Social Lean Canvas

Social Lean Canvas is an excellent and simple tool for developing a social enterprise idea rather than embarking on a 30-page business plan.

It is always important to be able to communicate information about one’s social economy activities to others. But having said that, it is also important to do things in the right sequence, and it may not be worthwhile to sit down and write a long business plan right away.

For start-up social enterprises, Social Lean Canvas is an excellent alternative to making a full business plan. Developed by Rowan Yeoman and Dave Moskovitz, the tool is designed to help one brainstorm possible business models and map out the purpose of one’s social enterprise. All on a single page.

As is the case with other companies, the goal of social enterprises in the initial phase is also to improve the chances of success and minimize the probability of failure.

Social Lean Canvas consists of 9 sections, which in combination show if one’s new social enterprise has the potential to get a product/market match. As you complete the canvas, you turn your idea into a set of assumptions that you can test with a goal to reach a careful, validated, scalable and copyable business model at some point.

Social Lean Canvas guides you through all facets of a social enterprises to help one identify and quantify tools and priorities.

The process encourages one to stay flexible and not obsessed with a single idea. Creating a visual overview of one’s social economy activity on a single page also makes it much easier to communicate one’s idea to others, but what is more important, it supports one in getting tested and testing the idea, which in the end can save one too many hours of work, efforts and resources.

Download Social Lean Canvas here https://socialleancanvas.com

“The Sedge” ideas for social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship differs from regular business with its higher goal– while classical companies aim to generate more profit, social enterprises are built with the mission to tackle some specific challenge in the society. Since the goal is different, also the forms of business differ from the classical ones. While identifying the issues may be the easiest part, finding a suitable and sustainable business model to tackle this issue is much more complicated. Sometimes the right path does not have to be invented by you – it already exists and solves similar social issues in another part of the world – or who knows – maybe somewhere really close. Therefore getting to know stories of the most successful cases and looking for ways how people have solved similar issues is very important in the way of identifying the best social business strategy. The Sedge has listed many great social business ideas that may serve as an inspiration for anyone who is looking for ways to solve issues within their community or society as such.

One of the listed social business ideas is to sell discounted products at a social supermarket – where low-income communities would be able to shop at much lower prices than in regular stores. These products can be either donated or sold at low prices to the social supermarket by the chain stores due to approaching expiry dates, some packaging damages or mislabeling.

Another initiative, called textbooks for social change, suggests the idea of investing profit from selling university textbooks in social programmes or developing communities. The programme would work in the following way – students would sell part of the used university textbooks to other university students while other part of the books would be donated to students who cannot afford to buy the necessary supplies for studies. Moreover, the profit generated by selling the books would be invested in social programmes for the underprivileged students.

Social business ideas are not only about providing material support – sometimes the goal is to offer lacking information and education. As an example in this kind of case can be selling innovative information products – such as baby blankets with information about how to take care of the baby, when to immunize, how big a baby should be at a specific age, and how often to feed the baby etc.  These blankets can be sold to wealthier communities and the generated profit can be invested to donate these products to underprivileged communities where people are lacking not only resources, but also education on such matters.

If you are looking for a business that could combine seeing the world and contributing to local communities, maybe it is worth to consider launching an educational travel company – gathering experienced travelers who know a lot about the destination and can provide intercultural learning experience. The profits from organizing these tours can then be invested in the local communities that you have visited. These are only few of the amazing ideas listed in the article – if you are looking for inspiration – visit https://www.thesedge.org/socent-spotlights/22-awesome-social-enterprise-business-ideas and get to know also other wonderful initiatives.

Interesting business model from UrbanLab Gdynia

 

UrbanLab Gdynia is a space. On one hand, it is a forum – a space of a dialogue and a discussion about the city – on the other? UrbanLab consists of actual rooms and places – a meeting hall, an office and a shared kitchen. Mixed together those two spaces create a brand new formula – the way of looking at the city and discussing it from the shared point of view starting with a diagnosis of common challenges and leading to a joint process of finding the best solutions.

Our efficiency depends on people – citizens of Gdynia, city’s representatives and officials. As UrbanLab we are cannot create solutions by ourselves. We are here to support and facilitate those groups by creating the best possible conditions for the social capital development and effective dialogue process. We are here to teach each other – our mission is to spread and improve civic education, promote the ability to change perspectives in order to see the same issue from others’ shoes. We can provide answers to questions asked by others, create tools for those eager to use them in order to improve the quality of life in the city. How are we doing all that? Come join us in the actual and inviting rooms of the UrbanLab Gdynia – the hall, the office and the open social kitchen.

fb.com/UrbanLabGdynia

Contact UrbanLab

(Al. Zwycięstwa 96/98)
Przemysław Górski
p.gorski@lis.gdynia.pl
urbanlab@lis.gdynia.pl
+48 58 727 39 16

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On the way to more innovative, collaborative and inclusive cities

All around the world urbanization is shaping the ways how societies live and work. The city is a living organism, moreover, it is a mirror of the society – the more creative, innovative and collaborative are the people, the more it will be felt also in the environment of the city.

Each and every city has its challenges and problems, and the city itself can become either a place with unsolvable issues or it can bloom as a hub for innovation, collaboration and new opportunities. The most important task for the near future will be to create and promote such urban ecosystems that enhance communication, cooperation among different stakeholders and where the necessity to meet people’s social needs will be put at the top of the priority list. The collection of nine essays by nine innovation leaders from around the world gives an insight in the ways how modern cities work to tackle societal challenges, and what is the role of the city in the development of innovative tools and mechanisms that make the everyday living of the inhabitants better.

Authors of the essays touch upon such challenges as the lack of interest and resources allocated for the collective intelligence – in a time when huge amounts of resources are invested in the artificial intelligence, we cannot forget about the importance of the human collaboration and development of more efficient collective solutions for various societal issues. While the machines may be more effective in many mechanic jobs, they are (at least so far) not able to tackle the challenges present at every community and city in the world. In the collection of essays one can also get to know some key suggestions for more innovation and collaboration within the cities that helps to tackle significant societal challenges. The suggestions of such initiatives include announcing awards and prizes for innovative ideas and practices that enrich community life, providing free, open and engaging spaces for displaying the work of local artists, organization of Community food kitchen labs, providing open and free sources of informal education for everyone, especially emphasizing the digital learning tools. More ideas include organizing children creativity workshops and idea contests, finding the resources for creation of mobile libraries, open wi-fi hotspots, as well as ensuring opportunities and providing the necessary knowledge for launching a social business. Essay authors also emphasize the importance of experiencing the real life of the city and the community in order to find the most effective solutions for issues that the particular city is facing. This may include such initiatives as in the Netherlands where in the municipality of Amersfoort civil servants are doing their job outside of the City Hall in order to be closer to the people and the real situation. Moreover, the necessary effect can be reached also by promoting closer cooperation between the policy makers and other parties – such as NGOs, Universities, interest groups and others.

There are many more thoughts, ideas and initiatives for the creation of innovative and inclusive cities presented in this collection of essays. Read the whole text here: https://socialinnovationexchange.org/insights/future-trends-innovative-cities

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Growth for the Common Good? Learnings from social enterprises’ growth process

For those readers interested in research, there’s a new juicy read from Finland. Saila Tykkyläinen’s doctoral theses about social enterprise growth has just been published. The researcher has been following up and analyzing the growth of 7 Finnish social enterprises of different business fields over the period of 5 years.

Here’s a short overview on the findings – the theses report as whole can be found from Lappeenranta University research gate: https://lutpub.lut.fi/handle/10024/160328

 

Rare social enterprise research

According to the report, research on social enterprise growth is still in its infancy. The purpose of this thesis is to pave the way towards a more holistic understanding of social enterprises’ growth process. As firm growth research is a theoretically more mature research field,  it is utilised as a reference point in this research; even if prior studies on social enterprise growth have emphasised the distinctiveness of social enterprise growth, the researcher thinks that separating these two domains of research may be unnecessary.

 

Research questions

This study addresses the following questions:

  1. Why do social enterprises pursue growth?
  2. What actually grows while they pursue growth?
  3. How is growth pursued?

 

Findings

Answers to the research questions can be summarized as follows:

  1. Growth orientation is conceptualised as managers’/owners’ growth motivations, which are influenced by their perceptions of the firm’s external environment and goals for growth. Also, social enterprise leaders’ are more growth-oriented than their colleagues running commercial enterprises and they are driven to grow by concerns related to their firms’ financial survival.
  2. The overall value of social enterprise growth cannot be reduced to changes in sales, employees and assets.  For many social enterprises, organisational growth is a way to achieve social outcomes.
  3. Creating a virtuous circle between financial and social missions of the firm is possible if the firm remains committed to its social mission and successfully finds partners that enable balanced growth.

The findings of this research are quite interesting as they call into question the dominance of social missions and social impact within the growth of social enterprises. The research showed that:

  • Finnish social enterprises are very market-oriented (as compared to social enterprises in many other countries)
  • the financial aspects of growth play a role from formulation of growth-related goals to implementation of growth modes, and
  • social enterprises grow faster than commercial enterprises in a recession. In the long run, the pace of growth of social and commercial enterprises was equal as social enterprises grew slower during an economic boom.

 

Towards fostering the balance of financial and social missions

As a suggestion, the researcher points out, that as the expected outcomes of growth are produced throughout the growth process, attention should be placed on ensuring that goals of growth and daily business activities foster the balance of financial and social missions.

 

Value to social enterprise development

According to the researcher, the thesis contributes to the theoretical development of research on social enterprise growth by drawing attention to the operationalisation of growth and influence of the operational environment on the growth process. Likewise, it provides insights for policy-makers and practitioners by increasing the understanding of how the pursuit of growth can facilitate the common good.

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Padlet – Visual tool for collaborative learning

Padlet is an  interesting visual collaboration tool which can be used for example to create discussion or collaborative learning around a certain topic.

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Example Padlet

Easy, intuitive, inclusive

Creating content to padlet  (“posting”) is very easy- just click, copy-paste or drag and drop – and there’s no limit to how many people can do it at the same time.  As a padlet board is created, people with access to it can add different types of content and they all appear in the same view which can easily be browsed through to get an overview. Changes are autosaved. Posts can be dragged to different parts of the board, and edited in many ways.

Images, documents, videos, music, and files from Photoshop, Illustrator, Autocad, and more can be uploaded, and in every post there’s possibility to comment – making discussions visible and intuitive to follow.

Sign-up is not compulsory – if someone invites you to a board, you can access it without signing up.

Check the features here.

 

Available in 29 languages and many devices

Unlike many collaboration tools which only are available in the most common languages, Padlet is available in almost 30 – adding another level to collaboration accessibility. It’s available on iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Android, and Kindle devices

Padlet includes a clear FAQ section in their website as well. Support available also via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook.

 

It’s free – unless you want more features

Access the free version of Padlet at https://padlet.com. They also separate plans for for example schools and companies. Payment is per organization or user.

 

Creative ways to use Padlet

Via these links you can find a few creative ways to use Padlet:

30 creative ways to use Padlet for teachers and students

Padlet Ideas in Pinterest

 

EUCLID Network issued a joint statement on social entrepreneurship in Europe

Euclid Network, the European Network representing social enterprises, together with 24 of the most prominent national networks for social enterprises from 20 countries have now joined forces and agreed to back 7 proposed actions in the statement to emphasize the importance of social enterprises in creating innovative solutions for sustainable impact. After six months of negotiations leading to the final vote of confidence of the European Parliament, the new European Commission will take office Sunday, the 1st of December:

Dear new Commission,

Euclid Network, the European Network representing social enterprises, together with 24 of the most prominent national networks for social enterprises from 20 countries join forces to wish you a successful mandate. As European Commission you are in a good position to enhance social entrepreneurship and social innovation in Europe. 

In this statement we present 7 priorities to keep impact-driven entrepreneurs advancing in Europe and its single market.

Proposed actions:

  • Ensure visibility of social enterprises amongst the general public, governments and corporates through a European wide Buy Social campaign.
  • Advance towards a common understanding on the legal and regulatory framework of social enterprises across Europe through cross-border learning and cross-border exchange.
  • Improve access to finance for social enterprises through:  

• simplified application procedures for EU funding, especially of the European Social Fund;

• increasing the budget of EaSI guarantee instrument (via Invest EU);

• investing in innovative financial products tailored to the specific characteristics of social enterprises.

  • Promote socially responsible public procurement in Europe through:

• binding social and environmental clauses in 100% of EU tenders and public contracts;

• encouraging Member States to include binding social and environmental clauses in all their public contracts. Invest and educate in impact measurement for social enterprises to better demonstrate their positive effect on the economy and society.

  • Invest and educate in impact measurement for social enterprises to better demonstrate their positive effect on the economy and society.
  • Enhance social innovation across Europe through:

• supporting internationalisation of social enterprises;

• building and enhancing (academic) knowledge on social entrepreneurship;

• encouraging educational institutions such as schools and universities to cover social entrepreneurship skills in their curricula.

  • Support intermediary organisations offering social enterprises assistance in financing, networking, business advisory and development support.

We want to thank you for your attention to these points. Your stance and vision are crucial to the health of the European social enterprise sector, enabling improved impact of sustainable solutions to global challenges. We stand ready to work alongside you to further advance these priorities.

Yours sincerely,

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Source: https://euclidnetwork.eu/2019/12/7-priorities-to-keep-impact-driven-entrepreneurs-advancing-in-europe/

How To Find An Awesome Business Idea And Shoot It?

STARTER for YOUth! A free of charge development programme? Yes, designed for YOUth.

STARTER, the business idea development program designed by 8 universites in Estonia is ready to provide you with everything you need to know about starting your own business.

The program is free of charge and does not require any previous knowledge of entrepreneurship. STARTER runs twice a year and you can choose between STARTERtallinn and STARTER@tartu at Tartu, depending on where you live. In 2019 also sub-programm STARTERhaapsalu is active in Tallinn University Haapsalu College. STARTER is a sub-program of the entrepreneurship education program (ettevõtlusõpe.ee).

programme_starter

Programme offers:

3-month program

Free business idea development program (trainings and workshops with real entrepreneurs) worth 5000 €

8 universities

Combined competences and resources of 8 Estonian universities

50+ mentors

50+ mentors and stellar business advice from the best industry experts

Events and networking

A lot of events and networking opportunities (matchmaking events, hackathons etc.)

Diploma or a certificate

Diploma or a certificate issued by the university upon program completion

Awesome prizes

Awesome prizes and access to further development programs

 

Program timeline:

The three-month idea development program consists of a kick off event, a number of training sessions and workshops, a networking/mentoring event, mentoring sessions and a demo day.

STARTER

 

Check more about the programme, next events, registrations and get inspired by the programme’s youth testimonials: here

Photo by TalTech.ee