As the other part in the ‘Doug and Mike show’ due to appear at the event next week I am in awe of Mike’s thinking on variant typologies of social enterprise, all of which I believe to have bearing on the debate here – and I think we come to similar sorts of questions, or sometimes complimentary questions at least, via different routes…

I’ve had an academic interest in social enterprise and social entrepreneurship for a number of years now, with my PhD attained in 2001 in part looking at how Church of England vicars functioned (or not) as social entrepreneurs.  Yet a decade or so before then I worked as a community care development worker when the Conservative government arguably tried belatedly to bring enterprise into the public sector, including the area of health and social care with which I was particularly concerned…

So what contribution do I propose to make in assisting with the ‘listening to the social entrepreneur’ agenda?  I guess my primary question in relation to this debate is ‘what’s in a word or the words?’  I’m not sure whether I’m clever enough or sufficiently versed in particular philosophical ways to make such claims, but it occurs to me that ‘deconstruction’ might describe part of what I’m trying to suggest here, by which I mean breaking down and interrogating the words we use.  Yet what I also see as a supporting element to this analysis is looking at words that may in one instance be used interchangeably, and yet in another be used in such a way only very awkwardly. On the other hand, some words are not used yet conceivably could be.  Why do we talk of ‘social enterprises’ rather than ‘social businesses’, and yet of ‘business goals’ rather than ‘enterprise goals’?  Why do we talk of ‘social enterprises’ and ‘social goals’, rather than ‘public enterprises’ and ‘public goals’?  Could we talk about ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ enterprises and goals instead of social ones?  Why not talk of ‘green’ or ‘environmental’ enterprises and goals instead of ‘social’ ones, particularly if the aims are about recycling or cutting the carbon count?  Why is ‘business’ seen as particularly conflicting with ‘social’ goals and not ‘power’ and ‘status’?  In the end, however, this workshop is about listening to you, and these questions posed will only work if they can help expose insights relevant to that end, including whether this very debate we are having, that ‘we’ after all have framed, is the right one…

So…what do you think?

How long do you spend writing your funder’s reports each quarter and at the end of each year?  Wouldn’t you rather spend more time actually delivering your services to your clients?

What about measuring the impact you have on your clients? How easy do you find it to measure and report on your social impact?

At The Tool Factory our aim is to make your lives easier. We spend our time developing tools and resources that help you do a great job in achieving your vision – and saving you time and money in the process.

That’s why we are really excited about our Social Impact Tracker tool – which we launched yesterday at Charity Fair.

Social Impact Tracker is the first monitoring database that measures your social impact. So not only does it keep track of everything your clients do and are involved in but it also creates funders report and reports on how well you’ve done at achieving your social aims – all at the touch of a button.

You enter your vision, mission, aims and objectives, decide on what you will monitor and what questions you will ask. Then over the year you enter your data as you would normally.

That’s when it gets interesting. Rather than spending time going through files trying to find all the relevant spreadsheets and reports to pull together for the funders … you just press the reporting button and the software does it all for you.

We think that’s worth a look. Check out our website at the end of the week for more information on how you can get a look.

I had the privilege yesterday of meeting with Gita Patel, Director and Co Founder of Stargate Capital Investment Group Ltd. Stargate also run Trapezia a venture capital fund aimed specifically at women-led businesses.

Gita is a very passionate individual and we discussed all sorts of topics and a couple of new projects we are working on. One discussion we had related to how she had been inspired by the development of Asian businesses over the last 20 years. I was struck with the similarities between Asian businesses and social enterprise.

In a blog post on her website she says the following about Asian businesses:

• they’ve always fostered a different business environment
• they’ve succeeded against some formidable odds
• many never made it to university, let alone business school
• they had few networks
• they often found it difficult to get financial support – banks were reluctant to lend because they didn’t ‘tick all the boxes’ and had ‘no track records’
• it was a matter of survival – failure was simply never an option
• whatever the challenges – of culture, tradition, language, access or inclusion – they had a can-do mentality – it made them resourceful, determined to grow and succeed
• their ingredients were scarcely a secret – work hard, work smart and never lose sight of the customer
• if they were able to borrow money, they honoured their debts
• family values were important – they used these to build communities
• if they weren’t plugged into privileged or influential networks they created their own and ended-up with supportive structures and enabling environments
• they looked out for the underdog, treated people with respect and business just followed
• when success is not negotiable, you just think outside the box – there are no limits
• there’s no-one to blame, so you shoulder all the responsibility and you become accountable to one and all

I can see a lot of those values in social entrepreneurship. Let us hope that over the years that social enterprises become just as successful in achieving their aims as the Asian business sector has been.

As I was trawling the internet this morning trying to learn more about Gita I came across a speech she gave at a Financial Mail’s Women’s Forum event in July 2007. Tucked away at the back of her speech was the following gem …

10 Points to remember for your entrepreneurial journey that will hold you in good stead.

1. Set your own standards and aspire to achieve them, don’t be afraid of failure (failure is a UK business cancer –for me failure is defined as one damn good idea that didn’t work, so embrace that and move on to the next idea–don’t let that become your baggage
2. The right ‘Mindset’ for starting a business – its not the easy option, it’s a rocky journey and you have to be tenacious and very focused –it can be lonely planet stuff –positive mindset where success is not negotiable and failure is not an option is what is required
3. Follow your intuition –it’s what you know for sure without knowing for certain –follow your gut instinct
4. Remember 100% of nothing=nothing get all the help you can to get your business off the ground
5. Passion, drive and a tenacity to succeed are crucial success factors and persistence is taken as read
6. Being resourceful and thinking of unconventional solutions is important, call in the favours, group with like minded individuals
7. A wisely chosen mentor will also be helpful to you as will a supportive partner
8. Influential capital is icing on the cake –never underestimate the chauffeur, the cleaner, the PA or the secretary –they may have the key to opening friendly access to people of influence
9. Surround yourself with positive influences –remember you don’t do negativity
10. If you want to take a risk, you think you can do it, it is your choice, you go for it –why should someone else know better than your own self belief

Read her full interview here.

NESTA are challenging social entrepreneurs to come up with ways of reducing their CO₂ emissions in their communities – local, regional or further a field.

The challenge is to come up with an idea to reduce CO₂ 60%. Applications should be in by 29th February and ten finalists, once selected, will have a year to show that they can turn their BIG ideas into action. The winner will be announced in late 2009.

If you think you are up to the challenge visit them at the Big Green Challenge website