Recession: The Social Enterprise

My name is Hannah and I work for a social enterprise.


I am the Manager of a venue in the centre of Oxford called the Oxford Hub which comprises of a cafe/bar/restaurant, the Turl Street Kitchen, events space and managed office space for student and youth facing charities.  I work for the sister Community Interest Company to the charity Student Hubs (mothership to Oxford Hub).  


Over the last 16 months through planning and launching this venue I have learned a few things I thought I would never need to know - how to count crockery on your hands and knees at 1am, how to plaster a wall so the plaster is smooth and how to never think that carrying furniture is a chore.  But I've also come to understand and believe pretty strongly that social enterprises might show a few glimmers of a new way of doing business, or at least a middle way of sorts.


Social enterprise has been a bit of a buzz phrase over the past year in Britain.  David Cameron was quick to align himself with the idea that social enterprise could and should play a vital role in re-stabilising the economy and bringing about his vision of a big society.  He's not the only one who is interested in the new face and way of business.  In fact, positive vibes on all kinds of social businesses just keep coming - 2012 is also officially the UN year of the co-operative.  Social entrepreneurs and their work are becoming more and more visible, from the frankly gorgeous founder of TOMS shoes, Blake Makowski gaining enough airtime to rival Kim Kardashian to the success of the movement Teach for America and its British counterpart Teach First, now the third highest graduate recruiter in the country.


So, first question, 'what is a social enterprise?' - I put it to the ordinary experts.


The answers were varied in their emphases - but most centred around three key concepts:



1. A social enterprise is something which provides a product or service
2. A social enterprise is something which invests its profits either in 'social good' or reinvests them to grow the business
3. A social enterprise has a clear community of benefit and problem which it is trying to solve


These fit quite neatly into the definition from the very helpful Social Enterprise UK website

A social enterprise is a business that trades for a social and/or environmental purpose. It will have a clear sense of its ‘social mission’:  which means it will know what difference it is trying to make, who it aims to help, and how it plans to do it.  It will bring in most or all of its income through selling goods or services.  And it will also have clear rules about what it does with its profits, reinvesting these to further the ‘social mission’

We then chatted through some of the well-known social enterprises and how they were hitting these three key targes.  I've liberally gone through their websites to see what these organisations say about themselves so best to have a google for a more balanced description.

1. The Big Issue

Product/Service? A newspaper, The Big Issue, sold to Joe public.


Profits?  Part given to the seller, part reinvested in the business, part put towards the Big Issue Foundation


Community of benefit/social good? Rough sleepers and homeless people are given the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, thereby ‘helping them to help themselves’. 


Created as a business solution to a social problem The Big Issue has gone on to become one of the most instantly recognisable brands in the UK and a powerful blueprint for social change.

2. Divine Chocolate

Product/Service?  Fantastic chocolate and cocoa products.


Profits? To the farmers or into the company.


Community of benefit/social good? Divine is the only Fairtrade chocolate company which is 45% owned by the farmers. While Fairtrade ensures farmers receive a better deal for their cocoa and additional income to invest in their community, company ownership gives farmers a share of Divine’s profits and a stronger voice in the cocoa industry. 

3. The Eden Project 

Product/Service? The Eden Project is an eco visitor attraction comprising of a rainforest, gardens and an educational charity in the heart of Cornwall.


Profits? Put into employing more staff and expanding their projects.  


Community of benefit/social good? This attraction has revived the local community with its incredible design, creation of jobs and programme of events.  They also run environmental and social projects, focus on creating unforgettable learning experiences for students, commission and support research into plants and conservation and run their operations as greenly as they can.

4. Fifteen

Product/Service?  A professional Italian restaurant chain


Profits? Again, put into the business to expand and thereby create more apprenticeships


Community of benefit/social good? Fifteen was founded by Jamie Oliver in 2002. His vision was to create a professionally run kitchen alongside an Apprentice Programme. At the heart of the business is a pastoral programme, designed to enable young people to gain confidence in their chosen career. Every year, each restaurant recruits unemployed and under-qualified young people, aged between 18 and 24, from the local area and trains them to become qualified chefs through a unique Apprentice Programme.

Great - so now we know WHAT a social enterprise is, it might help to think about WHY they are important and HOW they are currently impacting the British economy.

The best resource for answering some of these questions is to be found in a fantastic report done by Social Enterprise called 'Fightback Britain: a report on the State of Social Enterprise Survey 2011', available online.  It looks at numerous small to medium enterprises in comparison to social enterprises and considers both how they have impacted the recession and how it has impacted them.  





I can't give you a fully detailed analysis of the report here but some of the key factors to pull out from the survey can be found in the bullets below, quoted from the document:

'Overall, our survey has revealed that social enterprises:

• Are most likely to start-up and work in Britain’s most deprived communities

• Reinvest in the communities where they are based

• Are run by younger people than traditional SMEs, with a high proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic directors, as well as female directors

• Are accountable to their customers and communities, involving them in business decisions

• Are increasingly trading with consumers and with private companies

• Are turning away from public sector markets, in favour of consumers and private companies

In short, a generation of businesses starting up in Britain’s most deprived communities is fighting deprivation and social problems, and they expect to become increasingly independent of government.'

This report and our discussions led me to think of some questions to pose to everyone.

1. Is now the time for us to radically re-think the way we do business?  

2. Is now the time to value process in a similar way that we have come to product?

3. Is now the time to start seriously considering the possibility that our local and global economies can and should not only be in good health but also in good heart?

According to Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, the answer to these questions is quite resoundingly 'yes'.

“Businesses acting as businesses, not as charitable donors, are the most powerful force for addressing the pressing issues we face. The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy. It will also reshape capitalism and its relationship to society.”

And to Tim Smit, founder of the Eden project, the call to action is even more stark.

‘Don’t be a schmuck and become a banker, be a social entrepreneur and change the world’.

Like I said, I'm no expert - but for an expert and inspiration overload check out the series of videos with the world leading social entrepreneurs from the Skoll World Forum in Oxford 2011.  

I'll leave you with my favourite, a classic from Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College.

http://www.takepart.com/video/poverty’s-worst-enemy-bunker-roy-and-barefoot-college