Successful business models in Finland – case 2: kaksi.nolla

“kaksi.nolla Oy” offers housing services for the city of Tampere in Kontukoti (they have in total 26 places) and also they have started to offer home care for other customers. Kaksi.nolla is a social enterprise that has established their first elderly house ”Kontukoti” in the heart of city of Tampere. Kaksi.nolla is a limited liability company. The company’s goal is ”to be a home where the people flourish”. Basically it is an home like home for elderly people (elderly home). They are very much dedicated in improving their residents’ quality of life and they want to help in creating meaningful everyday life for their residents.

Kaksi.nolla was initiated in a project run by the city of Tampere, in which the city was searching for new ways to produce elderly care services and also ways to improve these services. After the project (which was run by the city) the actual social enterprise was founded by two individuals that used to work for the city but are now inpedendent entrepreneurs. Kaksi.nolla is therefore a good example of how a municipality can be of assistance in accelerating new social enterprises.

Kaksi.nolla’s aim is to be more customer centred in their approach than their competitors in the field. They are also aiming to offer better quality in their service and more freedom to their workers,. They are focusing in new kind of leadership where leadership and decision making is democratic and decentralised (for instance kaksi.nolla’s workers are represented in the board). They are committed to their personnel and want to have better working conditions for their workers. They believe that this should lead into happier and motivated employees and customers.  Kontukoti has been up and running from beginning of the year 2014  and its services have already been proven to be very good (in relation to other service producers) in customer surveys conducted by the commissioner city of Tampere.

Read more information of the organization (in Finnish): http://www.kontukoti.fi

 

What’s happening in the field of social entrepreneurship in Finland at the moment?

What’s happening in the field of social entrepreneurship in Finland at the moment?

If I’d need to say it in one word, it would be this: buzz. 

There is definitely a positive buzz at the moment in the field of organizations that are wanting to make a positive impact to the society.  For instance, there are all kinds of happenings and events organised by support organisations, students, networks – you name it. In addition to events and such, as Sitra has aimed to introduce the impact investing model in Finland, Sitra has now launched the first Social Impact Bond (SIB) in Finland together with Me-säätiö.   Sitra has also held the first Impact Accelerator program and is now conducting the second program already. Tekes has been active as well together with Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ and they have now a program called BEAM – Business with impact. The program aims to generate new, sustainable business in developing countries.

New Social Enterprise Marks have been given to social enterprises making it in total 68 organizations that have the Finnish Social Enterprise Mark. However there was a new research published by ETLA that says that there is already over 19 000 social enterprises in Finland.

In addition to these, there’s different informal networks  – for example Impact Finland.  Impact Finland describes itself as a group “for all identifying themselves as impact-minded / mission-driven / social entrepreneurs in Finland”. Impact Iglu is a community  that is also doing a lot of interesting things at the moment – it describes itself as a “community for value-driven entrepreneurs”.

From the event side, I believe many of us #socent people are already waiting for the next Slush where there will be Slush Impact track again that is meant for social impact ventures, startup-minded non-profits and impact investors. There are also more places to bump in to like-minded people – especially in Helsinki area – co-working places such as Helsinki Think Company or Aalto Design Factory.

The overall feeling in the field seems to be that the term social entrepreneurship in Finnish has not truly conquered the whole of Finland. However, I see even more often than a few years ago people who are passionate about making a positive impact.  I’ve personally come to terms with the term and the discussion surrounding it: who cares what the term is as long as there are positive impacts!