How can we accelerate the growth of social entrepreneurship globally?
For the British Council, part of the answer lies in sharing the UK’s experience in developing policies, funding mechanisms and other support structures that have promoted the sector’s growth. Around the world, we have found great interest in learning from and adapting UK innovations ranging from social impact bonds to the Community Interest Company. Here are some examples of such knowledge exchange in practice.
Influencing the influencers
In October we invited two government ministers and 37 leaders from civil society, academia, and finance in nine Asian and African countries to London to participate in the Critical Mass conference and meet with influential actors on the UK social enterprise scene.
These visitors all shape or influence policy in their countries, and their London programme was designed to provide multiple perspectives on the UK social economy and answer their probing questions about its development, features and shortcomings.
Sector champions
On the programme were visits to well established UK social enterprises such as Better, which manages the London’s Olympic Aquatics Centre and supports regeneration in East London, and the Big Issue, a “street” newspaper which offers its more than 2000 venders, many of whom have experienced homelessness, a business opportunity to take control of their lives.
A voice for the sector
The delegates met with Baroness Glenys Thornton, the shadow equalities minister in the House of Lords, who was the founding chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition (which became Social Enterprise UK). In retracing the formation of that body, Baroness Thornton explained why it had been so important to build a big tent movement that provides a national voice for the sector. She explained that the coalition had lobbied all political parties and equipped supportive legislators with the research data they needed to push through important legislation.
Government support
Social Enterprise UK’s current chair, Claire Dove OBE, spoke to the delegates about another consequential piece of legislation, the Social Value Act (2013), which requires officials to consider social and environmental impact when contracting for public services. Claire explained that the Act is helping government to get a lot more value from every penny it invests, providing more opportunities for social enterprises to tackle entrenched challenges in their communities, and spurring the private sector to demonstrate social impact.
Kieron Boyle, the head of social finance at Cabinet Office, spoke about the substantial value of the social economy, noting that there were 180,000 charities, social enterprises and other social sector organisations in the UK. He then outlined the financing support that the UK government is providing through its investment and contract readiness fund, Big Society Capital, social investment tax relief and other initiatives. Kieron also detailed efforts to promote the social economy globally and attract foreign social entrepreneurs and social investors to the UK.
The ABCs
Social enterprise education was a recurring theme. At the Critical Mass conference, the British Council’s CEO, Sir Ciarán Devane, said that schools should teach entrepreneurship as well as social responsibility. (The British Council is developing a Social Enterprise Schools’ Programme with the Social Enterprise Academy and the Real Ideas Organisation for use in schools in the UK and overseas.)
Kevin van Cauter, the British Council’s higher education consultant, noted that at least 70 of the UK’s 168 universities and higher education institutions have a significant amount of social enterprise activity and that 114 of them had a formal affiliation with at least one social enterprise. The drivers for this include student demand for marketable skills and desire to contribute to society; the growth of social enterprise globally; and the universities’ mission to support their local communities.
Scaling social impact
At Critical Mass, the visitors heard speakers advocating the need for collaboration across sectors to scale up the social sector. As Michael Green of the Social Progress Initiative put it, “It’s not about social enterprises replacing business. It’s about collaboration between the sectors.”
For such collaboration to flourish, it is essential to build trust and understanding between a range of sectors said Mairi Mackay, the British Council’s global lead, social enterprise. And as Kevin Lynch, the former head of the Social Enterprise Alliance in the US put it, “big business, small business, big capital, small capital, non-profits and for-profits - for us to do this work it requires these strange bedfellows to develop a trust that we haven’t had before.”
Future prospects
The visit provided many chances for the participants to share their experiences and plans with UK counterparts and lay the groundwork for future collaboration. For instance, the Pakistan officials revealed their intention to roll out social enterprise education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. And Dr Spio-Garbrah, Ghana’s minster of trade and industry, announced that his government would work with the British Council and other stakeholders to implement social enterprise legislation within two years.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by the British Council, sponsor of the international social enterprise hub
