Category Archives: Explanations

Timely survival skills for the entrepreneur…

Explanations, SocEntEastMids, Social Business Support, Social Enterprise, , , , ,
Survival skills for social entrepreneurs - a guide - cover image
Download this useful guide here …pdf

“Survival Skills for Social Entrepreneurs” is a practical handbook that provides guidance on the seven essential skills needed to thrive in social entrepreneurship. The focus of the handbook is on adaptable, enduring skills that will be useful no matter how roles or organisations change. The seven skills are not specific to any particular industry or sector, but rather are “no regret” skills that will be useful in any context.

The handbook includes expert guides and activities for each skill, including creativity, resilience, communication, leadership, financial management, networking, and self-care.

The authors of “Survival Skills for Social Entrepreneurs” are Kevin Dunne and Claire Wilson. The handbook was published by the Social Enterprise Academy and Pioneers Post in 2021-2022.

The seven skills that social entrepreneurs need to survive and thrive, as outlined in the handbook “Survival Skills for Social Entrepreneurs,” are:

1. Resilience
2. Communication
3. Creativity
4. Leadership
5. Financial management
6. Networking
7. Self-care

Each of these skills is essential for social entrepreneurs to succeed in their endeavors, and the handbook provides expert guidance and activities for developing each skill.

The handbook “Survival Skills for Social Entrepreneurs” provides guidance and activities for developing each of the seven essential skills needed to succeed in social entrepreneurship. Here are some general tips on how you can apply these skills to your own social enterprise:

1. Resilience: Develop a resilient mindset and attitude by learning how to cope with failure, setbacks, and disappointment.

2. Communication: Learn how to communicate effectively with stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, and partners.

3. Creativity: Foster creativity by exploring new ideas and approaches to solving problems.

4. Leadership: Develop leadership skills by setting a clear vision for your organisation and inspiring others to follow it.

5. Financial management: Learn how to manage your finances effectively by creating a budget, tracking expenses, and seeking funding opportunities.

6. Networking: Build relationships with other social entrepreneurs, investors, and stakeholders in your industry or sector.

7. Self-care: Take care of yourself physically and mentally by practising self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with loved ones.

By applying these skills to your own social enterprise, you can increase your chances of success and make a positive impact in your community or industry.

The handbook “Survival Skills for Social Entrepreneurs” includes several case studies and real-life examples of social entrepreneurs who have successfully applied the seven essential skills to their own enterprises. These case studies provide practical insights and inspiration for readers who are looking to develop their own social enterprises. Some of the case studies featured in the handbook include:

– The story of a social enterprise that provides affordable housing solutions for low-income families
– A case study on a social enterprise that uses technology to improve access to healthcare in rural areas
– The story of a social entrepreneur who started a business that provides job training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities
– A case study on a social enterprise that uses sustainable farming practices to promote food security and economic development in rural communities

These case studies demonstrate how social entrepreneurs can use the seven essential skills to create innovative solutions to complex social problems.

This copy was generated by AI – but ratified by a human before publication!

Managing faith charities as trustees – Commission guidance revised

Charity, Explanations, Governance, News, SocEntEastMids, , , ,

The Charity Commission for England and Wales have just published revised guidance for trustees of faith charities.

An article from our archive for the New Year…

Image in black and white of a church on a hill
Church on a hill – image by Kamil Zubrzyci, Creative Commons, Pexels.com
View, print or download a copy here (.pdf)

The guidance tells us that ‘…places of worship such as churches, gurdwaras, mandirs, mosques, synagogues, temples and viharas are normally charities’. They normally exist with purposes that are entirely charitable. This includes…

  • advancement of religion
  • prevention or relief of poverty
  • advancement of education

The Commission also notes that there are ancillary organisations of faith that are also charitable in their endeavours, namely

  • religious supplementary schools
  • religious choirs
  • missionary organisations

You must register your organisation as a charity if it has charitable purposes for the public benefit and (both of the following)…

  • it’s based in England or Wales
  • it has income over £5,000 (from all sources)

There are, however, some churches that are exempt from charitable registration. You can find advice and information about this here…

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excepted-charities/excepted-charities–2#church-charities

You can find broader, more general advice on charitable purposes and rule here…

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/charity-purposes-and-rules

Faith community members, who are already trustees, or community members who are considering becoming trustees, will find this guidance, detailed, timely and helpful in making your full contribution to the work of your charity.

A full copy of this guidance can be found on the web pages of Gov.uk here…

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/faith-based-charities/managing-faith-charities-as-trustees

Refreshing the Board?

Charity, Community Interest Company, Explanations, Governance, News, SocEntEastMids

It’s always a good time, at the start of the New Year, to revisit your priorities, aims and ambitions. The links below are for charities and small  organisations to use as free resources for conceptualising governance review or business re-appraisal activities.

They are not exhaustive, but they can help provide ideas and a framework for assessment, change and re-energising in the New Year. We hope that you find them useful?

Essential trustee videos – a series from The Foundation for Social Improvement:

 

These audio-visual short films can help you determine your thinking on…

  • Your purpose and pubic benefit.
  • Compliance and acting in the organisations’s best interest
  • Utilising your resources responsibly and acting with care and with responsibility

You can find them here

Membership of FSI is free, and you can locate membership details here.

Supporting small charities – a collection of free resources from Lloyds Bank Foundation in England & Wales

”These toolkits have been developed in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group and our experts to provide practical support and guidelines on best practice for charities.”

We liked these resources a lot. They are comprehensive, often surprising in their content, and free to use. This is definitely a web site to explore. Whether you are planning something new, pondering change or looking to solidify your governance with confidence.

Discover Lloyds Bank resources here

ReviewingDocs image: Tiger Lily, Creative Commons, Pexels.com

 

Social Marketing – training event, on-line

Community Economics, Enterprise Acceleration, Explanations, Innovation, Marketing, News, , , ,
Social markets…

Social Marketing for Small Enterprise – Business events – University of Derby

 

If you’d like to create an innovative, cost-effective marketing strategy for your small business, sustainable company, or social enterprise, then this session is for you. Learn how social marketing is quickly becoming a driving force for positive change.
Source: www.derby.ac.uk
Event on-line: Tuesday, 22 March 2022, 11.30 hrs – 13.00 hrs.
Sign up for this useful short event:
”Why Social Marketing?
It is an approach used to encourage social change by promoting a behaviour rather than selling a product or service. It can be a powerful, cost-effective tool for small businesses – particularly those with an environmental or social focus – helping guide clients and partners towards more sustainable and charitable behaviours.
What will I learn in the session?

During this session, you will learn how social marketing techniques can help your organisation achieve consumer and employee support, whilst influencing behavioural change. You will also have an opportunity to share your communication or marketing challenge with our experts, who will apply their knowledge of social marketing and work with you to develop the best solution.”  Source: University of Derby

City of Derby montage: source – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby

New: Social Impact Measurement Toolbox

Development toolkits, Explanations, News, SocEntEastMids, , , ,

Our friends at Social Enterprise East of England have just launched a new social impact measurement tool. We like it.

SIMbox image and web link
Discover more here…

The SEEE toolkit has six distinct sections, designed to help smaller organisations to understand their impact. By methodically gathering evidence, reflecting on it and transposing the information into useful data presentations.

Giving the information and responses, which we all collect in the social business sector, an organised and accessible face.

Using the toolkit you will work through themes around information collection, engagement, conversations, outcomes, data processing and organised planning and dissemination.

The toolkit is not free, but your licence enables up to five people in the organisation to collaborate and contribute to process. As well have access to all the worksheets you create on the toolbox system to move your information project forward.

You can discover more here: https://seeeimpactbox.co.uk/

Helping you to present your impact in an organised, clear way – the SEEE SIM Toolbox.

You can discover more development tool kits on our web pages here…

SocEntEasMids logo image and web link

Social Innovation Strategy in UK Social Enterprises

Economic Thought, Explanations, Innovation, SocEntEastMids, Social Enterprise, , , , , ,

Our partnership was pleased to make a contribution to a research project recently, which sought to define what and how Social Innovation practices improve the social innovation culture of UK Social Enterprises.

The research project, was realised through the joint intellectual energy of Dr. Maria Granados, a senior lecturer in Innovation in the School of Management & Marketing at the University of Westminster and Iraci João-Roland, an Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Discover more here…

You can discover the interim findings, Social Innovation Strategy in UK Social Enterprises, ahead of the full publication of an academic report, here.

The core assumptive definition of Social Innovation for the project was that of ”...a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals”. (Source: Phills et al., 2008, p. 36)

Some of the key findings of interest to us clearly reflected our experience of SocEnt development and community business/community development processes in the past.

 

  • Community is the source of the innovative process…

 

  • Design thinking stimulates the search for solutions through experimentation and quick action, is iterative, is based on collaborative work and facilitate the involvement of users (beneficiaries), who are the centre of the innovative process.

 

  • The agile method facilitates the communication and integration between several actors involved in the innovation process by dividing the project into stages.

 

  • Using the knowledge, competency, partners and relationships that already exist in the SE is a viable option to encourage innovative activities.

(This latter implication is in fact the basis of our project delivery at SocEntEastMids – we share the knowledge and expertise for free at the point of engagement…Ed.)

  • Alignment between employees’ personal interest / belief and social enterprise mission and dual role of client and employee are a powerful booster for intra-preneurship.

(For us, again, culture and mission are irrevocably intertwined…Ed).

Finally, we were both delighted and surprised to see the modest size of the innovatory organisations included and the durability of their projects. Fourteen years of age was the average.

We understand the research team are still open to engagement from the UK SocEnt sector regarding the process of social innovation. (See contact details in the report above.)

Long, may the innovation last!

How to speak? We all know that…!

Events, Explanations, Innovation, SocEntEastMids, Social Enterprise, , , , , , ,

Update 15th November 2020

We really liked this analysis of Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule for business pitches. The original article, published by Amardeep Parmar in the Entrepreneurs Handbook, nicely captures a 10 point plan for pitching your business idea.

Originally framed for corporate tech entrepreneurs, don’t be put off. The concepts can also hold good for social enterprises thinking of pivoting all or part of their business to reflect new circumstances.  New community businesses responding to the request ‘…come and tell us about your project/business idea‘ will find the simple brevity useful, we would argue. Particularly if you are having a ‘where do we start’ moment!

Discover your convincing ten point plan here.

Original skills development content:

This is a film about the art of the presentation. It can help you to acquire the skill in assembling your knowledge, the making of a telling argument to convince your audience about your community project, your funding renewal or your pending impact investment, amongst many possible goals.

Delivered last year (2019) by the late Professor Patrick Winston at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), it is ostensibly for would be academic scientists. But there is much to discover about your own existing skill set, your preconceived ideas about your audience and it also delivers challenging ways to maximise your effectiveness.

We watched it in the office, as part of an exercise to think about refreshing the ways we use to pitch, for a new project we have coming up.

We winced as we realised we had delivered ‘death by PowerPoint’ sessions in the past, and some of us had allowed our purple prose to even cross the whiteboard, cross the meeting room and exit out into the car park.

Professor Winston was sharing a life time of thought. We think everyone will find something in it…

Source: Originally published as part of the MIT OpenCourseWare programme.

How to write well and effectively?

This filmed lecture, from the University of Chicago by Larry McEnerney, is about writing for the real world. It is delivered in accessible language and the key ideas have real relevance for writing in the Social Enterprise/Social Impact sector.

 

For McEnerney ‘writing in the real world’ can involve the use of jargon, being able to identify your readers, clarity of purpose and the use of the written word ‘to change the world’. He also has some interesting takes on the process of being paid to write.

Practical examples of the techniques and the understanding of your text start at around the 20 minute mark.

Speak well, write well, pitch well – improve the reach of your project, your idea or your community ambitions.

Source: First publ. 2015, as part of the UChicago Social Sciences Leadership Lab programme

Social Enterprise – the European context

Community Economics, European Union, Explanations, Governance, News, SocEntEastMids, Social Enterprise, , , , , ,

A new edition of Social Enterprises and their Eco-systems in Europe is now available on the Europa web pages.

This cross-national look at social enterprise is a profoundly useful narrative for individuals, or community actors, who are interested in exploring, not only the deployment of governance forms, but also to understand the philosophical approach to social enterprise development, across time and geography.

Get your copy here…(pdf)

You can download the UK analysis here. It provides the diligent reader with definitions of a SocEnt, and the governance forms currently used by UK enterprises with a social mission.

The work is strong on the historical context of SocEnt development in the UK, as well as offering a critique of the fiscal, governance and research frameworks that do, and will, affect the development of community focused enterprise in the future.

The document also contains a useful set of appendices, that offer insights into stakeholders at national level, a governance form comparison and quick reference guide, as well as a set of references for the text that are an ideal for ‘more reading’.

This ‘Country Document’ from Europa.eu is written by Fergus Lyon, Bianca Stumbitz and Ian Vickers. It deserves to be in your SocEnt development tool kit, we think.

MRA Associates, in their freely available knowledge base, have an interesting and informing article about registered societies, which those exploring new governance forms for social business may find useful.

See more here: https://www.mrassociates.org/knowledge-base/specified-accommodation/cat-1-exempt-accommodation/tell-me-more-about-registered-societies

Forward to 2020

Banking, Community Economics, Economic Thought, Explanations, Innovation, News, SocEntEastMids, Social Business Support, Social Enterprise, Social Procurement, , , , , , , , , , ,
Looking for a bright future…

In our last post we reflected on time passed and have turned our attention to the future, thinking about organisational development in our social business for 2020.

We read a post on Medium recently, from an executive guru which decried, as a management technique, the announcing of your plans…lest you stumble and they all come to nought. (All business is risk, even a ‘social’ one!…Ed)

We have thought about this too, and have come to the decision, given the ubiquity of the internet and new media, that laying out plans, even those not fully ready for complex delivery yet, is a sound way to make contact with like-minded community actors and organisations. Our own motives and action plan are below…

Inspirational Beginnings

We have attended this year ((2019) a number of events organised by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), in both Liverpool and London. Designed to create awareness of, and engagement with, the Community Wealth Building (CWB) agenda. In this aim Neil McInroy and his highly skilled team, have been highly effective.

This engagement has started us thinking about how CWB can be energised to reach the micro and small community facing social businesses or organisations across our region.

It is clear from the recently published documents below, that this community mercantile sector is clearly woven into the multivariate practice, target segments and policy focus of the CWB change matrix.

Key Documents for Strategic Development

CLES have recently published both Community Wealth Building 2019 – theory practice and next steps, as well as a Manifesto for Local Economies.  you can view, print or download both these key documents below…

View, print or download

Community Wealth Building 2019 is a profoundly important document in contextualising local action, policy change and in illuminating the tried and tested, as well as emerging methodologies of change in CWB practice.

Whilst recognising that the new (CLES) Centre for Excellence, funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, has a primary focus on Local Authority/governmental policy issues for securing the largest change and development ‘hit’ possible, we think that the same concepts of CWB and the intellectual change mechanisms involved can equally be applied to the small marginalised communities and, importantly, rural England.

 

View, print or download…

The Manifesto for Local Economies contains the building blocks of an exciting new CWB landscape. We do not see any of its elements as revolutionary, but rather see the policy and delivery skein exposed in the document as a progressive, moral and inclusive agenda for the individual, the company/charity, the region and government to embrace.

What The Manifesto calls for is an inclusive, fair and ownership diverting programme of change. It does not decry or deny capital, the market or the organisation – it refocuses them to broad community benefit.

We subscribe to the vision.

The action plan – the micro-contribution

  • To maintain and continue to consolidate activity with our clients for SocEntEastMids in the six counties region of its published focus – free delivery of support, advice and resources for the creation of  socially useful enterprise.

 

    • A new brand and energy for change
  • To create a new brand/web site of focus and delivery mechanism, based in Cambridge UK, to engage with rural communities in England around some key elements of the CWB agenda.

 

  • To scope and deliver this rural enterprise support across The Midlands, East Anglia, Lincolnshire etc., where rural enterprise is, arguably, remote from the national policy debate and one to one encouragement is thinly spread.

 

  • To develop a programme of work, addressing community facing organisations – developing focused CWB agenda items to the unique, particular and social landscapes of our chosen geography.

 

  • To develop a cost recovery mechanism for external speakers and critical advice, event attendance etc., whilst still delivering our core elements of free advice, web and communication services – with any surplus created directed to support our sister delivery at SocEntEastMids, as is normal for our Partnership. To help maintain the sustainability of the programme.

 

  • To focus our Muntjac energy initially on a Enterprise Change Hub, development of Community Banking networks, and Employee Ownership advice and change support. This latter may well spill over into help in creating partnerships, employee owned businesses, co-operatives, measuring impacts for baseline and business plans etc.

 

  • To make Cambridge a ‘go to’ place for CWB in the rural environment. (We have large car parks…Ed).
Spiky, yet endearing …excuse the pun!

The Muntjac is a persistent, pervasive and spiky creature in the rural environment. We like them.

Our strategy and delivery for the CWB programme, although modest, will hopefully develop the same profile.

If you would like to be part of a new CWB initiative in the rural East, do use our site contact facilities and have an opening conversation with Tim.

Revisiting our Social Business theory…

Community Economics, Economic Thought, Explanations, Governance, SocEntEastMids, Social Business News, Social Enterprise, , , ,

 

Yunus Social Business – humanising the enterprise…

We have attended a number of events and meetings recently, across the six counties of the East Midlands, where the nature of our business has been, occasionally,  in focus. We have returned and sought to reflect on our engagement with clients, partners and our own team.

We define our core  Partnership in Cambridge as a Social Business, and cleave to the seven principles delineated in the book Building Social Business – the prime mover for us is to try and do things ‘…with joy’. (We also underscore the Nolan Principles in our work too…Ed.)

Of course, there are more significant enterprise impacting elements to the theories of Professor Muhammad Yunus, whose book defines our work. For our Partners the energy we expend is not for creating vast personal wealth – we use, we believe, enterprise skills and good governance to foster enough revenue to maintain our infrastructure, our tool-kits, human and technical, and then seek to deploy any surpluses to fund the delivery of pro-bono support to individuals and community organisations and actors where we can.

SocEntEastMids and our clients, is a good example of this, as is our book business Books go Walkabout.

What has struck us is how our conversations have changed so little in the last twenty years or so. We talk in the office still of humanity, warmth, empathy, understanding and transparent process – all emotional responses to business propositions perhaps, but never forgetting that it is the business process and back office that fosters and provides for the projects that seek to develop our Social Business aims and achievements. No matter how modest they may be in the grand scheme  of things.

The short video above, from Yunus socialbusiness, is, in effect, a declaration for system change and the humanising of the enterprise, we believe. A moderation of raw capitalism that is perhaps seeing the emergence of ‘its time’. It is not isolated by geography or place, the same principles should apply in a remote rural area or the heart of a city, whatever the continent.

Whether we define it as emergent social enterprise, social business, a co-operative or a genuinely employee owned business – the Yunus principles should all be in play, within this context of understanding and change.

We were challenged recently, in our twitter feed, by a member of the ‘twitterati’ that our position was hopelessly idealistic. Perhaps this is true, but as is made clear in the video exposition above, it is better to aspire to selflessness than to selfishness we would argue.

I was elected recently to join the Board of a regional charity, and was able to accept the onerous duty with delight. As part of the process I attended a staff workshop on Loneliness and Isolation. The stats indicating the demand for this service were challenging.

None the less, part of the group tasks were to develop an understanding of ‘the five ways to well-being’. They are Connect | Be Active | Take Notice | Keep Learning | Give.

Not a bad five point mantra for socio-economic change actors in communities too – we thought. Hopelessly idealistic or not…

This article is a personal reflection by Tim Smith MA, FRSA – A Managing Partner at SmithMartin LLP, custodian of SocEntEastMids interests.