help with Business Planning]
One more market opportunity [that although crossed my mind] I can’t claim full credit for as it was also pointed out a little later by Nick Hurd MP. If you’re in the game of looking at ‘pay by result’s’ contracts which many of us are, perhaps there is some discussion to be had with the intermediaries to create consortia and ‘risk capital’ to take on some of these contracts?
I’m sure I’ll update some more on this as it progresses. Think I need to do a piece on crowfunding too!
Need help? www.disecic.org
You may remember my recent post David it Hurts No it Really Hurts, a post which considered the feeling in the third sector with the public sector cuts. Well I’ve felt the pain personally, as my previous employer was unable to continue my post I was made redundant. Ahhh what to do, I’ve worked full-time since I was about 20 [and that's quite a long time ago]?
Well the answer seemed to be simple, after all I have been working in enterprise development for many of those years [over 20, almost giving my age away now!], providing advice and guidance to new start-up enterprises and large voluntary sector groups, charities and social enterprises. So I decided to start-up my own CIC, Development in Social Enterprise!
The model of business is simple, I work with a range of quality assured [SFEDI] associates so that we can provide expert, qualified and experienced business support and consultancy that is value for money, no massive overheads to pay, “simples” as that funny meerkat says! And, dare I say it, perfect for the current market where many organisations need support, but have little money.
But what about social mission? Ah yes, this is extremely important as I keep bleating on about in my posts. It’s all in the name really, Development in Social Enterprise works with community based Individuals and organisations to develop new services or products which have impact in their local communities. Directors are also committing to provide free support to some start-up enterprises along the way, as we know starting out is difficult and usually on a budget of about £0. Our CIC is ltd by guarantee not shares.
I’ll be keeping a start-up diary here too, so hopefully this will become a very useful free resource to you all. I’d also recommend looking at Start Up Donut which I find useful.
So keep watching or sign up as there will be some very interesting learning to come in this series of my start-up journey.
With Social Enterprise becoming more popular within public sector and government circles, is it all getting blurred out there? Is there a renewed need to be clear about what social enterprise is and if there is, how might we go about it?
Remember the Queen’s speech? Social Enterprise was within in it, I’m not sure Her Majesty would be able to sport a definition if asked, ‘a social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners’ (DTI, 2002).
We also hear social enterprise rolling off the tongues of government ministers weekly, if not daily. Indeed last week’s QuestionTime considered whether the Big Society [an interesting idea that's really about volunteering and local control, creating a civil society that's not reliant on others, that many social enterprises are already doing] was being dismantled by the budget cuts and lo and behold MP Frances Maude talked ‘social enterprise’ within his answer.
Whilst Big Society is related to Social Enterprise and indeed an opportunity for social enterprises to do even more ‘good business’, we must remember that social enterprise in not about getting hundreds of volunteers to do things for nothing. It’s about employing people [normally those who have difficulty gaining employment] paying reasonable wages and trading either a service or product or both.
Last week my old colleague Eleanor Cappell [BEN PCT Social Entrepreneur in Residence [SEiR]] Tweeted news of a GP firm that was setting up as a social enterprise. Reading the blog this enterprise seems to be considering setting up as a Cooperative and proudly states how the enterprise is going to be owned and influenced by its staff and local community, this is good news and could bring tangible improvements to their patients and local community. However, whilst we hear good news stories like this where social enterprise is being embraced it has been a time of debate and blurred lines.
We’ve heard stories recently with public sector services externalising, such as Southwalk and Westminster Council’s Communications Department, but this alone does not necessarily make it a social enterprise [see BSSEC Blog: The social enterprise sector brand must not become diluted by 'nearly social enterprises'], if the staff themselves aren’t significantly disadvantaged, there needs to be a tangible benefit for the users too, in this case the local citizens.
I’ve been intrigued as the CIC Association has had renewed debate over the last week amongst its members. The debate essentially discussing what some members see as a ‘double levy’ with regard to the Social Enterprise Mark’s [an audited standard to prove social enterprise] decision to increase audit fees. The majority arguing that the SE Mark is little more than a ‘badge to hide behind’.
Working for iSE which is a Community Interest Company [CIC] and a proud holder of the Social Enterprise Mark [indeed just last week we became one of the first to gain a renewed accreditation], I can understand those social enterprises that chose the CIC legal structure’s arguments. In order to be a CIC there are significant checks and balances that ensure you are a ‘social enterprise’, and therefore it would seem that a CIC doesn’t need the ‘Badge’. But does this ‘badge’ help ensure that social enterprises do actually ‘walk the talk’ and perhaps more importantly, clarify to others what a social enterprise is?
Last week too, we heard that Finland may be taking on the Social Enterprise Mark as it is tipped to go international. Within Finland there is [as far as I can tell] only one type of social enterprise which is more defined than in the UK. Indeed Finland’s model is more akin to the UK’s ‘Social Firm’ model [which by the way iSE is too]. So it seems Finland’s motivation is similar to what our motivations should be:
So as you can see social enterprises can be CIC’s ltd by guarantee; CIC’s limited by shares; Cooperatives; Companies Limited by Guarantee; Trading Charities etc..However, holding one of these legal structures [with perhaps the exception of the CIC] does not automatically mean that you are meeting the definition of social enterprise we therefore need to get the message right, a point Alison Ogdon-Newton [Social Enterprise London] made at the beginning of the year.
I have to disagree with many of the comments made by the CIC Association’s member’s, as whilst it may not be important for a CIC to have an identifying mark [other than the CIC itself], it’s important for the rest of the sector and wider UK population. The Social Enterprise Mark is not a ‘badge to hide behind’, it’s the only thing we currently have in the UK which covers all social enterprises, no matter what legal structure they chose which enables them [and more importantly others] to see that it actually is a social enterprise.
A final point the Mark won’t be valuable unless social enterprises adopt it to achieve a scale similar to ‘Fair Trade’ which is now recognised Internationally by those within the movement and outside of it. So I’d like to encourage social enterprises to go for the Mark CIC’s included. Yes it may cost up to £300, and whilst this may seem a considerable sum at present, once the Mark reaches sufficient scale and recognition it will be a small price to pay and significantly less than other standards e.g. Investors In People [IIP].
