Looking back with pride at 2011

Magic Breakfast working to feed London"s hungry kids wins the Big Society Award in 2011 

Looking back on an extraordinary year I can hardly believe that our small organisation could have achieved so much and made such a difference! That is, of course, down to our members, networks, clients, supporters, co-chairs Mark Sesnan and Sophi Tranchell and board, all of whom enabled the fantastic SEL team to really pick up the pace for social enterprise in 2011.

The year started for us by hosting the world’s largest 2012 Olympic social enterprise conference at the London Film Museum where hundreds of delegates met to discuss and plan a successful games that will establish a worthwhile and long-lasting legacy for the wider community.

SEL also held a conference, put together by our own local government expert Mei Hui, especially for London’s local authorities with the support of London Councils. This was the 5^th LAConnects conference and the most successful yet. Bringing together representatives of all 32 boroughs and the City, we took a good hard look at their social enterprise strategies and ways in which boroughs could do more with social enterprise. This was an important conversation to have, especially in such difficult economic times because social enterprises are working with some of society's most vulnerable citizens who are always the hardest hit by economic decline.

A big breakthrough came in 2011 with another seminal partnership, this time with NESTA, the leading innovation agency, with which we worked to established the ground-breaking Transition Institute. The organisation, led by Director and policy supremo Dominic Potter and supported by the dedicated Jillian Oxenham, gained its full institute status from the government - no mean feat, because it provides a unique and vital platform for the discussion and promotion of public sector reform that maximises social value.

I am privileged to Chair the Institute, which has as its board members luminaries like Sir Stephen Bubb, Lord Micheal Bichard, Ed Mayo, Philip Colligan, Sue Bruce, Helen Bailey, Andrew Burnell, Sophia Looney, Mark Sesnan and Ben Lucas.

The Institute has attracted real media attention and as a result been contacted by an ever-growing number of public sector workers looking for information and support in the pursuit of their plans for a new approach to service delivery.

Launching its first publication in 2011, Social Value Ethos the Instutute offers strategic support to the Public Services (Social Value) Bill which, thanks to Chris White MP and Minister Nick Hurd’s tenacious campaigning, has made it to the House of Lords. We hope it gets through and is passed in 2012.

Our international work continued to be a significant part of the 2011 story with SEL consultants working in Croatia, South Korea and Copenhagen led by our chief boffin, Director of Policy and Research, Sabina Khan who has also started a series of tele-events for the Chinese government with partners, the British Council.

SEL’s work with local authorities continued to blossom and, over the year, we trained over 400 local authority officers in how they might approach becoming independent service deliverers. Building on their challenges and experiences and those of the 10 local authorities we worked through our consultancy team, we published Spin Out and Deliver from the Guardian as part of our Social Enterprise Day celebrations, which has since been downloaded from the SEL site many thousands of times.

We also continued to work with the Department of Health researching the challenges faced by health sector spin-out services through our research hub and consultancy. 

Our links with the corporate world also defined 2011 in that we delivered eight oversubscribed events for social entrepreneurs sponsored by our partners KPMG and PwC. These events have become astonishingly popular and offer real evidence of the way in which the larger City-based firms have valuable expertise to offer social enterprises that our members, in turn, are delighted to benefit from. 

Thanks to our Membership Team, Emma Hodson and Clare Sharpen, the SEL family has risen in number steadily all year and means that despite the battles we have fought and, I have to say, not always won for social enterprise, we are clearly doing something right. Offering programmes like ERDF Winning Contracts headed up by our own powerhouse Sue Potter, we know has really helped members. This programme saw us train over 580 social enterprises in improving their performance in securing and delivering quality public sector contracts. Independent assessment showed that our training resulted in over £4 million of new business being won by clients who specified the training they had from SEL was key to their subsequent success. 

I was a judge for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the Guardian Public Sector, the Third Sector and Social Enterprise Photography awards all in 2011. These competitions might not change the world but they give us an unparalleled opportunity to make sure that social enterprises like Livity in Brixton and the Acton African Well Woman Centre get the recognition they deserve.

Our membership goes from strength to strength and is about to top 3,000, which is fantastic and makes us the largest social enterprise community in Europe. It seems that as things get tougher, social enterprises are looking for more information and support and SEL is the obvious go-to choice. 

Having the design and techno wizard, Surbhi Bahl sorting out our front end has, I hope you agree, made a real difference to the impact and clarity of our message. Surbhi has made sure that the success of members like Magic Breakfast, which joined SEL members GLL and Central Surrey Health when they bagged a Big Society Award in 2011, was shared by the whole network and SEL’s now significant global audience. 

Astonishingly 2011 saw SEL get our members covered in at least 43 pieces of national media and countless more sector-specific and local media sources. We also continued to do well in the world of social media with a combined (SEL, Transition Institute and aogdennewton) Twitter following of over 6,000 and consistently high Google ratings. If you search social enterprise from anywhere in the world, SEL will not be far from the top of any search engines suggested links.

But what is my highlight of 2011? It has to be the successful conclusion of our London Future 500 programme in which we got 500 young people jobs in social enterprise, 69% of whom are no longer on benefits.

Social enterprise is all about making a difference, and that certainly is making a very big difference indeed.

I wish you all the very best for the holidays and a prosperous 2012, whatever it brings SEL will be there working tirelessly and creatively for you,

All the very best

Allison

Racing through Social Enterprise Day with men with moustaches

Latzo lorverly prizes at Livity, Brixton 

For the last few years, Social Enterprise Day has been a real celebration for our world. It's a day when a great many social enterprises make the effort to showcase some or all of what they do. At SEL, we did our bit with a Guardian-supported launch of Spin-out and deliver, our latest publication on new forms of public service providers that go it alone to focus on social value, and an open day at the SEL offices.

At the youth and media company and SEL member, Livity, CEO Sam Conniff had Super Mario in and some guy in a red hat from the Cabinet Office to announce this organisation has organised youth consultation across the UK with Nintendo. This will co-design practical ideas that will make a real and lasting difference to young people. Nintendo intends to start piloting these co-created solutions for and with young people in their own communities as soon as next year.

Over the other side of town, SEL Director June O'Sullivan of LEYF gave this year's Margaret Horn Lecture at the RSA on LEYF research that explores social franchising as a model to tackle the challenges of child poverty. Read her lecture: 'Child poverty: Why social franchising is a giant step in the right direction'.  This event was chaired by Matthew Taylor, chief executive at the RSA.

Spin-out and deliver at the Guardian

Our own Guardian event sparked some really good debate and Matthew Booth, Head of Policy at Ealing Council was fantastic. He explained what was happening at the council and his frank and enthusiastic approach was a breath of fresh air. Participants got stuck in and a good discussion followed that I really enjoyed. As ever Andrew Burnell of City Health Care Partnership was on great form. Andrew is on the board of the Transition Institute (TI) and is as good an advertisement of public sector spin-outs that believe they are the next generation of public servants as you are ever likely to get. He was sporting his Movember moustache which, while impressive in a challenging facial hair sort of way, was no match for the tash of Super Mario. (Movember is an initiative that encourages men to grow moustaches in November to highlight issues and fundraising around men's health.)

Andrew will also be speaking at the TI launch of Social value ethos, its first publication on Monday at GLL facilities in Marshall Street, Westminster. Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society (as seen above and a person who started following me, @aogdennewton on Twitter yesterday), and Sir Stephen Bubb, CEO of ACEVO and TI board member, will also both be there.

Hearing about social enterprise

Back to Social Enterprise Day. I left the Guardian to race back to SEL offices where the staff had done a lovely job smartening us up for a social enterprise drop-in day. We had no idea how many would come, so were chuffed when over 50 social entrepreneurs came through our doors. Mei Hui, SEL's Senior Business Advisor, gave a presentation to over 30 of our guests and the rest met SEL staff and enjoyed some networking.

I had to break of to do a Live Guardian Q & A on, ironically the future of business support for social enterprise following the sad closure of our sister organisation RISE in the South West. During that discussion there were plenty of comments to the effect that everything we do should be paid for at the point of contact. Sitting in on Mei's presentation and listening to the comments from participants, I was struck by how much advice those new social entrepreneurs needed and how utterly unable the vast majority were able to pay for it. In this harsh new economic climate, it is hard to think those people are not our audience. After all, wasn't supporting community development through enterprise why we were set up in the first place?

When Mei, Jillian and I shut up shop at around 7.30pm, we congratulated ourselves on an excellent social enterprise day and wondered about next year: what would the world of social enterprise look like then?

Best of the web: Friday 7 October

From big business to Livity, we round up some of the most useful and interesting social enteprise links from around the web

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• Kate Hodge
• Guardian Professional, Friday 7 October 2011 17.01 BST
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Best of the web: Friday 7 October. Photograph: ImageState / Alamy

The Fair Trade Revolution

Tiago Dalvi, founder of Solidarium: Transforme O Seu Mundo, is an Ashoka changemaker who is using his sharp business acumen to help improve the lives of thousands of people in Brazil by connecting local producers with established global retailers like Walmart, JCPenney, Whole Foods, and Target.

Video: what does social enterprise mean to big business?

At the launch of Arc, a social enterprise initiative promising 1,000 new jobs in the Olympic host boroughs, Tim West finds out what big business thinks of social enterprise and asks whether there really is a shift from corporate social responsibility to corporate social innovation.

Where will our young people work?

Earlier this week Allison Ogden- Newton was on the judging panel for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Social enterprise Livity won the honour, leading Allison to consider the plight and prospects of today's youth.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the social enterprise network, click here.

Tweeting about the riots @NCVO

Riot police charge past burning buildings on a residential street in Croydon: Guardian

Yesterday I went to a summit at SEL member, Rich Mix in Bethnal Green organised by NCVO to analyse the riots. It was the kind of edgy, gritty  debate I hadn't participated in for some time, and you didn't know which way the room was going to go. NCVO had invited over 100 people, which meant that those working at grass roots level were there to talk about what they understood to be happening in communities. Restricted access to the mike usually means the big guns don't turn up, but in the audience and participating at the roundtable discussion panels we had Stephen Bubb, CEO at ACEVO, the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, and members of the cross-party Riots Panel. I sat next to Stephen, which is always interesting as his views, like those of Stuart Etherington who opened and closed the event, are those commonly heard in Whitehall.

On my table I really enjoyed talking to @AndreHackett a graduate of the School for Social Entrepreneurs who had founded We Make a Change, an interesting organisation that connects communities with people who need to hear from them. I asked Andre the question that was bothering me: were the rioters in fact different groups operating as a mass? When the riots occurred it seemed to me that rioters fell into two groups, those who were angry, with a statement to make, and those who were just there to nick stuff. Given some saw themselves very clearly in one group and not the other and others had begun in one group but shape shifted in the electricity to the other, it was hard to analyse the motivation of the rioters as a single entity. I asked Andre about this as he had been working directly with those who rioted before and after the event, and he agreed. This idea that community is in fact a diverse group of opposing interests even in the manifestation of their rioting was echoed in Stephen's recent blog.

Both men argued, as I did, that young people need the hope of jobs in the communities in which they live. The lack of jobs for young people is a national crisis and one that will end, regardless of punitive action, with people out on the streets again and more worryingly slipping between society's cracks, disappearing without trace. A critical point made by one contributor was that young people are a resource, not a problem, this for me is the point of the exercise. There was a collective call for a young people's employment programme to sit alongside the work programme, which sounded a lot like the Future Jobs Fund. I know I bang on about the Future Jobs Fund, but it did work, the 500 young people we helped to get into work could have been 2,000 if we had been allowed to carry on, and we were just one provider, this is important and worth serious consideration. Yesterday it was announced that a further 77,000 young people had signed on since July. Getting them into jobs is the place to start to avoid future riots and further economic decline. But that takes enterprise - social enterprise if you ask me as the businesses that will be offering jobs to kids with limited qualifications and zero experience, in the places they live, will be social enterprises like Livity in Brixton that worked with over 1,000 kids last year.

This is clearly a hot topic as the twitter stream from the event,  has continued at least in my tweet world. We don't have quick answers but I do think we are getting there in the spirit of community, by working together.

Lessons from the demise of the Future Jobs Fund

Despite the success of this now-defunct scheme, social enterprises are still unable to take the risk of hiring long-term unemployed young people, writes Allison Ogden-Newton

• Allison Ogden-Newton
• Guardian Professional, Friday 26 August 2011 06.00 BST
• Article history

The Future Jobs Fund helped unemployed young people and the social enterprises they worked for. Photograph: Rex Features

In the next few days, Social Enterprise London's (SEL) final two participants complete their six-month paid work placements as part of the abandoned Future Jobs Fund (FJF) programme. SEL was part of the first wave of applicant organisations and so our experience over the last 27 months spans the FJF's complete cycle from glint in the Brown government's eye to one of its last beneficiaries.

When the FJF was announced in 2009, we had scant detail about how it would work and no idea about the scheme's suitability for social enterprise. We contacted our 2,400 members anyway to see if they were game for six months of a subsidised, long-term unemployed man or woman under 24. We were gobsmacked as the following 36 hours revealed hundreds of placement offers, and so London's Future 500was born.

The partnership we put together was with 164 social enterprises taking an average of four placements each. Given their small size, many employers needed more support to manage their young recruits than we had anticipated, but nonetheless they lived up to their reputation as social businesses and most made a job offer. In fact even though some participants struggled with the world of work – sadly, two even ended up in prison – 69% did not return to benefits, which achieved our ambition to work with those furthest from the labour market and help them become social entrepreneurs of the future. As Richard Cummings, HR director at Green-Works, told us: "The whole programme has been pretty painless and you guys really helped it work. Together we have made a real difference to the lives of so many people."

The scheme closed within weeks of the last election, so the 1,500 additional jobs we were subsequently offered have gone by the wayside. But why don't those social enterprises take young people on anyway if they have genuine jobs to offer? The answer is economic.

Social enterprises still struggle to attract mainstream investment so they are often undercapitalised and their restricted growth means that taking on skilled staff is a process undertaken carefully, and long-term unemployed young people with limited skills pose too great a risk. The wage subsidy combined with third-party mentoring, expertly delivered through social enterprises like Striding Out, reduce that liability. As Stephen Hurton, director of Proper Oils, told us, "Proper Oils would not ordinarily have offered him the job if we had not had the six-month period to induct and train him. This period was required to get the young person trained to a suitable level so he earned his offer of full-time employment."

This view was echoed by Caroline Roake, of Livity, who said: "For financial reasons, last year we couldn't have considered taking someone on without the FJF scheme, but having generated a junior receptionist role for it, we were very pleased to offer our receptionist an extension to her role after the six months were up. I'm sure there are many similar stories from other employers who have found they can't do without the person when the initial six months come to an end."

We know that FJF had difficulties elsewhere and some larger employers struggled. And we know that our final job number was particularly good, but as no project lead was asked to compile a retention rate figure and the government cancelled the evaluation programme we will never know with any degree of accuracy where it worked and where it did not. All we can go on is anecdotal evidence and the testimonies we still get from the social enterprises which became so committed to the project and the young people whose lives FJF changed forever.

"My coach definitely did help me to discover where I want to be and has helped me to become strong in the person I am," Sophia Williams, an employee at Think Productive, said.

Allison Ogden-Newton is chief executive of Social Enterprise London

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Social enterprise on the frontline of UK riots

The riots have hit social enterprises but Social Enterprise London chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton says they may hold the key to a better future

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• Allison Ogden-Newton
• Guardian Professional, Tuesday 9 August 2011 16.17 BST
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A shop is set on fire as rioters gather in Croydon, south London - but do social enterprises hold the key to stopping this happening again in future? Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Where there is no hope of work there is no social contract. We can blame the recent riots on criminal gangs, social media, the media coverage or the police, but the timing is inescapable, without jobs or the prospect of work, young men take to the streets. Reversing the catastrophic effect to all in society of hopeless; careless youth is a job for social enterprise and one we simply cannot afford not to do.

On the BBC news this morning Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said, "cuts don't make criminals". Clearly outraged at the wilful destruction she was not making excuses for anyone, and neither am I. As the day has worn on Social Enterprise London members are reporting terrible losses, with charities such as CDG, the jobs and training specialists, losing their Brixton office when the shop below was set ablaze. As CDG's CEO Roy O'Shaughnessy said, "The disturbances we have seen over the last few days in London have affected many communities with high levels of unemployment, the very communities in which we work".

CDG is an organisation that works at community level, on the frontlines, doing the seemingly impossible every day – getting kids into work. So where is the sense in torching their premises? What is the point of burning and looting the offices of Centrepoint, another agency providing those with chemical dependency and criminal records routes to work, and Age UK in Croydon, or Oxfam in Ealing? I don't think anyone feels much like hugging a hoodie right now.

Maybe there is no sense, maybe all we need are tens of thousands of police on the street, CCTV cameras on every inner city street corner, or do we go a step further and create proper no-go ghettos like Harlem and the Bronx in New York, where access to the poorest black neighbourhoods are announced by burnt out blocks and gapping demolition sites that separate the taxpayers from the great unwashed. Or do we think again, and do whatever has to be done to get people into work.

Last week I used social media to tweet my wholehearted praise for Polly Toynbee's piece in the Guardian. It was a manifesto that called for any potential second round of quantitative easing to be tied to the development of regional industrial investment banks that supported the creation of jobs for the young. As Toynbee said, and I share her sense of urgency: "No one is counting the social deficit, the costly damage done to this generation of young people, though the evidence shows that a workless youth does life-long harm, some never finding their feet again, becoming the workless parents of the next generation."

If we don't act we will all be counting the social cost soon, a process begun by those who have recently lost their homes and their businesses, have been sent home or laid off and even those who have volunteered as one of the wonderful #riotwombles to clean up our streets after the chaos, not to mention the young men themselves, many of whom will have lost any chance of a real life once that knock on the door comes.

So as well as calling for more police on London's streets tonight I suggest that tomorrow we urgently look for and link organisations working with communities, particularly those engaged in helping people find work or promoting local enterprise that in turn create jobs, and as a society we invest heavily in the ones that work.

Social enterprises such as Livity in Brixton, which has worked with over 1,000 unemployed young people to access jobs in the media, or Catch 22 which turns around the prospects of no-hope kids in Haringey. Recently we have been told that we cannot afford such interventions, but after the last few days and perhaps with what is yet to come, can we afford not to?

Allison Ogden-Newton is chief executive of Social Enterprise London.

Panda says LOVE

We all love a panda



Working with creative people can be a gamble but when you can pull it off, it really does work. To complete our award-winning project "Winning with Social Enterprise" with the support of the OCS - a piece of work designed to promote social enterprise in the context of the 2012 Games - we have produced a video to give voice to the idea that social enterprise and, in particular, its ability to engage and inspire young people, has intrinsic value for the Games.

Liam Black on home truths and horse shit

Welcome to the first in a series of guest blogs from some of the world's leading authorities on social enterprise, related or indeed unrelated fields. I might not share these or other views but I welcome the debate. SEL has always provided space for the development of new thought around our movement where all views are welcomed. In that tradition I share with you reflections from Liam Black, co-founder of Wavelength and former CEO of Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation.

Dear Allison

I’ve long been a fan of your passion, relentlessness, honesty and your jolly hockey sticks good humour. You’re a gal who divides opinion. And that makes you my kind of gal! You’ve asked for my advice.

I'm no longer part of the ‘Social Enterprise Sector’ but I am a fully signed up member of the Movement of the Socially Innovative and Enterprising. One of my mantras for years has been ‘socially enterprising is what socially enterprising does’. Ownership models in themselves do not make one either less or more socially responsible or enterprising.

I love helping entrepreneurs who want to change the world. Some of these are running ‘not for profit’ social enterprises others have opted for private companies. I’m so over social enterprise theology. I focus on providing the world’s best leadership development, to enable them to hone their business skills, build their confidence and expand their connectivity into new places and markets to increase sales, profitability, good governance, verify impact and build resilience. Simple as that.

So I mentor, I hook people up, I get them inside really cool places to meet people who have much to teach and I take them to where the action is which could be with Yunus in Dhaka or the leading innovators in Silicon Valley. Wavelength members include leaders of well-known brands like Wise, Eden and Divine, and upstarts from the likes of Livity, MyBnk, Sidekick Studios and Bikeworks.

The other members are leaders from big businesses such as John Lewis, Deloitte, Vodafone, Molson Coors and Centrica. I operate a cross subsidy business model which means cash strapped entrepreneurs can get equal access to the world class inspiration, education and connectivity typically only open to senior executives from the private sector. The business has no public sector subsidy, was started with our own money and our goal is to keep dreaming up stuff which people wont think twice about wanting be part of – and thus pay for. I would rather close than take a penny in grant money. Seriously.

Allison, put at least as much energy into creating and sustaining relationships with the private sector as you do into impressing and sucking up to the Cabinet Office and assorted ministers.

Be very very careful about this whole ‘social enterprise can run public services better than everyone else’. Get over yourselves. Some might, some might not. Who knows because there is very little independent verified data to prove it one way or another is there?

And beware, Allison: under Labour – which let us not forget kick started the social enterprise sector which the coalition wants to co-opt. – there was plenty of money about. Intermediary bodies sprouted up everywhere and much horse shit and awful service poured forth!

Now with no money about (and a coalition which contains some very unpleasant Thatcherite types), you must be careful not become simply the tool by which the welfare state is gutted and poor and vulnerable people hurt again. The unions do have a point here which needs answering rather than writing them off as Stalinist brontosaurs who don’t get the whole cool Etonian ‘big society’ vibe.

So, Allison, keep up the good work, stay close to your customers and members and make your new year’s resolution to combine passion and skepticism in equal measure.

And obviously tell all your members they should join Wavelength. But in 2012 because we are sold out for this year!

Lots of love


Liam x