Social Enterprise and family business

http://www.ifb.org.uk/ The world is witnessing the emergence of new business models where entrepreneurs with a social conscience are creating an impact while making their venture financially sustainable. The growing emergence of this form of business, known as social enterprise, is an area where the UK sets the pace.

For family business owners awareness of these new models is highly relevant; for example in terms of how social enterprise can form part of the business’s supply chain or indeed how next generation family members could see social enterprise as part of their career development.

The IFB Women’s Forum recently visited the acclaimed School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in east London. This organisation helps develop business projects and provides training and opportunities for people to use their abilities more fully for social benefit. One of the enterprises SSE supports is Bikeworks, based in Tower Hamlets, which provides cycling for all, encouraging the health and wellbeing of everybody in their community. In three years of trading the co-founders have built a business making significant social impact with revenues approaching £1M, and now poised to expand their brand across London.

In another example social entrepreneur and former scientist Sheenagh Day was inspired to establish Maison Bengal a fair trade company, producing high quality home and gift accessories, whose philosophy aims to improve the lives of communities in Bangladesh by developing a sustainable market for their products. The business sells its products through retailers such as Heals and the White Company and has helped thousands of women and their dependents.

These successful companies show how blending strategies from the for-profit world with the social aims of Non-governmental organisations and charities can deliver a sustainable positive impact.

Related articles

• Wates takes social enterprise seriously (telegraph.co.uk)

Social enterprise - building the Big Society

http://www.ifb.org.uk/
I witnessed social entrepreneurship in action last week when the IFB participated in a Business in the Community event visiting charities and social enterprises in London’s East End. The event showed how business can bring benefit to their own organisations, as well as wider society, by getting involved in these activities.

Social entrepreneurs are people who use their entrepreneurial can-do approach and creative mind to set up organisations that deliver social or environmental benefits and help change lives and society for the better. And among the enterprises I saw in the Seeing is Believing programme was Shepresa that offers support to Albanian’s who have fled violence or persecution to seek asylum in our country. There was also Bikeworks, in Tower Hamlets, which provides a range of cycling related services, including vocational training for people from homeless and other challenging backgrounds.

The leaders of the organisations are alumni of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in Bethnall Green, an organisation at the forefront of this sector in terms of education. We saw first-hand how businesses can engage in the work that SSE does developing leadership and other business skills in budding social entrepreneurs.

This is all about putting, what David Cameron called, the Big Society into action - the Government has made a specific commitment to encourage social enterprises. There is a huge role for business to play, working with social enterprise to bring benefits back to our organisations through greater employee satisfaction and learning as well as strengthening social capital generally.

Family businesses can get involved in supporting social enterprise in a number of ways including investing in it and including it in the firm’s supply chain. There are also ways of involving employees, including offering opportunities for secondments, or providing mentoring to social entrepreneurs, as well as pro bono advice and expertise.