Multinationals buy from social enterprises and spend £1bn
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Multinationals buy from social enterprises and spend £1bn

In the Baltic Sea Region, the promoters of social enterprise sector definitely need to be more ambitious. Where to get inspiration from? The UK, for example.

The campaign or actually a set of related campaigns launched by Social Enterprise UK called Buy Social is already well known. It includes:

  • Social Saturday in every September aimed to boost the number of consumers buying from social enterprises;
  •  a recognition “We Buy Social” awarded by Social Enterprise UK acknowledging that an organisation buys from social enterprises and considers social value in its supply chain.

The breaking news in spring 2016 is: The Buy Social Corporate Challenge.  The challenge has a simple objective: to achieve £1bn spent with social enterprises by 2020.

The Challenge will see a group of high profile businesses aim to spend £1 billion with social enterprises by 2020. The initiative is a first for the social enterprise sector.

Led by Social Enterprise UK in partnership with the Cabinet Office and Business in the Community, a number of forward-thinking corporates are set to open up their supply chains to the UK’s 70,000 social enterprises. The founding partners are Interserve, Johnson & Johnson, PwC, RBS Group, Santander, Wates, and Zurich. The ambition is to enlist far more businesses, from a diverse range of industries, to take part.

In Pioneers Post article, Deputy CEO of Social Enterprise UK Nick Temple explained: “This originated from our members, because when we asked them what they most wanted, they said ‘customers’. And while those customers include the general public and the public sector, over 50% of social enterprises now do business with the private sector too. /-/ In mapping the supply chains of several companies (rather than one or two individually), we anticipate being able to identify market opportunities for social enterprises: new areas where existing social enterprises might diversify to meet demand, or where new social enterprises might be established.”

So – what are the stakeholders of Baltic Sea Region waiting for? We too have many for-profit oriented socially responsible companies who might be interested in buying from regional social enterprise sector.

 

 

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Podcasts about Social Entrepreneurship

Do you prefer learning via listening to great podcasts? There are a lot of podcasts to be listened about social  entrepreneurship, here’s a few suggestions and links to get you started:

Inspiring Social Entrepreneurs: Sign up for weekly interviews with successful social entrepreneurs and changemakers who are building a better world.

The Social Enterprise Podcast A monthly podcast that explores the challenges of starting, building, and running a social enterprise. 

The ChangeMakers Podcast Each week, Andréa Ranae chats with amazing women entrepreneurs and changemakers who are making a difference through their life and work.

The Impact Podcast The topic of social impact is the focus of The Impact Podcast.

Social Entrepreneur Social Entrepreneur is a podcast for aspiring and early-stage social entrepreneurs, and for those who want to make an impact on the world.

A “Philanthropy Hour” podcast featuring an interview with Institute Founder and Executive Director Jerr Boschee by Greg Cherry August 2015 (40 minutes)

Interview of Institute Executive Director Jerr Boschee by Tim Zak of Globeshakers (26 minutes) 

Acumen Social Entrepreneurship course
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Online Course: Social Entrepreneurship 101

This is a free Acumen course which lasts for 4 weeks. This course is especially made for people approaching the social entrepreneurship sector for the first time.

In this course you’ll learn to apply entrepreneurial skills to social problems and design lasting solutions.

Designed for anyone approaching social entrepreneurship for the first time, this interactive learning experience will give you an overview of the sector. It will help you explore pathways for initial engagement with social enterprises and uncover your relevant passions and skills.

By the end of this course, you’ll have found a concrete way to contribute to a social enterprise OR you’ll be engaged in early stage ideation for your own venture. Specifically, you’ll begin to identify a problem you care about, understand the considerations needed for impact and financial sustainability, and learn about how various social entrepreneurs have thought about scale.

This Course Is For You If:

  • You want to figure out ways to get involved in social entrepreneurship
  • You’re looking for ideas to add more meaning to your life and career
  • You have a burning desire to do good in ways that are smart and effective
  • You’re eager to lend your skills and talents to solve a social problems

Check the details and add it to your agenda. 

[embed]https://vimeo.com/140851909[/embed]

 

Acumen Course
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Online Course about Lean Startup Principles for Social Impact

If you want to know more about lean AND social impact this might just be the course for you.

It is a free online course from Acumen and it is an 4-week course inspired by the Lean Launchpad Class pioneered by Steve Blank. In this course you will learn how to test, validate, and adapt your vision of change to ensure you’re creating the greatest impact and investing your time in something that truly meets your stakeholder’s and customer’s needs.

This course is appropriate for anyone who wants to try out lean methodologies to start a new enterprise or building a new program or initiative within an existing organization. The lean approach relies on validated learning, experimentation, and iterative product releases to shorten product development cycles, measure progress, and gain valuable customer feedback. In an environment where the majority of startups fail, lean principles aim to give startups a better chance of success by helping entrepreneurs learn more quickly what works and discard what doesn’t.

Check the details and add it to your agenda. 

[embed]https://vimeo.com/94533026[/embed]
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A Guide To Funding a Startup

If you’re looking for funding opportunities for your social enterprise, you might want to have a look at this “Ultimate guide to funding a startup”. 

It has a quite comprehensive list of funding options for startups. Even though many of them concern only Canada and USA, many of the options are also global (or one can find a local alternative):

The funding guide includes:

  • Traditional crowdfunding sites (e.g. Kickstarter)
  • Equity crowdfunding (sell shares to the crowd)
  • Peer-to-Peer lending
  • Alternative lenders (i.e. alternatives to the banks)
Leadership in social enterprise.
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Leadership in social enterprise.

Without a good captain the ship can not sail for deep water, and in world of social enterpreneurship we can say that without the right leadership social enterprise will not achieve neither business or social success.

Social enterprises as a very unique and specific companies demands also unique managment system, based on leadership combinating social and entrepreneurial spirit. Finding this combination is not an easy task but hopefully represenatives of World Economic Forum and The Schwab Foundation for Social Enterpreneurship perpared in 2014 a guidlines, a manual  on leadership in social enterprises which provides a practical tool “from social entrepreneurs for social entrepreneurs” to better cope with key leadership challenges and that it facilitates a fruitful exchange within the social enterprise community.

The publication can be downloaded here: leadership_in_social_enterprise_2014.compressed

Publication was prepared by The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship provides unparalleled platforms at the regional and
global level to highlight and advance leading models of sustainable social innovation. It identifies a select community of social entrepreneurs and engages it in shaping global, regional and industry agendas that improve the state of the world in close collaboration with the other stakeholders of the World Economic Forum.

© World Economic Forum
2014 – All rights reserved.

Marketing Your Social Enterprise
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Marketing Your Social Enterprise

Marketing is key to bussiness success, it’s an obviouse statment but how we can learn an effective marketing? About what we should remember if we want promote the social enterprise? Are the rules different than in regular bussiness?

Answers for those questions can be found in very interesting publication about preparing the marketing strategy for social enterprise, which can be downloaded here: Marketing-Your-Social-Enterprise- Social Enterprise London

This interesing publication was prepared by Social Enterprise London, the heart and voice of the social enterprise sector in London. Social Enterprise Londone promote community, best practice, advocacy & development – working directly with individuals, organisations and regional government to help them realise their vision through social enterprise.

Learn from highly experienced!
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Learn from highly experienced!

United Kingdom is well know as the pioner in the field of supporting and stimulating development of social economy sector. The system and wide approach to the topic of social enterpreneurship of British Goverments is worth to follow.

After implementing the social clauses in public procurements, organizing social economy support system, creating a methodology of measuring social impact (SROI), implementing the social bond mechanism, time has come for social investments.

British Government published a very interesting document “Social investment: a force for social change. 2016 strategy” which can be an inspiration for decision – makers, politicians and representatives of social economy sector to transfer good practices in their reality or at least start lobbing for this process.

The Strategy can be downloaded here: Social investment a force of social change

Public procurement for social progress
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Public procurement for social progress

Public procurement is one of the tools that public administration can use in order to stimulate local investments, economic growth and shape local labour market. Social clauses implemented in public procurements in tern, can be an effective way to fight with social exclusion and support development of social enterpreneurship.

European Union administration also appreciated this mechanism in own Directive dedicated to new social clauses regulations which European Union Member are obliged to transfer to national legislations.

In this post you can find a very interesting and important publication presenting all planned changes in terms of social clauses which soon should be available in all EU countries.

The publication can be download here: Public_procurement_for_social_progress.compressed

 

This very needed publication was prepare by The Social Platform, the largest civil society alliance fighting for social justice and participatory democracy in Europe. Consisting of 48 pan-European networks of NGOs, Social Platform campaigns to ensure that EU policies are developed in partnership with the people they affect, respecting fundamental rights, promoting solidarity and improving lives.