Social Enterprise Toolkit
Irish Social Enterprise Network has just launched a new Social Enterprise Toolkit. The toolkit guides you through important themes, which is good to know about, when you want to start a social enterprise.
Different chapters in the toolkit:
- Introduction to Social Enterprise
- Mission & Purpose
- Know Your Market
- All the Legal Bits
- Setting up
- Managing Finance
- Getting Finance
- Social Impact
- Look After Yourself
- Finding SupportsDownload the Toolkit here
Social Enterprise Classroom Resource by British Council – download now!
If you are engaged in sharing knowledge about social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, this information is for you! Please see below the link to download great resource pack that provides ideas for discussion, activities and a framework to help you use social entrepreneurship as an engaging project in your school.
This publication is part of the project “Social entrepreneurship development in the Baltic Sea region”, co-financed by Nordic Council of Ministers Programme, project identification number 17055.
The British Council resource pack is designed to encourage students to develop an awareness and understanding of how business can help to address social problems as well as gain practical experience in planning and setting up their own social enterprise.
From projects on social responsibility, the impact social enterprises can make, and successful entrepreneurship, the pack allows students to increase their knowledge of social innovation whilst also develop core skills for learning, life, and work. It will also enable students to develop personal skills and attributes such as teamwork, confidence, and innovation.
You can download it here: https://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/classroom-resources/list/social-enterprise
or directly from our website: social_enterprise_classroom_resource
Social innovation i Sverige Kartläggning av ekosystemet för social innovation
Social innovation i Sverige Kartläggning av ekosystemet för social innovation
VINNOVA RAPPORT VR 2018:01
“BlindArt” from Latvia. The story of impact and success.
Social business is often confused with charity or social responsibility. Usually it happens, because impact from those are similar, however social business makes impact by meeting social needs in long lasting way on society. It is easy to donate time to time, but how easy it is to work with social challenges on a daily basis? And to what extent it is possible to earn some profit by solving these challenges?
“I wanted to offer people something more sustainable, the chance to participate and return them back into circulation, not only to bring them Christmas present”, states the founder of “BlindArt”, social entrepreneur Andrs Hermanis. Experienced in design and marketing, Andrs started to work for and with blind and visually impaired people in 2007 and since then has created numerous engaging events for disabled people and tangible design products made by disabled people. Thus the integration of blind and visually impaired people became a passion, also being a great challenge at the same time.
The activity of “BlindArt” seeks its roots in Strazdumuiža (Riga), where the first social project has been realized in cooperation with Strazdumuiža’s boarding school for blind and visually impaired people. Back then the project was about engaging blind children into creation of large-sized photo-collages, which resulted in mobile exhibition under the name “Do Touch!” (“Ar rokām aiztikt!”).
The project and its earned profits have given the opportunity to support the purchase of 10 digital readers, but this would not become the reality also without the support of private investor. Back then social entrepreneurships in Latvia was not something well recognized or prioritized. The project showed big interest of society, but the main source of motivation to continue was empathy: people involved into the project felt huge satisfaction from participation, being a part of something bigger. So, the activities for blind and impaired people started to be realized on regular basis.
In ten years period more than 300 blind and impaired people were helped 
to integrate into society, not only via short-term projects, but also by employing them. The impact was not reached only by empowerment and improvement of emotional state of disabled people, but also by financial support of enterprise. Purchased digital readers, renovated art room of boarding school for blind people, raised financial support for blind and impaired people, ensured books in Braille for school and Latvian Library for the Blind and many more has been done by “BlindArt” to improve lives of disabled people.
Since 2014 organisation is involving people with visual disabilities in creation of design elements, but since July 2017 “BlindArt” is registered as limited liability company in Latvia. The enterprise consists of 7 persons and 3 of them are people with special needs. It is also the first enterprise in Latvia, which has received 20 000 EUR grant from “Altum” social entrepreneurship support programme in December 2017. Grant is meant for engagement of 3 blind persons in production on regular basis and development of the business, adding more new employees with special needs. It is a big chance for enterprise to go international with distribution of unique masterpieces, made by blind people.
The success story of “BlindArt” was marked by creations of unique book for children, including impaired ones. “Chasing the Sock Thief” is a story book in 4 parts, which consists of storyline created by members of the Blind Society of Latvia and illustrations made by blind and visually impaired children from Strasdumuiža’s boarding school. Some may say this is impossible, but creativity and effort is always a solution. Children, using previously prepared stencils, punctured little holes around the stencils on a paper with some sharper tools. Then, using the sense of touch, filled marked shapes with colors and created amazing ilustrations. The book was published in two languages, Latvian and English, for children with no disabilities, as well as for blind ones, as the book was customized for them as well.
Similar techniques, as well as new ones are used in creation of other kinds of goods. 
“BlindArt” is also producing porcelain plates of different size with unique design, canvas and painting reproductions. In future social enterprise is planning to enlarge the production and create unique design puffs, pillows, bags and more made by blind and visually impaired people. As the process of testing has already been started, people are already trained to work with Shibori technique in workshops, so the idea has a great potential. The products of “BlindArt” are unique, handmade and bring additional support for blind people and organisations working with them. Company sells products through the internet shop on their webpage and the part of created goods have already been sold abroad, however the company is thinking about bigger export on a regular basis. To make it, “BlindArt” needs bigger capacity, which also means bigger support for blind and visually impaired people. For the biggest part of these people social enterprise is the only chance to find a paid job.
Therefore social enterprise gives an opportunity for somehow excluded part of society to work and socialize, as well as participate in different seminars, exhibitions and workshops for self-development and belonging to something bigger. “BlindArt” successfully connects business with artistic processes and social work, reaching bigger satisfaction from paid job, which makes an impact, not just asking for donations. In addition, every person, that wants to help blind people in Latvia, buys the unique masterpiece to remind about the beauty of giving and receiving.
Social Enterprise: Business Doing Good MOOC
Are you looking for free online resources to learn about social entrepreneurship? Thankfully there are now a few online courses and most recently available is the Social Enterprise: Business Doing Good MOOC. It is one of a three part series prepared by Middlesex University Business School, the Jindal Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Living in Minca.
The courses explores the subjects
- “Understand what social enterprise is and its relation to sustainable development.
- Learn how to evaluate social enterprise in the context of global and local problems.
- Assess different definitions of social enterprise.
- Identify different social enterprise models.
- Learn about the social impact of social enterprises.
- Come up with a social enterprise business idea.”
This course is for you if you work with a social enterprise or are thinking about starting one.
It will be run once a year. To secure your place, click on the icon “Email me when I can join”.
Image from Social Enterprise: Business Doing Good video
Freedcamp, Trello and Google Drive for productivity and effective collaboration
Technological development of 21st century is based on the needs, including those of communication and interaction. People innovate to create helpful tools and these tools, in fact, support new processes of innovation. The innovation is what moves people towards digital collaboration, and innovations is what is created in collaborative way, making lives easier.
This may not refer only to large companies focusing on technology, where the need to synchronize processes of several big departments and deliver product on time exists. All companies need that! Besides, no company nowadays is managed without digital technology. Collaboration improvements makes lives easier in any company or project, if only it is people oriented –caring not solely about customers, but also valuing the employees. The combination of processes, people and technology is the point where the need for effective collaboration tool appears.
On the one side modern digital collaboration tools differ a lot, and it may not be that easy to get used to them to some point. However, free of charge or advanced paid tools – they all have advantages. With different functionalities, these tools can:
• Save time and money,
• Increase quality and frequency of interactions and collaborative work,
• Support innovation and decisionmaking process,
• Ease access to experts and help in interacting with them,
• Improve engagement and inspire,
• Speed up the processes and ensure optimization,
• Enhance teams’ and projects’ performance and competitiveness,
• Bring creativity and variety in information delivery and exchange processes etc.
Digital collaboration tools have become necessity. If we analyse simple emailing as collaborative tool, we can state that nowadays (which is necessity of necessities) it is not functional enough, speaking about multitasking and work in teams . We can never be sure about proper process, when more than 5 people work on the same document. However, if we change from simple emailing to the solution, which allows status change, notifications, clouds with documents, shared screens and documents, commenting, video conferencing, discussions and many more, we can track the process without sending hundreds of emails to all team members.
There are different kinds of tools available for different purposes. Some are meant for the same time usage at the same places (e.g. video conferencing, shared screens), some are appropriate for use on the same station, but different time (e.g. accessible softwares/databases for shift workers, Kanban-type management platforms) and some are meant constant distant workers, that work on different projects, at different timings and places. The information shared between partners can be easily accessed from any device and any time, allowing to follow own working style. It gives kind of freedom for employee, as long the deadlines are not behind already. For this purpose all kind of project management tools are implementing calendars, task settings with set deadlines and notification systems. It helps to organize work of those, who are in constant run and stress about forgetting something. Now sticker notes are not that easy to lose (or ignore), because they will remind about themselves getting in your e-mail as notifications (and yes, email is still in use even with modern project management software).
There are plenty, plenty of digital collaboration tools that can be found just by typing into Google “digital collaboration”, including solely chatting apps, video conferencing tools, mobile app prototyping tools or complex project management tools with different functions at one place. The most popular and free of charge options for project collaboration are described below, allowing reader to evaluate the needs and opportunities, created by modern technology era professionals. Let’s see if Freedcamp, Trello or Google Drive can meet your needs!
Freedcamp is a web-based collaboration and project management tool, which helps to organize and collaborate effectively without charges. It is a platform for unlimited number of users and projects, which provides with tools of task setting, scheduling, discussion, time tracking and many more. Notifications on project tasks, discussions and shared files come straight to the email, reminding about projects and keeping updated.
This project management and collaboration software can be used by individuals or multitasking project managers in order to stay in control of their projects, resources, budget, setting and receiving notifications on “to do” tasks. Team members can participate in projects as active editors, as well as “read-only” guests. All projects can be organized into separate sections and relevant people can be added to set tasks, provide information on task accomplishment or simply monitor progress. Every task can be divided into subtasks, for example, by setting individual tasks for team members inside one main task.
Freedcamp has user-friendly design that is one of the most significant characteristics for project managers. If employees or partners simply cannot understand processes, one can just risk on task accomplishment. Set tasks and events can also be seen in a Calendar, which can be synchronized with Google Calendar. Views can be also switched from daily, weekly and monthly. File sharing works just as in other cloud applications, where all members can download them any time from any device.
There is also paid version of Freedcamp available for reasonable price, including more advanced features, like Project Templates, Wikis, Invoice management, and issue tracking .
Whole Youtube channel has been created to introduce interface and features of Freedcamp, so check it here.
Trello is extremely popular project management tool that allows to quickly build Kanban boards so the project implementation can be visualized, breaking it down into task cards, standing for different project implementation areas, stages or participants. The work is easy to structure within categories, separating into more concrete tasks, which contain text messages, file sharing and commenting options, activity log, appointed responsibles, uploaded pictures, and even visual settings can be customized according to the preferences of user. Each user can manage own projects and add new people to them.
Trello is a collaboration tool that uses boards (representing projects) and cards (representing tasks within projects). Trello outstands with its design, using Kanban concept to make projects and tasks more visual, allowing also to personalize individual workspace. Reasonably priced and well-integrated, it is one of the most attractive project management and collaboration systems on the market. It is easy to use, have drag and drop function, allows in-line editing, as well as to assign categories.
Trello allows users to discuss the project and separate tasks in a real time, organizing all discussions and file sharing according to related topics or tasks. It is possible to add labels, checklists and due dates to the cards. Comments section allows even to mention a member of the team to make sure he/she gets informed. It keeps everybody informed through task assignments, activity log and email notifications. Voting option has also been foreseen, if the team needs to make a decision on something. It also offers integrated Calendar features, search, labeling and filter options.
Software uses advanced notification system, which allows receiving important updates inside the app, via email or mobille push, which are synced across all used devices. Creation of cards, file adding and commenting is also possible through email without opening Trello. It offers customized apps for iPad/iPhone, Android phones, watches, tablets, Kindle Fire tablets and work at any screen size. It uses SSL/HTTPS encription technology used by banks to keep all data secure.
It can be used for free, but even more attractive features, like extra stickers, larger attachments uploads or board backgrounds, can be implemented for extra fee.
To overview all advantages of Trello, use its Youtube channel.
Probably the most popular collaboration tool in the world is Google Drive system that stores and shares files and information within the teams around the globe. It incorporates online office apps, which are comparable with Microsoft Office, making Google Drive an easy to use tool for everybody. Google Docs (the word processor), Google Sheets (the spreadsheet app) and Google Slides (the presentation app) can import and export Microsoft Office files and work with colleagues in real time. Commenting and review of changes is also possible. Google offers storage of many file formats and even opportunity to create and share questionnaires (Google Forms) completely for free.
All projects can simply be divided into separate folders just like on own computer and additionally adding people as viewers and editors is possible to make work faster and more collaborative. Opposite to sending the same file to several persons by email and receiving feedbacks about it, Google Drive makes every team member updated about changes in documents, as folders and files can be reached from any device any time. Sharing options can be public or private, giving access to specific people by sending them an email invitation.
Google Drive is also extremely convenient as it can be installed and shared using simple actions, available for all operating systems.
A plenty of tutorial videos have been created to explain functionality of Google Drive, so you can start checking them here.
If Google Drive is not enough for project management, there is also G Suite available for monthly fee, so not only document storing and sharing functions can draw the success of team collaboration, but also calendar, chat, video calls, data security system, email (Gmail) and many more.
Collaboration tools are no more perceived as „nice to have”, but rather as essential tools for effective project management and time saving. They ensure effective collaboration between more than 2 persons, just like in social media and informal group chats. By becoming less formal, communication between team members thanks to digital collaboration tools becomes faster, trust level between them and engagement increases and overall atmosphere inside the project improves.
Isn’t it what makes us love out job more?
NYA FINANSIERINGSFORMER FÖR SOCIAL INNOVATION
NYA FINANSIERINGSFORMER FÖR SOCIAL INNOVATION
En internationell utblick om impact investment
Utgivare: Mötesplats Social Innovation (MSI)
Rapportförfattare: Camilla Backström
Verksamhetsansvarig för området Finansiering och Effektmätning vid Mötesplats Social Innovation.
Camilla var del av det team som utvecklade en handbok tillsammans med European Philanthropy Association (EVPA), som handlar om hur man mäter och följer upp samhällseffekter. Hon har erfarenhet från både näringslivet och det civila samhället, senast som VD för Charity Rating och innan dess som CSR-ansvarig för TeliaSonera-koncernen.
Källa: NYA FINANSIERINGSFORMER FÖR SOCIAL INNOVATION
Dar kartą apie socialinį verslą
Europoje, kurios dalis esame ir mes, siekiant konkurencingos socialinės ekonomikos , socialinės inovacijos yra būtinos. Nors pastaraisiais metais daug girdima ir kalbama apie socialinį verslą, kuris galima sakyti ir yra socialinė inovacija, vis dar šioje srityje nematyti didelio proveržio. Kadangi socialinis verslas gali veikti įvairiom formom, tačiau nuo tradicinio verslo modelio skiriasi tuo, kad pirminė jo misija yra socialinis poveikis ir nauda visuomenei – opių socialinių problemų mažinimas ar švelninimas – o ne akcininkų pelno maksimizavimas. Socialinio verslo plėtojimas galėtų būti paskata šalies regionams tuo pasinaudoti t.y. drąsiau kurti įmones, teikti paslaugas įtraukiant į veiklą vietinius gyventojus. Kadangi supratimas ir bendradarbiavimas turėtų būti abipusis- vietos valdžia ir NVO sektorius bei verslas, dar kartą siūlome panagrinėti 2011m. Europos Komisijos komunikatą apie socialinio verslo iniciatyvą, kuris aiškiai nusako socialinio verslo naudą šaliai, bendruomenei.
