ABC I Social innovation

Sverige och världen behöver sociala innovationer och sociala/samhällsentreprenörer. Inte bara för att vi brottas med stora orättvisor och utmaningar. Utan för att sociala innovationer också skapar nya affärsmöjligheter och tillväxt. Om man kan tjäna pengar på att rädda världen, så är det en win-win-situation för alla inblandade. Det är vi och alltfler med oss, övertygade om.

Fast idag saknas konkreta åtgärder i Sverige för hur vi ska bygga en motorväg för att främja och förbättra möjligheten till social innovation. Det behövs initiativ som nya företagsformer, inkubatorer och sociala investeringsfonder och det behövs en nationell politik som vill satsa på att utveckla
svensk social innovation.

Det här är den första i en serie handböcker i fickformat för alla som vill veta mer om social innovation. Här har vi samlat några av de röster som är tongivande inom området som t ex Geoff Mulgan från brittiska tankesmedjan Young Foundation och Kevin Jones från amerikanska sociala
investeringsfonden Socap. Vi berättar vad social innovation är och varför det är viktigt och visar på sociala innovationer som Peepoople, Barista och Living Lab.
På www.samhallsentreprenor.se hittar ni mer information och där kan ni också ladda ner skriften.

Må väl.

Källa: ABC Social innovation, http://socialinnovation.se/digital-launch-abc-social-innovation-2/

Reigniting creativity in the business

Creativity has never been more essential to competitiveness in the business world, but the critical approach to practical originality in organizations is often lacking. Alan Iny offers a key to think outside the box: apply doubt to the very models and philosophies that make up the box itself.

https://www.ted.com/talks/alan_iny_reigniting_creativity_in_business?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

 This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with BCG. Read more about the TED Institute.
Source: https://www.ted.com/talks/alan_iny_reigniting_creativity_in_business?fbclid=IwAR0D3M1hyIaeJbUZt2oHblgUmEluewqXDIsF2Q8dnQYYOImmIqXmvkLagbA#t-12699
A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs: Collect and Report!
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A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs: Collect and Report!

“Know Your Impact: Social Impact Management Tools for Young Social Entrepreneurs” is the project lead by Koç University Social Impact Forum (KUSIF), that works as a research and practice centre on social impact in Turkey. The activities of organisation are focused on social impact measurement and creation of collaborative networks among civil society, public and private entities.

To enlarge the positive impact of social entrepreneurs  and help them to succeed KUSIF in collaboration with Estonian Social Entrepreneurship Network, Mikado Sustainable Development Consulting and Social Value International has created a guide for social entrepreneurs, which describes accountability of stakeholders, correct data collection for design of products and services and the concept of “impact thinking”as a basis of social change. “Maximise Your Impact. A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs” is the intellectual output of two years project that educates and recommends on how to report the impact to founders, other stakeholders, as well as make them know how data is being used in order to inform change.

Download “Maximise Your Impact” publication here or read it on the website.

 

 

 

 

Crowdsourcing platform for social enterprises – ImpactYouth
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Crowdsourcing platform for social enterprises – ImpactYouth

To introduce opportunities and alternative resources to support the social entrepreneurship run by youth in Baltic states, the project ImpactYouth was developed in cooperation of Social innovation centre (Latvia), Viesoji istaiga Bendruomeniu kaitos centras  (Lithuania), INVOLVED (Estonia), VIAINDUSTRIAE (Italy) and Makesense (France), executed under the Erasmus+ programme and co-financed by the European Union. The main objectives of the the project started in summer 2016  are to:

  • support alternative financing ways of youth social businesses in Baltic states,

  • spread the idea of social enterpreneurship in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and promote it as positive trend to the society,

  • provide necessary competences and support tools to enable young people to develop social business ideas at regional, national or international level,

  • initiate stronger collaboration between existing business incubators, youth centres and NGOs for development of social business incubation for youth,

  • introduce the “Art-ups” and the creative social entrepreneurship as one of possible ways for young people t start own social business,

  • encourage young people to think innovative and creative ways, collaborate and take a risk,

  • promote good practices among local and international partners to archieve sustainable, collaborative, social business support within youth sector.

The first intellectual output of the project has been guidelines for youth organizations “How to facilitate development of social business incubation for youth“. It provides an insight into the structure of youth organizations in Baltic countries that creates opportunities and support for youth in development of social business. In addition, experience of partner countries France and Italy in relevant field forms methodologies and support mechanisms to implement in Baltic countries. The guidelines focuse on the possible mechanisms for young social entrepreneurs’ startups to be successful and partner countries’ experience in youth support to be taken over.

To make the project more viable in terms of practical implementation, the manual for problem-solving workshop has been created in a form of short “Hold-up“.

As another result of the project the crowdfunding platform on www.impactyouth.eu was created and promoted in Baltic countries, so social entrepreneurship ideas can get necessary financial support for the business development and making social benefit at the same time. The concept is really simple – young man or women  can “pitch” own idea with any kind of promotional means (video, pictures, links etc.) and invite others to invest in the idea, so in the end the money can be used for real business development. It works if the necessary minimum percentage of the requested amount is achieved in limited period of time. If the project idea fails to collect the funds specified in the website, the investments are returned to the “sponsor”. More details are to be found here.

So,

The Intellectual Output 1    open-file-icon

Hold-up manual   open-file-icon

The crowdsourcing platform   open-file-icon

The terms of use for ImpactYouth crowdsourcing platform   open-file-icon

Video about the use of platform in English    open-file-icon

Video about the use of platform in Latvian    open-file-icon

 

eu_flag_co_funded_pos_rgb_left-1-300x86

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi­ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Strategic Foresight of Tomorrow’s Land – Who Are Social Innovators of Next Generation?
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Strategic Foresight of Tomorrow’s Land – Who Are Social Innovators of Next Generation?

Being a social innovator means to think about the future – own, community’s and whole society’s welbeing of next decades. The only way social innovator can be prepared to tackle with future challenges is to accumulate knowledges, skills and competences here and now and form the future innovator and community wants to live in. Simply! Really?

Let’s take a look!

Tomorrow’s Land is a project aimed at developing the next generation of social innovators fully capable of influencing and contributing to the development of a better, more inclusive and innovative society. The project is co-created by partners from 6 European countries  – United Kingdom, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Germany and Latvia, thus contributing with different perspectives on future of social innovation in collaborative economy.

The Strategic Foresight is project’s First Intellectual Output, which consists of 2 main parts: bsr

    Learning framework – designed to evaluate the needs of social innovators on a personal development level, identifying key competences, skills, talents and knowledge, purpose and interests, as well as mind-set, passion and values.

    The Map of Tomorrow’s Land – defines 8 insights, distinct areas to help social innovators to route their future actions.

To discover more, read full Strategic Foresight HERE.

SOCIAL IMPACT ? What does it really mean?
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SOCIAL IMPACT ? What does it really mean?

Generally speaking, social impact is how organizations, businesses or individuals’ actions affect the surrounding community. It may be the result of an activity, project, program or policy and the impact can be both  positive or negative. The social impact can be felt by people directly associated with that organization or individual, or have a more far-reaching people in different communities, states and even countries.

But more commonly, the term “social impact” is used to define actions which have a positive impact on communities.

As individuals, we can make a positive social impact through many aspects of life . It might be starting up your own business with positive social impact or  you know business which

having a negative social impact and sharing your knowledge with friends and family.

How you choose to spend your leisure time is also telling, as travel can have both a positive and negative social impact. Planes emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide and travel can have detrimental effects on indigenous cultures, but it can also create jobs and help increase cultural awareness and tolerance around the world. As a result, the way you choose to travel can result in a vastly different social impact

Opting to support community tourism initiatives and staying in locally-owned guesthouses helps create jobs within communities, while eco-tourism projects can help conserve vital habitats for both wildlife and people. If you respect indigenous cultures and way of life during tourism activities, you can help create a positive social impact for their future.

This is also true of volunteer abroad programs which seek to make beneficial impacts on local communities in a diverse range of fields. It offers volunteers an insight into how other people live and helps them gain essential life skills while working alongside local people on projects which matter to them.

The social impact is mutual, with local communities seeing beneficial changes throughout the duration of the project and volunteers returning home enlightened as global citizens. Newly developed skills and a more open-minded attitude about the world can then be used to benefit their communities back home, whether it be as part of a focused project, a business startup idea or just in day-to-day interactions with others.

Business owners and their employees can also incorporate social good into their operations, striving to create wide-reaching benefits for their customers, the surrounding community and environment. In today’s world, customers are aware that the purchases they choose to make can speak volumes, and many are looking to support businesses that incorporate positive social impact ideals into their business model.

It needs to be at the core of operations and help determine each and every business decision that is made. It’s important to define what the social impact of your business operation is and whether your entire team believes in it to ensure it is authentic and can be realized. It should be engrained in everything you do as a business and part of the company culture because if it’s not being practiced there, it cannot reach out and connect with the rest of the community.

But most importantly, the social impact you seek to create as a business should be done for the right reasons and not just to jump on the bandwagon of “social good” to reap the financial rewards. It should be meaningful to you and your team and be sustainable well into the future.

As a business, social impact may not necessarily be realized in the product or service you are marketing, but can also be in the way the business functions. Some employers encourage or even offer grants for their staff to participate in volunteer abroad placements during their vacation periods and match the hours worked with a financial donation from the company to a designated charity. Others encourage employees to donate their paid time off to working with a charity of their choosing. Word of each new experience and volunteer encounter permeates through the business and helps inspire others to do the same.

When it comes to social impact initiatives, there are certain things we know to be true. For example, we know that these days, an increasing number of consumers seek out products that have a positive impact on the world in some capacity. In fact, 90% of Millennials say they will switch to a cause-branded product when choosing between two brands of equal quality and price, and 51% of global consumers will pay extra for products and services committed to positive social and environmental impact. We also know that as of September 2017, there are over 2251 certified B Corporations, which are companies that undergo a rigorous assessment to demonstrate that they focus on social good alongside profit. These companies span across 130 industries in 50 countries, and these numbers continue to increase.

https://buildabroad.org/2017/03/03/social-impact/

Though these are exciting and inspiring pieces of data, there’s one underlying piece of information that we haven’t quite defined: What does social impact really mean?

The answer to that question is complicated. When you search the phrase “what is social impact?” on Google, you’ll find a multitude of definitions — here are just a few of them:

“Social impact can be defined as the net effect of an activity on a community and the well-being of individuals and families.” – Centre for Social Impact (CSI)

“A significant, positive change that addresses a pressing social challenge.” – Michigan Ross Center for Social Impact

“Social impact is the effect an organization’s actions have on the well being of the community.” – Knowledge at Wharton High School

The definitions are similar, but they aren’t the same. To shed some light on what “social impact” means to people coming from different perspectives, we asked thought leaders and experts we know to share their thoughts on the subject.

Here’s what they had to say:

Understanding a company’s social impact is crucial to sustainability

The social impact of a business is easy to identify but difficult to measure, however understanding the effects a company has on society and the environment is vital to achieving sustainability

Sustainability has three dimensions: environmental, economic and social which are all inter-linked. For example, the protection of natural systems requires good social conditions and is unlikely to happen during war.

Similarly the survival of society needs a supportive natural environment, not one ravaged by climate change. But neither will happen unless we manage scarce resources at our disposal more successfully in both financial and environmental terms. And in terms of social impact.

Many companies have social goals: they do something that others in society find useful and are willing to pay for. But what is ‘social’? How do we factor the social impact of companies and their contribution to sustainability?

Companies also impact on communities. Particularly those that have a significant direct impact on the natural environment, such as mining or oil extraction, agriculture or heavy manufacturing. It matters greatly to those living near their operations how they are carried out and what degree of care is taken over impacts on health for example.

Some companies, particularly mining and oil firms, may even create communities in order to operate. The living conditions of such workers are an inescapable part of the social responsibility of the company. The social impacts of removing communities or clearing land in order to operate are even more powerful. So the social impact of a large dam or other major infrastructure projects may be profound. At its worst, it can destroy lives; at best it will destroy a way of life.

Human rights and labour relations also matter. Companies of all kinds have a role to play in ensuring that there is no discrimination in the way their staff are managed, promoted and trained, and that they have decent conditions of work.

All these impacts are much easier to identify than measure. Measurement of social impact is hard because to reduce human experience to numbers is to fail to capture some part of it. This does not mean that any kind of measurement is useless. But it does mean that complacent reliance on a set of numbers is bound to seem unsatisfactory.

There are a number of important social impacts that are much easier to measure, but about which companies are reluctant to be transparent. One of these is tax. The payment of tax is one of the most important contributions to society that most companies make. It is also one that they can be most secretive about – mainly because the countries in which they add value through their operations often bear little relationship to those where they are liable for taxes.

However the social impacts of companies go far beyond even the kinds of substantive consequences listed above. At its broadest, social impact includes anything that affects company-stakeholder relationships: from how much and how reliably suppliers are paid (think supermarkets), to how a product affects lives (think Facebook). From how small shareholders may be treated to the impact of alcohol on health and communities.

Nevertheless companies don’t run our lives. Or do they? One of the stakeholder relationships that companies cultivate with great care is that with government and the state. This can be legal or illegal. In countries where corruption is most prevalent, the distortion of economic life has some of the most devastating social consequences possible.

But where it is legal, and takes the form of lobbying, it raises questions about the role of companies in society. In a democracy, one would expect that people, rather than companies, should be the key influence on government. Yet the very phrase ‘corporate citizenship’ challenges that assumption. Changing the rules by which society operates leverages social impact beyond measure.

Companies have always been part of society. They should not be seen as a separate power that must be ‘balanced’ with society in a zero-sum kind of way in order to achieve sustainability. They should be seen more as the locus of productive activities that must be harnessed for the greater good of society as a whole. Understanding their social impact is an essential step in that process.

Adrian Henriques is professor of accountability and CSR at Middlesex University and author of ‘Corporate Impact – measuring and managing your social footprint’

Sources:

https://buildabroad.org/2017/03/03/social-impact/

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/understanding-social-impact-business-sustainability

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YESBOX – en drömfabrik för entreprenörer och innovatörer

YESBOX är ett samverkansprojekt mellan ett dussintal aktörer inom vägledning, rådgivning och utbildning riktad till entreprenörer och innovatörer som söker stöd och hjälp i början av sitt företagande. Det är en inspirerande mötesplats för alla som utvecklar idéer, funderar på, planerar för eller driver företag i någon form.

Av: Fredrik Liljeberg

Nu har vi kommit en bra bit på väg med jubileumssatsningen kallad ’det entreprenöriella Göteborg’, som sedan start gått under arbetsnamnet nystartskvarter/entreprenörskapskvarter/entreprenörskvarteret/e-kvarteret. Bland andra. Alla dessa har varit arbetsnamn på det samverkansprojekt för att skapa en gemensam mötesplats där alla de aktörer som verkar inom nyföretagarområdet kan möta sina kunder.

Det vi nu gör är att vi till hösten 2017 etablerar en fysisk plats i Gamlestans Fabriker där vi ska samla befintliga aktörer som erbjuder vägledning, rådgivning och utbildning till entreprenörer och innovatörer som vill starta upp eller utveckla sina företag. Platsen kommer bli en inspirerande mötesplats där mångfalden av aktörer säkrar både spetskompetens och ett brett erbjudande – allt samlat under ett och samma tak. Alla aktörer levererar olika slags kunskaper på en och samma adress.

Att vi nu ändrar arbetsnamnet/projektnamnet är ett led i paketeringen och kommunikationen för att nå upptill målbild 2021 – ”Göteborg är en internationell förebild genom sin entreprenöriella attityd och atmosfär.”

Namnet på mötesplatsen så syftar det till att sätta tonen för visionen: ’att Göteborg ska vara norra Europas mest kreativa och innovativa stad’. Det kan bara ske om vi först når upp till missionen: ’att vara en stad med entreprenöriell attityd och atmosfär’. 

YESBOX är en fysisk mötesplats. Det har vi tagit fasta på i namn och kommunikation. Mötesplatsen är ett ställe där vi ger stöd och ingjuter mod (box för box), en gemenskap där vi adderar kunskap och kontakter (box för box) för att ge våra framtida entreprenörer och innovatörer rätt verktyg och insikter (box för box) för att ta nästa steg. Något som bäst illustreras i ett namn som ger den känsla och attityd vi önskar. 

Från sockerraffinaderi till stadens nya mötesplats för entreprenörer och innovatörer

Gamlestaden har alltid varit en plats för nya idéer. Här kom till exempel kung Gustav II Adolf på att man skulle flytta dåvarande Nya Lödöse och anlägga en ny stad som låg lite bättre till för den internationella handeln. Det var år 1621 och den nya staden fick heta Göteborg. 100 år senare startade bröderna Jacob och  Nicolaus Sahlgren en entreprenörssatsning på förädling av socker i Gamlestaden (som man kom att kalla området där Nya Lödöse en gång låg).

Och så har det fortsatt. Området där Gamlestadens Fabriker idag ligger har alltid varit sanna innovations- och entreprenörskvarter. Kanske kan det sägas vara Sveriges främsta entreprenörsdrivna kvarter!? Det har åtminstone varit platsen för nya företag och innovationer, sedan 1621. Och den traditionen tänkte vi bygga vidare på.

Välkommen en drömfabrik som rymmer en del av Göteborgs industriella historia – bland annat med framgångsrika start-ups som SKF och Volvo.

Välkommen till YESBOX – Home of entrepreneurs. 

YESBOX är Göteborgs nya mötesplats för entreprenörer och innovatörer. Och nyföretagare. Och såklart alla andra som har en affärsidé de vill utveckla.
Måndag 4 september öppnar vi lådan. Adressen är Gamlestadsvägen 4, Gamlestadens Fabriker Hus B13.

Källan: http://startaochdriva.se/blog/2017/06/29/yesbox-en-dromfabrik-entreprenorer-och-innovatorer/

New project – Boosting key mindset elements for successful social business development

This September SIC with support of Nordplus Adult program started new project in social entrepreneurship area – “Boosting key mindset elements for successful social business development”, which is to be implemented together with partners from Lithuania and Sweden.

Kick-off meeting was held on 26 September in Riga. During the meeting partners were also introduced to  www.impactyouth.eu crowdfunding paltfotm, which was launched this september. They also took part in the Forum “Social business incubation for youth and innovative solutions of fundraising” about social business and funding opportunities, particularly about crowdfunding.

Main aim of the project is to research existing situation of mind-set and competencies and develop new educational module to stimulate development of not well served personal key competencies of social entrepreneur: stimulate the sense of initiative, leadership and engagement within societal and economical processes.

Objectives of the project and planned activites:

  • Identification of mindset for successful social entrepreneur through online questionaire and study
  • Develop info-graphic of key competencies
  • Create study based description of extensive educational module
  • Organize 1 training for practical approbation
  • Create online course, published in Social Entrepreneurship Support Network of the Baltic Sea Region www.socialenterprisebsr.net
  • Organize 1 conference and 2 dissemination events

Project duration: 01/09/2017 – 31/08/2019

Project partners:

  • Social innovation centre (Latvia)
  • Nordic Association for Social Innovation (Sweden)
  • Skudutiskis academy (Lithuania)

 

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This publication is part of the project “Boosting key mindset elements for successful social business development”, co-financed by Nordplus programm “Nordplus Adult”, project identification number NPAD-2017/10203.