All the fun of the festival

Last week was Plymouth's fifth annual Social Enterprise Festival. Held, appropriately, during Global Entrepreneurship Week, it saw over 300 people attend nine different events on social enterprise themes. My highlights were as follows.

The week kicked off with a wonderful and animated talk by Rubies in the Rubble founder, Jenny Dawson. Jenny's passion and practicality struck me. She just got on with it and learned as she went. There was clearly deep strategy and clever thinking involved but also the sense of bootstrapping - so common to social entrepreneurs - was strong. If there's a lesson around the perceived need for endless business planning and analysis versus learning by doing this was it.

We at Iridescent Ideas delivered a masterclass on measuring social impact alongside Sara Burgess, CIC Regulator. The need to start some kind of social impact measurements, even if bespoke and limited in scope, was a key theme. The sooner you start, the sooner you learn how to do it better and the sooner you'll get great information on your impact.

Wednesday saw the flagship event, the Social Enterprise City Summit, hosted by Plymouth City Council. There was a variety of speakers including a great rabble rousing speech by Peter Holbrook, CEO of Social Enterprise UK. We also heard from some of the investees of the Council's Social Enterprise Investment Fund. A common theme was the need to remember social impact along with talk of the economic benefits of social enterprise. The looming general and council election was an ever present context. The ideas in the Social Economy Alliance's great manifesto also need to come to the fore over the next few months. Now is our chance to shape the social, economic and political landscape. Now is when we need to be clear about the world we want to see over the next five years.

The Next Big Things, an exhibition of newer social enterprises at Thinqtanq, was a fascinating insight into the needs of new entrepreneurs. Many are looking for start-up investment and also beginning to clarify their business and social ideas.

Finally Friday saw an insightful talk by Jessica Smith of Poached Creative - known for their excellent work on the Buy Social campaign - on marketing for social enterprises. This was full of practical and strategic advice.

The week showed me that we all - large and small, new and established - need to sharpen up our understanding of our markets, our ability to sell our products and services and to build strong brands to survive and thrive. We also need to get back to first principles on why we exist, the social causes we tackle and the impact we are having. Finally, the need to talk to politicians and campaign for change was brought into sharp focus. 

In defence of social enterprise

I read Iqbal Wahhab's article on the supposed death of social enterprise the other day. A piece that demands a response.

Firstly, to declare an interest, I am a director of several social enterprises and also involved in a local social enterprise network, so, clearly, I'm a flag-bearer for the idea. As I've argued many times, I think that businesses that create economic, environmental and social returns are better for the UK. 

Wahhab talks of there being no 'credible explanation' and no 'agreed definition' of the term social enterprise. Well there is clearly a credible explanation and as close as you can get to agreement on a definition. Two of the leading organizations in this debate - Social Enterprise Mark and Social Enterprise UK - have a virtually identical set of criteria to define a social enterprise. They can be found here and here. Spot the tiny difference. The Labour party is even proposing to legally define social enterprise if it wins power in 2015. Good luck with that.

Wahhab goes on to describe a failed social enterprise restaurant as if to highlight the flaws inherent in the concept of social enterprise itself. I find this a bizarre claim. Do we say that all private sector models are flawed because one business goes bust through selling a poor product or service? That is the nature of the market and social enterprises compete like any other business. I'm not sure we should decry an entire business sector because some firms make a loss or don't make huge profits. Many sectors work on tight margins.

To the 'social entrepreneur' Wahhab calls a boardroom beast: I say challenge him; ask for his socially entrepreneurial credentials. Just look at what happened when the Advertising Standards Authority investigated A4E for claiming they were a 'social purpose' organization.

Wahhab's final point, to claim that somehow social enterprises are not 'real' businesses is unnecessarily provocative. To argue that real businesses - I assume he means 'standard' private-profit making firms - can tackle society's problems lacks credibility. Are those the same real businesses that have driven the world to the brink of ecological disaster, that have screwed workers, that evade and avoid tax, that miss-sell time and time and time again?
So let us be pro-real-business. Be pro-business that achieves economic, social and environmental 'dividends'. Pro-business that treats staff fairly. Pro-business that creates wealth, prosperity and jobs for all; not a tiny minority. Pro-business that rewards success appropriately. Pro-business that makes a profit, makes it ethically and honestly and does something profoundly decent with that profit to help make the world a better place. You are more likely to find that those 'real' businesses will be social enterprises.

Don't get me wrong, there are brilliant private businesses that go further than greenwash and bolt-on CSR. However, I just do not believe that there are enough of these businesses that will 'own society's problems and fix them'.

The last five years has surely shown us that we need a new way of looking at business and how it can resolve the world's issues and yes, business can be a driving force for achieving positive change and doing great things to advance humanity.