Social enterprise scrambles to feed soaring numbers of hungry school children

A social enterprise that provides free breakfasts to primary schools told Channel 4 News today that it has seen a four-fold rise in its waiting list in the last four months, amid fears that child poverty is on the rise. SEL member, Magic Breakfast, has been providing free breakfasts for nine years to UK primary schools where over 50 per cent of pupils are on free school meals.

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

Can social impact really be measured? Really?

Can social impact really be measured?

I've been thinking about Rob Edwards' comment on my last blog and have decided it deserves a blog of its own. In his response Rob, reflecting on Magic Breakfast's call for investment of £13 million in a social impact bond that offers £28 million in savings from the additional Government expenditure needed to address the social problems of children too hungry to learn, Rob said, "This is the whole problem with social enterprise. The returns can be somewhat ephemeral, and an awful lot of time and money goes into setting up organisations rather than actually delivering services that people want."


Is this the case? Is measuring social impact ephemeral and therefore too academic to bring into a discussion about investment? Can social enterprises miss the point and make an offer that is not really what people want?


Clearly some people think so and if we are to make any real progress, we have to address these criticisms, and not just by refuting them from the vantage point of the moral high ground, but by generating the data that proves our services are needed and our social return has been critically assessed and properly measured.  


Just after the election I had a meeting with the man put in charge of regeneration in a major Government department, he asked me, "How do we create regeneration and cut spending?"

I advised introducing social impact assessment across the whole department and insisting that the impact of cuts were assessed for their wider social impact and concomitant cost before decisions are made about what stays and what goes. Needless to say he didn't, or couldn't, follow my advice, but I am sticking to my guns, because despite a slow start, members of the Government namely, Nick, Hurd, Francis Maude, Ken Clarke, George Osborne and the Prime Minister himself have shown growing enthusiasm for social impact bonds making this an ideal time to take out the tape measure.


I do appreciate this is not easy. When I started looking into impact measurement I too was baffled and because I found it tough, I made sure SEL had the brains to work it out with people on the team like Ali Somers who devised the first social value balance score card and went on to head up the social impact unit at Goldsmiths. Also, Sabina Khan came to us from the impact assessment team in Lehman Brothers in New York and has since founded the world's leading Social Enterprise Journal, developed  SEL's SIMPLE programme – our how-to guide to assessing which tool is right for you – and launched our fantastically popular Introduction to social impact assessment training. Because SEL has been developing tools with real social enterprises working on the ground, often in the most difficult circumstances, we have come up with solutions that work for busy social entrepreneurs not just academic exercises. The goal has been to move social enterprise from being characterised as warm, fuzzy charity to one where hard evidence shows how it really works.


As times get tougher, the clamour for evidence will get louder. Occupying the moral high ground with its stunning views no longer guarantees any of us a future. Being able to produce data about the exact cost of your product or service and measure its impact will give you future contracts, boost your bottom line and ensure you offer services that, as Rob recommends, "people want". I know because we have done it at SEL and it really, really works, honest Rob.

Are the kids alright?

Magic Breakfast feeds kids too hungry to learn

I have just had a chat with  SEL board member, Carmel McConnell from Magic Breakfast, who has told me what they are going to do to address the fact that only 1 in 100 children in receipt of free school meals ends up going to university

2011, its all about message

Having had some interesting feedback on my 2011 blogs and a quick canteen lunch with Guardian Public Editor, Jane Dudman today I am more convinced than ever that 2011 will be all about getting our message right. As Government measures take hold and the economy reacts I think social enterprise has an unprecedented opportunity, but only if we communicate what we are all about to the uninitiated.

Whilst social enterprise has certainly gripped the imagination of the political class and an increasing number of the public have heard of what we do, few are confident in describing it and fewer still could tell you why it matters. Nothing is more important than fixing this so we recruit the general public en masse to the value of our business model. For far too long we have been absorbed by definitions, a subject that leaves potential enthusiasts cold, always an own goal in my view. We should be shouting from the roof tops stories about social enterprises like Magic Breakfast that work with companies like Quaker to deliver free breakfasts to over 5000 kids in 180 schools, every day. Without Carmel McConnell and her great social enterprise, those children would be going to school too hungry to learn. Folk need to know that when they buy Quaker oats they are contributing to a free breakfast for a hungry child. We are a movement and to gather the critical mass to our cause we have to be punchy, positive as well as passionate.

Anything but board

Education is very much in the air for social enterprise. I picked up Red Mummy's blog last night thanks to a tip off from Stephen Fry's Tweet which chimed with the things I've been saying about schools. Parents of children in many secondary schools up and down the country are really not happy and they want things to improve. The blog is facinating and echoed  a number of conversations I have had lately.

This morning I met with officers from Lambeth Council and Sarah Neuff from the fantastic development trust, Coin Street Community Builders to launch a really exciting initiative designed to develop social enterprise in the borough. I think Lambeth is really showing its dynamic commitment to social enterprise and I look forward to working on a project which I'm sure will establish the borough's credentials for innovation.

Interestingly Lambeth is the only place in the UK that has succeeded in establishing a parent run school, something I discovered when meeting with Paul Mason from Parent Promoted Foundation this morning.  Paul is leading the monumental struggle of Barnes, Mortlake and East Sheen parents, trying to establish a school in the area that meets children's needs.  The thing I like best about this movement of ours is meeting people like Paul who are real social innovators, fighting to create a world I for one, want to live in.  Parents should be able to run schools, certainly where local authorities have failed; they couldn't do a worse job. In fact, I think they could do an excellent one. Paul told me the Foundation have the backing of 2000 local parents, impressive. He and I worked over possible models, related initiaitives and where social enterprise fitsin - all good stuff. 

I think this growing development in education (exemplified by the work CfBT commisioned SEL to do on social enterprises delivering extended services in schools) is unstoppable. Clearly the existing system needs an injection of responsibility, commitment and enthusiasm.  All qualities you get in spades from people like Paul, working to improve the community for people like me and my family. watch this space for our up and coming conference on this.

This afternoon my lovely board met.  The SEL Board is a meeting place for many of the UK's leading social entrepreneurs, chaired ably today by Sophi Tranchell MD of Divine Chocolate.  During the discussions we learnt from Carmel McConnell of Magic Breakfast about a great deal they've done with Quaker Oats whose packaging now carries a 5p per pack funding commitment to Magic Breakfast, Carmel's social enterprise that currently feeds over 3000 children a day who arrive at London schools too hungry to learn. So go out and buy Quaker Oats people!

Off to a reception for Southwark Leaders now, no rest for the wicked.