social enterprise

Dobrinka Valkova works for the Workshop for Civic Initiatives in Sofia, Bulgaria and shadowed SEYH staff for a week on an exchange organised by EUCLID, here is a record of her experiences:

On my first day at SEYH I was met at my hotel by Ian Adderley, the Information and Membership Officer at SEYH. (The hotel, The Etap Hotel is quite nice! It uses space hyper-efficiently with one room providing all the functionality needed. It reminds me of a bed-and-breakfast. The service was good, it was clean and the staff were very-very polite!).

First good point for Leeds!

We set off from the hotel walking toward the office. On the way Ian clarified some useful bits of information regarding UK legislature and the structure of the local authorities around the county, as well as a brief outline on what was planned for my week at SEYH.
I was told the office was situated in a building called: “Angel’s Wing”- which is a lovely name, especially to an ear fond of the word ‘angel’. When I arrived I saw the huge golden angel sculptures hanging from the top of the neighbouring building, behind a huge glassed entrance, what an impressively angelic!

That start got better!

The first organisation I met there while shadowing Alex Sobel, SEYH's General Manager was the Grow Organisation. With all of its units called ‘something-&-Grow’ they have made a trademark out of their skill and knowledge to create work for people from vulnerable groups (generally described as "long-term unemployed"). Since its start as a grassroots initiative in 2006 it has grown in many other towns and cities in different regions, starting with the grass cutting Mow & Grow, Recycle & Grow, HR & Grow one and others. A very impressive initiative presented well by its CEO Trevor Lynn.

I was also introduced to the concept of Re-Work (social enterprise for re-use of office furniture) and the Chapeltown Development Trust. I should mention that although social enterprise exists as term in the public space in Bulgaria, it has a very limited practice there. Therefore asking questions, sometimes weird ones, was inevitable. I asked questions such as "What is a development trust, how is it structured and how does it function" - and I was happy to have Alex and Ian around to answer them. Thanks guys for your patience!
Next day we had a trip to Sheffield - really not far from Leeds, in beautiful sunny weather with dramatic clouds specific to Britain. SEYH had to arrange for some work to be done with Viewpoint - and I had the chance to meet some people. A meeting to remember :) We went to Viewpoint - a lovely idea for arranging work for unemployed, mainly blind people, to undertake surveys and research work. The idea was initiated by Mark Powell and later on went independent, now existing sustainably on its own. Marvellous!
I'd love something like this to be done in my environment... I have worked with blind people for an arts project I started in 2006 and I have passion to tackle the injustice presented by their perceived incompatibility with the labour market. With such enterprises the personal dignity grows higher and higher - their equality as well.

I then met Busters coffee – another project initiated by Mark Powell. Created to help people with learning disabilities, it employs training and management staff, employees who grind fair-trade coffee and a driver - to deliver the ground coffee to the clients. As simple as that. Simple is beautiful. I had the chance to chat a little with Mark, who had to drive soon after we spoke to deliver the orders to the clients that day. A lovely touch of social enterprise history that was :)

We also paid a visit to the massively ambitious Riverside project. I will probably miss some bits of the whole picture, but here it is briefly. Riverside is a social enterprise pub that has a three years plan for renovation of the building to host more initiatives and better serve the needs of its founders - a theatre company. There is not much money in theatre and in order to undertake theatre one needs to have secured funding. So here's how they have made it: the pub functions firstly as a pub, soon to include a kitchen as well. There is a 'shoebox' studio on the upper floor - that is already dancing and other classes. A new theatre studio will to be built as well - suitable for celebrations, weddings, concerts, theatre performances, etc... The basement will get transformed into a brewery - not only producing beer but also running safe drinking educational classes. The riverside which now looks quite polluted, will be cleaned up and transformed with a wooden deck to extend the pub space and the exit from the basement outside. Good luck to the ambitious initiative and fingers crossed that itit happens successfully.

Other organisations I met were the printing cooperative Footprint and the St. Vincents Support Centre. I also heard about a social enterprise hotel in Barton who delivers services to people with cancer - including reiki, massage and general rehabilitation.

So, finally, here I am, back home, refreshed and rejuvenated, with angel's spark in my eye, going to conquer the world as a contemporary leader through a social enterprise. What exactly is unknown yet - the future is about to be uncovered.
 
Good job, guys!

As it was my wife’s birthday the other week we decided to stay away in Merseyside for a few days. As you may imagine, she was delighted to learn that I intended to attend the meeting of Social Enterprise Network Chief Executives in Liverpool...

Spurred on by my ’30 days’ challenge I sought a social enterprise to stay in. I was delighted when I found Port Sunlight Village Trust. The trust runs a model village originally set up by WH Lever, founder of Lever Brothers (now Unilever), for those who worked in factories at Port Sunlight. Managing 250 properties, a museum, hotel, theatre, shop, and a maintenance service, the trust is certainly very impressive. Within the village also lies the Lady Lever Art Gallery, run by Liverpool Museum, containing an amazing collection of items bequeathed by WH Lever.

Our time in the village was spent in a 2 bedroom Victorian cottage, built by an industrial philanthropist whose successor company transferred ownership to a social enterprise. The village itself is architecturally fascinating with a mix of mock Tudor, Flemish and classical English country design. Whilst in the village we made full use of all that it had to offer- both social enterprise like the shop, and privately owned, like the pub!

Staying where we did got me thinking about the juxtaposition between various forms of ‘enterprise’ and enterprise orientation. On the one hand you have the model of running a social enterprise to generate income and bring about a social benefit; and on the other, the model of an individual making huge amounts of money and later in life ploughing previous profits into a trust or foundation- much like Bill Gates has recently done. Both bring about benefit to a community, but we’d, rightly, hesitate and stop short of saying both are the same. The way the social enterprise sector operates does not tend to exploit people or resources, create unfair monopolies or engage in corrupt practices while unfortunately these are charges that can be raised with those who make a large enough income to endow it later in life.

The need that created Port Sunlight Trust is perhaps not as great now as it once was with the state taking care of health care and education. However is this not an ideal social enterprise: decent housing, green space, employment opportunities, and recreational activities, all with a low carbon footprint? I suppose the question now is whether this type of social enterprise can be recreated, and if so, is it likely to be come about through the hard work of the many, or the private wealth of a modern day wealthy industrialist.
Whatever the answer, I’d nonetheless recommend spending time at Port Sunlight Village Trust!

With moves afoot to establish a Social Stock Exchange (SSE), I ask what this means for the social enterprise sector and explains why it may damage the very nature of our being.

The primary purpose of a stock exchange is to facilitate the trading of stocks- namely shares, bonds and derivatives. The markets concerned are: a primary market for Initial Public Offering (IPO); and a secondary market for subsequent trading of stocks.

Social Enterprises already undertake IPOs with notable cases being Traidcraft (of whom I am a shareholder) and the Ethical Property Company both undertake IPO using Brewin Dolphin who also undertake a matched share exchange for those wishing to sell on their shares. The SSE would create a secondary market for social enterprise- facilitating stock trading between investors, it would also look at the impact of those listed through bi-yearly impact reports to track impact as well as value. This, at face value, is of some merit.

The SSE would provide a vehicle for investors to make ethical investments. For instance, at present I invest in the ‘ethical’ fund within my pension- meaning the fund managers invest in the likes of Vodaphone and Barclays. Compared to investing in oil and arms, this investment is ethical. But for someone who is currently spending 30 days purchasing exclusively from social enterprises it is a far cry from what I would define ‘ethical’.  With a SSE pension fund managers would instead be able to easily invest in social enterprises.

There is also potential for a SSE to be of benefit to larger social enterprises. Attracting large scale equity investment can be difficult, doing so requires many hurdles to be cleared: building relationships with potential investors; clearing the Investment Readiness programme; and due diligence. The SSE could potentially remove these hurdles creating a clear path to investment.

However the benefits of a SSE are limited.

We’ve just been through a major economic downturn. Responsible in part is the culture of overly risky short –term investment. Short time success over long term sustainability. The stock market not only enabled that culture, it facilitated it.

 Stock markets encourage potential investors to speculate on the value of a company and its future profits based on whatever information they choose. We have even seen investors speculate to deliberately undervalue the company, otherwise known as ‘short-selling’.

Financial risk aside, the SSE could result in social enterprise changing their primary purpose to pander to private investors. When a reliance on private investors is created, their interests may come before those of the company. What happens when a 75% shareholder states he doesn’t share your mission, vision and values, and passes a resolution destroying the very essence of your being? It’s true you could limit the percentage of shares you sell, though the SSE would be destined to fail if businesses sold only a tiny proportion of their shares.

Whatever happened to a social purpose and triple-bottom-line reporting? Would these things become obsolete in larger social enterprises? Would the SSE itself become a conversion zone- in comes a social enterprise, out goes a private company? There is talk of limitations to stop situations like this taking place but what are their positions in law and how can they be defended.

However a bigger concern is the potential risk of divide amongst the social enterprise sector. The SSE could only really benefit those companies limited by shares. What about the rest of the sector: the co-operatives and companies limited by guarantee? A growing SSE could mark a step-change in social enterprise structures- forcing more to switch to a model limited by shares.

Before we embrace with open arms a SSE we need to have full and informed debate within the sector.

By Alex Sobel.