Showing posts with label Social Enterprise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Enterprise. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
This post is about new alternative financing options and the challenges they present to social entities around the world.
Along my journeys around the world, I worked with more than a hundred social organisations of all types. From ‘first storey’ ones running programmes to secondary and tertiary social institutions like funding intermediaries and foundations. The full list is here. Given the financial stresses that the world is currently under, I’m sure you can imagine that much of my time was spent in helping design new structures and approaches for reducing dependency on traditional fund-raising.
The big challenge that non-profits, intermediaries and social entrepreneurs have been facing is that traditional funding has dried up with the recession, while at the same time the number of entities effectively vying for the same funds is increasing as the internet levels the global playing field. Couple this with the fact that most funders haven’t really got a clue what they’re doing and you’ve got a situation where organisations are forced into a pied piper situation. Follow the funder into whatever hole they dictate. This is both demoralising and unproductive en-route to any desired social impact.
In most countries around the world, there is also limited or no Government funding for social or non-profit enterprises, so organisations are having to consider other alternatives.
The simple reality is that transformative work can rarely be funded by revenue generating activities alone. It takes between 8 and 15 years to really transform the lives and environments of people and communities and that kind of intensive support and interaction can rarely be funded by peripheral revenue streams. If a social organisation in the transformation space is able to cover 15 or 20% of its operating cost through its own revenue streams, it’s usually doing pretty well.
The danger of revenue streams is that they often feel like high priority even though they are not the primary finance source. This means that they can often drain the time and energy of the leaders of the organisation away from the social mission, or worse still result in significant mission drift. The best way to take on revenue streams is to ensure that they have their own dedicated people and that they spin off from work that the organisation already does in delivering its social mission.
Unfortunately, there's only a certain number of corporates large enough and interested enough to run social sponsorship programmes. In Mexico for example there were probably only about 20 obvious candidates... HSBC, AXA, Zurich Bank, Scotia Bank, Axtel, Kleenex, Kotex, Marti, Danone, Wal-Mart, Gamesa, Colgate, Novartis, Pfizer, Cemex, Bimbo, P&G, Cadbury, Kraft, Pepsi Co and Femsa - and only about 2 of these were actually local companies. What I found therefore was that social organisations, large and small, were all competing for funding from the same players. The small ones can't really compete with the bigger organisations, and the bigger organisations need more funding than is now available after the recession, so nobody wins except the funder, whose primary goal is brand kudos and audience recognition.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'd imagine that if all these companies and foundations co-operated to create a single fund, and then split this to cater for larger umbrella organisations and smaller grassroots organisations separately, there'd be a better distribution of funding. Specifying focus areas would still allow companies to be associated with the projects that fit the image they want to project, and they'd all benefit from the economies of scale and removal of duplication of administrative effort and cost.
My usual advice is that if your organisation isn’t simply an alternative business, and doesn’t have legal, contractual and financial expertise equivalent to that of the investing entity, the power imbalance is too steep. However good it looks on the surface; best avoid.
Where organisations start out as social businesses or ‘social enterprises’ they may avoid the problem of managing business models in context, but immediately face the ongoing challenge of balancing out social impact and profit. This is simple enough with one-dimensional products or services like solar lamps or microfinance, but not so easy with long term transformative or development goals. The big myth being perpetuated by the sector is that impact and profit are not mutually exclusive, but in reality they often collide head-on. The ongoing exploitation and failures of Microfinance across the world are a good example of this. At some point the commercial entity’s priority typically shifts from social benefit to financial survival and/or growth. Without very clear ongoing definitions and regulation of priority, the grey area often blurs and we’ve ended up in a sector that is massively based on spin.
It is definitely possible and desirable to design transformative programmes so they can be self-financing, but the sector is neatly ignoring the fact that they take longer to break-even than equivalent businesses that don’t have to cost for ethical and development practices. These entities may be financially viable but are unlikely to ever make serious money for their owners, and the number of small and mid-sized social enterprises that operate at survival levels bears this out.
Out in the field and away from the ‘first world’, I found most social enterprises to maintain non-profit rather than commercial status. Their charity status usually goes a long way towards subsidising costs and provides them with alternate means of financing if their revenue streams fail to meet operating expenses in the pursuit of social impact.
It’s specific to their context, but you’ll get the jist.
Some organisations like Sustentavia are also starting to provide this improved operating capacity as consultancies. They have clever business models which recognise that you can't really expect cash strapped social organisations to pay for services up front when they don't have the money, and hence aim for long term partnerships and investment in future financial success instead.
Overall, you could suggest that I paint a bleak picture, but this is the reality out there. We still have a way to go. Of course, as mentioned earlier, there are exceptions to every rule and laudable successes in every financing category, but exceptions aren’t going to solve problems on the scale we’re dealing with around the globe.
My usual suggestion is to understand the risks and challenges that the different options present. Then pick and choose the financing mechanism, or combination of, that your organisation is best able to manage and cope with. If you proceed sensibly then any of the above should work reasonably well for you.
Along my journeys around the world, I worked with more than a hundred social organisations of all types. From ‘first storey’ ones running programmes to secondary and tertiary social institutions like funding intermediaries and foundations. The full list is here. Given the financial stresses that the world is currently under, I’m sure you can imagine that much of my time was spent in helping design new structures and approaches for reducing dependency on traditional fund-raising.
Traditional Fundraising
- Donations from Friends and Family
- Street level and online collection campaigns and donation drives
- Larger scale hand-outs and Endowments from High Net Worth Individuals
- Grants from Foundations and Funding Intermediaries
- International Development Funds – Governmental (eg USAID) / Trans-Governmental (eg WorldBank)
- Corporate Social Responsibility
The big challenge that non-profits, intermediaries and social entrepreneurs have been facing is that traditional funding has dried up with the recession, while at the same time the number of entities effectively vying for the same funds is increasing as the internet levels the global playing field. Couple this with the fact that most funders haven’t really got a clue what they’re doing and you’ve got a situation where organisations are forced into a pied piper situation. Follow the funder into whatever hole they dictate. This is both demoralising and unproductive en-route to any desired social impact.
In most countries around the world, there is also limited or no Government funding for social or non-profit enterprises, so organisations are having to consider other alternatives.
Alternative Financing Options
The following in no order of priority are rapidly growing in take-up all over the world- Revenue Streams
- Sponsorship from large corporate or multinational entities
- Crowd-funding
- Social Loans
- Social Investment
- Hybrid Value Chains (Inclusive Business Models)
- Self Financing Business Models (Social Enterprise)
1. Revenue Streams
Most people would have you believe that non-profit entities generally have no financial or business acumen. This is not true at all. Many mid-sized and large non-profits operate a range of activities that generate income. Social organisations can directly or indirectly monetise a range of things from Products to Services to Advice, Brand, Data and I.P. (knowledge, learning, methodology, tools). Thinking along business principles brings a range of operational benefits including agility and efficiencies. This is the option I usually recommend, but organisations have to be watchful to maintain priorities.The simple reality is that transformative work can rarely be funded by revenue generating activities alone. It takes between 8 and 15 years to really transform the lives and environments of people and communities and that kind of intensive support and interaction can rarely be funded by peripheral revenue streams. If a social organisation in the transformation space is able to cover 15 or 20% of its operating cost through its own revenue streams, it’s usually doing pretty well.
The danger of revenue streams is that they often feel like high priority even though they are not the primary finance source. This means that they can often drain the time and energy of the leaders of the organisation away from the social mission, or worse still result in significant mission drift. The best way to take on revenue streams is to ensure that they have their own dedicated people and that they spin off from work that the organisation already does in delivering its social mission.
2. Sponsorship from large corporate or multinational entities
As social networks continue to humanise and change the face of brand perception, companies are ramping up their connections with social change. This presents an increasing opportunity to leverage sponsorship for social movements and campaigns. They can also provide a range of value from expertise to connections but often need exclusivity and/or adherence to their own set of conditions. The sponsor is usually looking for three things to make it worth their while: Reach, Scale and Impact. If your project can provide these, then this is an option worth considering. Here’s the basic proposal structure you will need.Unfortunately, there's only a certain number of corporates large enough and interested enough to run social sponsorship programmes. In Mexico for example there were probably only about 20 obvious candidates... HSBC, AXA, Zurich Bank, Scotia Bank, Axtel, Kleenex, Kotex, Marti, Danone, Wal-Mart, Gamesa, Colgate, Novartis, Pfizer, Cemex, Bimbo, P&G, Cadbury, Kraft, Pepsi Co and Femsa - and only about 2 of these were actually local companies. What I found therefore was that social organisations, large and small, were all competing for funding from the same players. The small ones can't really compete with the bigger organisations, and the bigger organisations need more funding than is now available after the recession, so nobody wins except the funder, whose primary goal is brand kudos and audience recognition.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'd imagine that if all these companies and foundations co-operated to create a single fund, and then split this to cater for larger umbrella organisations and smaller grassroots organisations separately, there'd be a better distribution of funding. Specifying focus areas would still allow companies to be associated with the projects that fit the image they want to project, and they'd all benefit from the economies of scale and removal of duplication of administrative effort and cost.
3. Crowd-funding
Crowd-funding is simply a fancy word for getting lots of people to put in a small amount of money to your venture, typically online. In reality donation drives are an example of crowd-funding, but these typically only apply to projects and organisations formally registered as Charities. If you’re looking to set up revenue streams, finance local economic development or run a project without formal charitable status, your options used to be very limited. Today however there are a number of avenues to crowd-fund your projects. Some of them require a return on investment, while others don’t. Here’s some sites you can use- http://www.giveforward.com/
- https://www.profounder.com/
- http://www.kapipal.com/
- http://www.createafund.com/
- http://www.thepoint.com/
- http://www.crowdrise.com/
- http://www.socialvibe.com/
4. Social Loans
These may seem like an oxymoron, but they do exist, at least in the western space. Organisations like the Adventure Capital Fund provide development loans to non-profits and social enterprises which then have to be paid back the same as any other loan. These can be useful in moving organisations forward; come with a bit more flexibility than a standard bank loan; and usually involve useful coaching and business development support to help ensure ability to pay back. In principle this ought to work, but for all the talk of the triple bottom line, my experience has been that lending and investment entities do not weigh the social impact the same as financial return. Inability to pay back the loan will not be overlooked regardless of how much benefit is being provided to the community, and compromises to the social mission all the way down to liquidation will be enforced in order to ensure recovery of finance. In other words, be careful!5. Social Investment
This is the big hype of the moment. The apparent answer to all our scaling prayers. Social Investment of course is really only an option for social businesses and not a viable funding strategy for general development work. Investors aren’t interested in non-profit or human transformation programmes. They’re looking to fund new technologies, utilities, energy, products, enterprise and saleable services. The typical IRR is still 30% and for many investors this is just another opportunity to make money, gain competitive advantage in an increasingly socially aware market, and look good at the same time. Aside from the few that are really trying to do something positive, I’ve already been pulled into extricating a series of social organisations from investors doing everything from under the radar land grabs, to fraud and brute exploitation in the sharing of profits. It’s all still too new and exciting for much of the negative aspects to surface, but be sure that it will in the next few years.My usual advice is that if your organisation isn’t simply an alternative business, and doesn’t have legal, contractual and financial expertise equivalent to that of the investing entity, the power imbalance is too steep. However good it looks on the surface; best avoid.
6. Hybrid Value Chains (Inclusive Business Models)
The hybrid value chain model is relevant only to the limited spaces where social enterprises are working with local or indigenous producers or communities, and can connect these with commercial organisations looking to reduce production costs or to scale their markets; thus creating partnerships that should result in financial and social benefit for all parties. From my experience however, I find that the winner here is usually the corporation. They receive brand kudos and often a massively subsidised entry into new markets, while social and community players absorb the brunt of cost and complication. This is because they are usually entering new operational spaces without the expertise to cost, plan or deliver what they’re taking on. Not because they aren’t capable, but because their skills are differently focused. The result is usually a massive underestimation and under-costing of commercial deliverables by the social players, putting them at much higher risk than the commercial partner.7. Social Enterprise and Self Financing Business Models
Self-financing business models are the obvious answer for complete independence, but it isn't really that simple for many social organisations. For starters, many of the founders don't have deep business skills or experience because their expertise is focused on human challenges. More importantly they don't have the spare time or resource available to identify and set these models up. The standard funder solutions all focus on up-skilling the people that run social organisations, but over the past few years I've begun to realise that while this is needed, it is not going to address the problem. The reason is that business model innovation in a social context is harder than simply starting with a business idea that sells. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but redesigning organisations to cope with these new practices is often more complicated than anything you could expect someone without significant experience to achieve.Where organisations start out as social businesses or ‘social enterprises’ they may avoid the problem of managing business models in context, but immediately face the ongoing challenge of balancing out social impact and profit. This is simple enough with one-dimensional products or services like solar lamps or microfinance, but not so easy with long term transformative or development goals. The big myth being perpetuated by the sector is that impact and profit are not mutually exclusive, but in reality they often collide head-on. The ongoing exploitation and failures of Microfinance across the world are a good example of this. At some point the commercial entity’s priority typically shifts from social benefit to financial survival and/or growth. Without very clear ongoing definitions and regulation of priority, the grey area often blurs and we’ve ended up in a sector that is massively based on spin.
It is definitely possible and desirable to design transformative programmes so they can be self-financing, but the sector is neatly ignoring the fact that they take longer to break-even than equivalent businesses that don’t have to cost for ethical and development practices. These entities may be financially viable but are unlikely to ever make serious money for their owners, and the number of small and mid-sized social enterprises that operate at survival levels bears this out.
Out in the field and away from the ‘first world’, I found most social enterprises to maintain non-profit rather than commercial status. Their charity status usually goes a long way towards subsidising costs and provides them with alternate means of financing if their revenue streams fail to meet operating expenses in the pursuit of social impact.
Coping with Financing and Operating Challenges
One of the things I’ve been advocating for is for umbrella organisations to set-up Shared Service (Resource) Centres that add the skill and resource capacity that smaller organisations need in order to be able to innovate and grow. I've helped set these up for Local Government when I was working as a Consultant in the UK, and don't believe this would be difficult to set up for the social sector. I wrote a bit about them in my article on partnerships for the social sector (http://bit.ly/4BSu9y) and put up some scribbles from a workshop with UnLtd on designing Shared Resource Centres in a presentation here:It’s specific to their context, but you’ll get the jist.
Some organisations like Sustentavia are also starting to provide this improved operating capacity as consultancies. They have clever business models which recognise that you can't really expect cash strapped social organisations to pay for services up front when they don't have the money, and hence aim for long term partnerships and investment in future financial success instead.
Overall, you could suggest that I paint a bleak picture, but this is the reality out there. We still have a way to go. Of course, as mentioned earlier, there are exceptions to every rule and laudable successes in every financing category, but exceptions aren’t going to solve problems on the scale we’re dealing with around the globe.
My usual suggestion is to understand the risks and challenges that the different options present. Then pick and choose the financing mechanism, or combination of, that your organisation is best able to manage and cope with. If you proceed sensibly then any of the above should work reasonably well for you.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Over the past few years I've looked at problems faced by a number of different social organisations, including new startups, developing organisations, and fully established ones. I typically see one common underlying factor; many of the issues stem from a failure to define some key points with the clarity and simplicity needed to make those definitions useful.
Before we continue, let me just say that this is not going to be one of those articles with 20 tenets or pieces of pithy advice. It is about 20 key things that you can and should work out for your social organisation.
At its core, everything I outline below can all be summarised into one overall key to success...
...FOCUS!!
Until you define your key points of focus, your limited funds and resources are continually wasted on attempts to cover all bases and do too many things. You end up with a Brownian motion of people’s activities; lots of ad-hoc decisions made around on a host of assumptions. It all heads in one general social direction, but with a lot of wastage and pain along the way. Prioritising becomes impossible and core platforms of long term development get missed. Over time, this leads to many of the problems and fire-fighting that social organisations face.
Here’s my list of 20 key things all social organisations should have written down.
- Mission
The real reason you set up. - Goals
What you want to achieve & How. - Potential Revenue Streams
Split into core, supplemental and potential revenue. Think business model innovation.- Strategy for long term Financial Sustainability.
- Core revenue – Grants, donations, and products or services you charge for.
- Supplemental revenue (opportunities for monetising your organisational brand, IP, audience and assets).
- Target Audience
- Groups that you’re trying to impact.
Primary, secondary and tertiary.
Outline needs of each group. - Recruitment strategies.
- Long term value for beneficiaries.
- Groups that you’re trying to impact.
- Services & Offerings
Make sure they are what your audience really needs, and not simply what you can or want to offer.- Core.
- Peripheral.
- SWOT Outline
i.e. A quadrant grid showing Strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. - Vision
Where you plan to be in the Short, Medium and Long Term.- Realistic short-term (1yr).
- Challenging medium-term (3yr).
- Inspirational long-term (5-10yr).
- Development Strategy /Roadmap Plans
These need to be created specifically to achieve the vision – ideally for a 3yr timeframe. Include yearly changes for organisation size and structure, development focus, and revenue needed. - Cost/Revenue models
These must directly fit your roadmaps.- Detailed costs of services inclusive of all overheads.
- Profit margins over and above cost. It is surprising how often organisations get profit assumptions completely wrong.
- Cost / Revenue grouping for ongoing comparison.
- Realistic funding needed and how it will be distributed.
- Risks and Mitigations
Growth and Development challenges & how you’re going to address them. - Plans for ensuring long term value to your end audience
For example, alumni community platforms to enable interaction and ongoing engagement between beneficiaries. - Competitors and Similar Organisations
Regionally and globally (now that we’re all connected by the web, you are competing for recognition, funding and audience with organisations from all over the world). Knowing these can also help you build great collaborations and make a bigger difference (see 16). - Unique Selling Points & Differentiators
If you don’t have any, make sure you create them. Without these there is no good reason for funders to pick you over the myriad organisations out there. - Potential Funders
- Identify sectors and prioritise – typically
Corporate CSR,
Commercial Brands that want the association,
Trusts,
Government,
Individuals,
Community. - Identify specific targets.
- Identify what value they would gain from being associated with your org (conversely rethink what you do to ensure that funders get clear value from their engagement with you).
- Identify sectors and prioritise – typically
- Framework for displaying Social Return on Investment (SROI)
- Support Networks
Organisations that you could partner / affiliate with:- Social sector funders and developmental organisations
- Charities and NGOs
- Other organisations doing similar things – collaborating is a very fast way of scaling your outcomes and your reach.
- Targets & Performance Management
Anything you’re trying to develop must involve something to aim for. Your vision roadmap should essentially define your targets for you.- Short term activity targets that roll up into long-term impacts.
- Strategies or mechanisms for monitoring long-term impacts. In the long run this is going to be your best selling point for raising investment and support.
- Brand Strategy
Brand associations drive both individual and corporate engagement.- What image and personality you want to project
- Core themes and messaging
- Marketing & PR Strategy
- Channels you’re going to focus on
- Messaging
- How you plan to involve/engage press media (online and offline)
- Community & Social Media Strategies
The web is now ubiquitous and a global connector for communities. It can also drive funding and support from sources you never dreamed you could access. Social media refers to the free and open platforms that already have huge connected audiences, like Facebook, Twitter, Ning and Youtube. All you have to do is surf the wave.- Plans for building global and regional support communities using the web
- Social media strategy
Social media platforms and goals for each
Codes of engagement and responsible resource
Once understood and defined, many of these points of focus roll into one another and can be prioritised, developed and managed with very little effort. You don’t have to be gung-ho and try and get everything achieved in one massive effort. Social issues are typically long term and have few quick fixes. As a social organisation you should be planning to be around for a long time so continual small steps in a clear direction are often all you need to be successful in the long run.
For each key driver, the trick is to avoid lots of words or huge business plan style documents that cannot be easily read or updated. Instead aim to have single PowerPoint slides or 1 pagers with short descriptions or a list of bullets that clarifies the essence of what you’re trying to achieve. Do NOT waste time debating semantics or making it perfect. Just brainstorm what you know, identify the gaps and dedicate some time to defining the answers. All you need is enough to provide clear direction and some decent guidelines for ongoing decision making.
Always think practical and focus on communicating simply and effectively. Check the following:
- Can the definitions be used by people within your organisation?
- Can they be reviewed and updated easily?
- Mission, Strategy, Tactics Pyramid.
- 3 year Vision and Strategy Roadmap.
- SWOT grid
- High Level Stakeholder Analysis (covers audience, funders, support networks).
- Summarised Cost vs Revenue Charts.
- USPs.
If you want help with any of this drop me a line and I’ll talk you through it.
Monday, 14 November 2011
While in Northern Thailand some years ago, I was invited to the Payap University in Chiang Mai for a session with some budding social entrepreneurs. A group of University students that were starting a project on multi-lingual learning for one of the local communities they had been working with, needed help with understanding how to implement their ideas. This post is based on the questions we identified during that session.
As with many new projects, the solution to a problem is typically pre-assumed and taken as given; based on the starting team or individual's particular point of focus, interest or skill. In other words they have something they believe will be beneficial to local communities and set about finding a place to fit their solution, without first answering the difficult questions that should be asked by any impact startup.
Having worked with over 100 social organisations around the world, I’ve found that this is a major reason why projects struggle to both survive and/or make any meaningful impact. Many ‘unexpected’ challenges can quite easily be extrapolated in advance if someone just bothers to model (think critically about) the implementation cycle before rushing in.
Truth is it’s not that the group or individual is being wilfully negligent. Since most people in this space mean well and start out with the assumption that their idea/approach will be useful…
As I mentioned in my other post on the 20 Keys to Building a Successful Social Enterprise, vaguely ‘knowing’ the answer in your head is not good enough. You must be able to document at least half a page on each.
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So this post is about help with the first step in the start-up cycle.
Solution/Project Design
Short Term Effectiveness and Efficiency
Costing and Budgeting
Long-Term Sustainability
Until then, hold off and do the groundwork to ensure that you and your idea won’t just waste money that could be put to better use.
Finally, make the difficult decision – Go or No-Go.
As with many new projects, the solution to a problem is typically pre-assumed and taken as given; based on the starting team or individual's particular point of focus, interest or skill. In other words they have something they believe will be beneficial to local communities and set about finding a place to fit their solution, without first answering the difficult questions that should be asked by any impact startup.
Having worked with over 100 social organisations around the world, I’ve found that this is a major reason why projects struggle to both survive and/or make any meaningful impact. Many ‘unexpected’ challenges can quite easily be extrapolated in advance if someone just bothers to model (think critically about) the implementation cycle before rushing in.
Truth is it’s not that the group or individual is being wilfully negligent. Since most people in this space mean well and start out with the assumption that their idea/approach will be useful…
- There is a natural and understandable tendency to gloss over anything that might indicate the project is not worth starting.
- For most new entrants without previous experiences of starting up and implementing solutions, the questions to ask are not always obvious.
As I mentioned in my other post on the 20 Keys to Building a Successful Social Enterprise, vaguely ‘knowing’ the answer in your head is not good enough. You must be able to document at least half a page on each.
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3 Basic Steps in Starting a Social Project
- Imagine the programme/project in detail to understand start-up design and cost.
- Ensure you have a clear long term vision and expectations, plus a development plan to get there. These are critical for both credibility and sustainability.
- Identify (research) the mechanism of fundraising and the type of funder based on the amount of funding required. Note that small funding has different criteria to large funding.
So this post is about help with the first step in the start-up cycle.
Questions to help you flesh out and imagine your project in detail
----------------Solution/Project Design
- What tells you there is a problem in the community i.e. What are the specific indicators of the problem and what is the size of the problem? (This is your Problem Definition and initial Benchmarking)
- Which specific bit are you most worried about i.e. trying to improve/change? (This is your Mission)
- How will you address those problem indicators? (This your Idea/Strategy/Solution)
- What are the challenges you see i.e. Why might your plans fail? (These are your Risks)
- How will you know if these are the right approaches? (This is your Pilot i.e. where you test your ideas with the community and/or ensure that you have involved them in the design)
- How would you start, and how long would it take to get your idea working eg. How long to build and set up community support, or get planning permission, or train staff, or test/pilot your idea etc? (This is your initial Start-up Timeline)
- How would it evolve from a pilot into a mature programme, and over what timeframe? (This is your long-term development Roadmap)
- How and When would you know that the problem is solved? (This is your Vision and defines your Outcome Targets)
Short Term Effectiveness and Efficiency
- Who else is doing the same thing and can you just help them instead?
- Who can you partner with?
- What solutions can you copy?
- What more do you need to learn to do this properly?
- How can the community help and how can they stay involved?
- How could you use volunteers?
Costing and Budgeting
- What infrastructure does the project need (physical, organisational, technological, logistical)?
- What people/skills does the project need?
- What other things like materials will the project use?
- How much would it cost to start/set-up the project?
- How much would it cost to maintain?
- What might be the ideal size for your organisation, and what would you need to grow it to that point?
Long-Term Sustainability
- How would you make this sustainable either financially, or in terms of staffing and replication?
- How could you pass the project over to the community?
Until then, hold off and do the groundwork to ensure that you and your idea won’t just waste money that could be put to better use.
Finally, make the difficult decision – Go or No-Go.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
I was recently asked to give a talk on scaling social enterprises to Oxford MBA students at the Saïd Business School via their partnership with the Skoll Centre for Social Enterprise, which prompted me to put together an outline of the different mechanisms of scaling that I've used or considered in the work I've been doing with social enterprises around the world.
There is more detail and explanation in NOTES attached to many of the slides, but you will need to either download the presentation or view it on slideshare and click on the notes tab below the slides to read them.
There is more detail and explanation in NOTES attached to many of the slides, but you will need to either download the presentation or view it on slideshare and click on the notes tab below the slides to read them.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
(This post was written by Imtiaz Kaderbhoy - a friend and ex-colleague of mine, who does a lot of pro-bono work with social enterprises and charities in an advisory capacity.)
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Tim Cornah last week, whose latest social project, a community interest company called “Third Way” generates funds and provides accommodation for a rural youth project called PYC youth services and is based in Parbold, Wigan. PYC youth services is aimed at empowering young people to improve their communities through entrepreneurship and partnerships. Whilst speaking with Tim at length about PYC youth services, Tim explained his key criteria to ensure success with social enterprises.
Discover the Need
Success Criteria
Discover the Need
- There are groups of people in need everywhere
- Identify who they are and what they need
- Tim discovered a masked social need in what initially looked like a wealthy rural village called Parbold, and through identifying the opportunity, is developing a compelling social proposition that can be packaged and replicated.
- Rural communities generally hide their social needs quite well as many are “dormitory villages” with the highest earners merely using them as “lodgings” at the expense of the locals.
- Don’t overcomplicate the idea
- Deliver what is required
- The benefits will flow
- Then expand and grow if required
- Lead project is the development of a community centre to address a specific community need
Financial Sustainability
- It is very important to establish an independent revenue stream as early as possible Sponsors, partners, and fundraising activities will be more successful as a result
- Third Way are building a fair trade coffee shop to support PYC. The idea is simple, and will provide a constant revenue stream.
- They want to branch into training as soon as possible and link into real employment or create businesses for their trainees.
- Your target audience should own the project, not the founder, the board or the consultants
- They should be involved from day 1
- And given real responsibilities in all areas including budgets, strategy, decision making, and management.
- Coach and mentor individuals to enable them to achieve their passions
- PYC has given young adults real responsibilities of a facility that provides employment, training and generates finance to help others
- Provide lifetime support value
- Offer real opportunity once the individual has benefited and maximised their opportunity from the project
- This level of engagement will prove to become a key component for long term survival and success
- PYC will be providing real hope and opportunity for young adults in the public and private sector
- Ensure the project can be scaled, adding products and services will aid success
- Ensure the project can be repeated, this will enable more groups/people to benefit.
- Once Third Way and PYC have successfully launched and run this project, the concept should be scalable to include new opportunities and repeatable to launch similar projects across the UK.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
In my previous post on whether Partnerships and Collaboration might save the third sector, I suggested that one reason why small charities are failing is the nucleation of the sector caused by self interest in raising funding. However, beyond a point they all have the same collective goal, which is to effect positive social change. Unlike businesses which are just out for themselves, this commonality of higher purpose means that charities and social enterprises are perfectly placed to cooperate and collaborate to survive.
I see 3 forms of partnership that are immediately viable for most small social organisations, none of which are being fully explored
A collaborative network of organisations driving towards the same goal is significantly more powerful than a disparate group of small entities all pulling in different directions. Imagine how much more funding you would attract as an industry, rather than as single companies.
So instead of pumping money into Marketing and PR and networking to make your profile stand out from the competition, you should be putting your energies into building relationships and working protocols with other organisations like yourselves so you can set up joint propositions and pitch for bigger funding.
This is not a short-termist approach. It takes time and needs learning. Start by building relationships and connections with your 'competitors', and create forums or events where you talk and find out about each other. Focus on building trust. Find one other organisation that does what you do, and then pitch for larger projects and funding together. Evaluate and learn from your experiences, and then grow your network. At some point you will have created the basic framework that allows you to rapidly add new connections, and to help them slot in easily.
Be aware that there will be challenges you should expect to face, including
I see 3 forms of partnership that are immediately viable for most small social organisations, none of which are being fully explored
- Sharing operational costs and services
- Collaborating with competitors to develop better and larger scale joint-propositions
- Developing complementary partnerships with non-competitors to reach new audiences
Type 1: Shared Services
One of the biggest problems that small organisations have, especially when transitioning into the mid-sized space, is covering the cost of operational overheads- Physical space
- Human Resources and Payroll
- Finance and Accounting
- Marketing & PR
- Outsource all these activities, but not to multiple consultancies or commercial companies like some charities do, but to some kind of Shared-Service Centre dedicated to centralising and performing activities that don't really need much flexibility in decision making - like for example Payroll, Production of marketing materials, Execution of marketing campaigns, Street Fundraising, and Raising awareness through Social Media.
A few years ago when I was consulting to Public Sector, there was a huge drive to get local governments to band together and exploit shared service centres for exactly these reasons. Improved efficiency and effectiveness.
However, unless I'm missing something, I don't think anything like this exists for the social sector, which means that right now there's a gap in the market. I suspect that the reason for this is not that there isn't a viable business model here, but that no-one's really invested time in taking the idea to execution. I'm sure this service could be set up as a Charity so that fees do not become prohibitive, and I don't imagine it would be too hard to raise government funding to set it up either.
A point to note here is that one of the issues with outsourcing or sharing back office functions in the UK lies in tax (thanks Cliff for pointing this out). The Government actively encourages charities to collaborate to reduce cost, but the VAT system penalises those that do. If one charity supplies services to another it has to charge VAT on the supply, and the charity paying for the services cannot recover this. Apparently there is a lobby to get the Government to address this disincentive to efficiency but extending the Charity VAT exemption appears to be a no go zone for Treasury. All things considered however, I'd still suggest that even with the 15% VAT, charities could see benefits from sharing/outsourcing their operational costs. - The other option is to set up a collective of local charities and social enterprises, and for the collective to either share resource, or co-fund and set up an equivalent shared service centre with dedicated teams that perform these functions. These organisations will gain from efficiencies in use of space, resource, and shared best practice and if they take a risk and trust each other the way they should, it will simultaneously create a space for cross-fertilisation of ideas.
- If you're starting up a social organisation, or are about to grow/scale yours, plan your restructure to split out your operational functions. Create a new revenue stream by using your team to offer these services to other smaller charitable and social organisations. It requires some strategic thinking and sensible management, but is neither as difficult or as complicated as it sounds. You may even be able to raise funding to offer this service.
Type 2: Joint Offerings with Competitors
Any social issue you're trying to address will have other organisations that do similar things to you. Typically you're going to compete with them for the pots of funding out there. However there really is little or no reason for this. If you're all working together to effect the same greater good, you've immediately got a clear commonality of purpose. If you collaborated and pooled your skills and resources you might be able to achieve much bigger things.A collaborative network of organisations driving towards the same goal is significantly more powerful than a disparate group of small entities all pulling in different directions. Imagine how much more funding you would attract as an industry, rather than as single companies.
So instead of pumping money into Marketing and PR and networking to make your profile stand out from the competition, you should be putting your energies into building relationships and working protocols with other organisations like yourselves so you can set up joint propositions and pitch for bigger funding.
This is not a short-termist approach. It takes time and needs learning. Start by building relationships and connections with your 'competitors', and create forums or events where you talk and find out about each other. Focus on building trust. Find one other organisation that does what you do, and then pitch for larger projects and funding together. Evaluate and learn from your experiences, and then grow your network. At some point you will have created the basic framework that allows you to rapidly add new connections, and to help them slot in easily.
Be aware that there will be challenges you should expect to face, including
- Trust
- Personal and organisational egos
- Contractual and legal definitions around distribution of finance and delivery of outputs
- Programme management challenges across organisational boundaries
- Quality control
Type 3: Complementary Partnerships
There are two sub-types here. One is complementary partnerships in a causal chain and the other involves partnerships to improve the impact and quality of services offered.- Full Chain (End-to-End) Partnerships are particularly useful for organisations that offer niche services, or focus on a particular aspect of a bigger social problem. What typically happens, is that as niche organisations grow, they keep trying to add the offerings that are needed to create the broad impact they really want, instead of looking for ways to plug the gaps more efficiently.
Taking the issue of youth social exclusion for example, the journey from exclusion to successful reintegration within the system involves transition through and from social care, into learning, and finally successful employment and stability. The learning bit alone involves literacy, numeracy, life skills, specialist skills, and entrepreneurial skills and ranges from drop-ins to accreditation. A plethora of organisations exist that support different bits of the chain, and yet they often work in isolation from each other, or try and grow to cover the entire spectrum.
A better approach is to identify and build relationships with organisations that aren't your direct competitors. Similar logics and challenges apply as in the previous point, but this is easier because you don't have a history of direct competition. Plugging each other's gaps will help you create broader, more compelling services and pooling together will make you significantly more effective across the board. - Gap Partnerships are ones where you look for ways to improve the quality and effectiveness of what you do by teaming up with organisations that have a complementary focus, products, services or skills that save you from having to employ or develop them yourselves. You can offer each other all sorts of value, from access to different audiences to new skills and capabilities and most crucially, credibility through association.
This form of partnership is particularly applicable to connecting and working with commercial organisations that are interested in your target audience, or could gain brand kudos through their association with your social cause. Their involvement may include financial support, access to commercial networks and platforms, specialist skills, operational services or progression pathways.
The trick for social organisations is to identify and develop their audiences, services and brand image in a way that makes them attractive to other organisations. Note that contrary to assumption, this has no correlation with compromising core purpose, and typically is only achievable by staying focused to the social cause and social outcomes.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
In a recent post on whether the Retail Industry Could Save Itself Using Game Theory I discussed how retailers have exhibited classic non-cooperative behaviour, which has significantly damaged their abilities to survive the credit crunch. By focusing only on individual interest and survival, their collective hyper-competitive actions have likely damaged their entire industry's market size.
The charity sector is becoming similarly nucleated by self interest in raising funding. In my previous post on Small Charities Struggling To Survive The Crunch I discussed reasons why small charities are struggling to adapt in the current climate. What I didn't go into is the fact that there is a plethora of small and mid-sized organisations out there, all competing against each other for diminishing funding, and this is only accelerating their slide towards closure.
The trouble is that the funding they are competing for tends to be governmental or Trust based, or small scale social funding for Social Enterprises. This is because their small sizes mean that they struggle to tap into large scale CSR philanthropy or investment, because their brand recognition and localised outcomes are too negligible to return any associative value back to big corporations. The top 400 UK organisations handed out nearly half a billion pounds in 2008, and small charities and social enterprises probably saw very little of it.
However there is no need for things to be this way. More than commercial industries, the social sector is perfectly placed to cooperate and collaborate to survive. Partnerships can help reduce costs and increase the scale of funding that can be accessed. More importantly however, they can create connected support networks and buffers to keep each other going through difficult periods.
As the Chair of a medium sized youth charity, I can see potential in 3 forms of Partnership that could save many small charities and social enterprises from going under over the next few years.
The charity sector is becoming similarly nucleated by self interest in raising funding. In my previous post on Small Charities Struggling To Survive The Crunch I discussed reasons why small charities are struggling to adapt in the current climate. What I didn't go into is the fact that there is a plethora of small and mid-sized organisations out there, all competing against each other for diminishing funding, and this is only accelerating their slide towards closure.
The trouble is that the funding they are competing for tends to be governmental or Trust based, or small scale social funding for Social Enterprises. This is because their small sizes mean that they struggle to tap into large scale CSR philanthropy or investment, because their brand recognition and localised outcomes are too negligible to return any associative value back to big corporations. The top 400 UK organisations handed out nearly half a billion pounds in 2008, and small charities and social enterprises probably saw very little of it.
However there is no need for things to be this way. More than commercial industries, the social sector is perfectly placed to cooperate and collaborate to survive. Partnerships can help reduce costs and increase the scale of funding that can be accessed. More importantly however, they can create connected support networks and buffers to keep each other going through difficult periods.
As the Chair of a medium sized youth charity, I can see potential in 3 forms of Partnership that could save many small charities and social enterprises from going under over the next few years.
- Sharing operational costs and services
- Collaborating with competitors to develop better and larger scale joint-propositions
- Developing complementary partnerships with non-competitors to reach new audiences
More on these in my next post discussing the 3 Types of Partnership
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Here's a fantastic resource for startups put together by Dev Appanah, a social entrepreneur and friend of mine, along with some of his colleagues at www.ysei.org. It is basically a rough guide to starting your own social enterprise. It has some great stuff around making the most of your ideas, along with financial and organisational planning help, particularly related to raising the funds you need and managing your key stakeholders. If there was ever anything you should read around starting up a social enterprise, this is it.
Monday, 6 October 2008
(Excerpt from Third Sector Online, by Gemma McKenna, 2 October 2008 )
The social enterprise 'Investing in Governance' has devised a way for charities to assess and improve their governance procedures.
The 24-page document includes 69 best practice guidelines under 11 headings, which cover topics from recruitment to the induction and appraisal of trustees. Organisations that complete the document are scored so they can identify areas for improvement.
The document was drawn up by Stefan Kuchar, chief executive of Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development Agency, as part of an MBA research study. He worked with five charities to develop the plan, which starts with a list of "10 things that hack me off about charity boards". It was posted online this week and is available to download for £29.50. Apparently charities can also buy in an expert panel to help with the evaluation for £3,250.
Friday, 12 September 2008
The Charities Aid Foundations' social investment arm Venturesome has published a couple of papers this year on categorising social enterprises, so that both investors and investees understand how different business models create social impact and the consequences they have for generating financial returns. It is worth a look to see if or where you fit within their model as it might help you present your social enterprise better, and understand not only the management skills needed but the financial risks and potential social return perceived by your investors.
Anyway CAF divide social enterprises into 3 distinct business models, based on their research defining enterprises according to the social impact they are achieving rather than their legal form.
- Model 1 - Profit Generator:
Trading activity itself is primarily seeking a financial return only. As such, it is deemed to have no direct social impact but gives some or all of its profits to charity. Financial risk of the investment is disconnected from the likelihood of achieving social impact.
Examples include Corporates with CSR programmes or those which give a percentage of their profits to developing charitable projects, Charities investing endowments in financial markets, and Trading subsidiaries of charities. - Model 2 - Trade Off:
Social impact is integral to the nature of the trading activity, but a balance has to be struck between generating financial returns and creating social impact. The firm could increase its social impact by decreasing financial returns, or vice versa. In other words, there is a trade-off. Model 2 firms may be able to attract commercial investors with an acceptable rate of financial return, while at the same time achieving a level of social return which is acceptable to its other stakeholders.
Examples include Fair Trade Businesses, Microfinance Institutions, and Firms that employ the disabled or other disadvantaged people. - Model 3 - Lock Step:
Trading activity has direct social impact, but that social impact increases or decreases in step with financial returns. Apparently these types of enterprise are scarce as they operate in clearly competitive markets. The level of financial returns that Model 3 businesses are able to achieve may be acceptable to a fully commercial (financial return only) investor.
Examples include Co-operatives, Wind Farms, and JustGiving.com.
Download Three Models of Social Enterprise (.pdf)
Download Three Models of Social Enterprise, Part Two (.pdf)Monday, 1 September 2008
I recently came across a really good article by Paul Graham on fundraising for startups. He makes some really good points and his core message resonates with me after months of working on USP, and probably resonates with anyone involved with a social startup.
The hardest part of a startup is making something people want: most startups that fail, die because they didn't do that. But the second biggest cause of death is probably the difficulty of raising money. Fundraising is brutal. I'd add to that point by saying that it's even worse if your idea is social, because funders immediately get nervous about the connotations for potential for return on investment.
Here's the full article http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html, but I must warn that it's a long one!
The short version...
The hardest part of a startup is making something people want: most startups that fail, die because they didn't do that. But the second biggest cause of death is probably the difficulty of raising money. Fundraising is brutal. I'd add to that point by saying that it's even worse if your idea is social, because funders immediately get nervous about the connotations for potential for return on investment.
Here's the full article http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html, but I must warn that it's a long one!
The short version...
- Have low expectations
- Keep working on your startup
- Be conservative
- Be flexible
- Be independent
- Don't take rejection personally
- Be able to downshift into consulting (if appropriate)
- Avoid inexperienced investors
- Know where you stand with them in terms of commitment
Saturday, 23 August 2008
These days, everywhere you look in the social space, it's all about social enterprise rather than charity. Or to put it another way, it's all about financial independence and sustainability rather than dependence on grants and donations.
The question then is how do you go from being a charity that functions through fundraising, into an enterprise that actually monetises services or products; especially when you factor in the charity status restrictions on commercial activity?
This is actually something I'm looking at with Bang Edutainment and I'll try and keep you all updated on what I learn. In essence though the answer is a combination of Business Model Innovation and Organisational Redesign.
Business model innovation is about identifying new ways of monetising your existing services and engaging your target audience, or creating new ones that others aren't offering. Organisational redesign is about restructuring the legal, financial and probably even human structure of your organisation to increase clarity of purpose and ability to deliver different but related services.
When moving towards financial independence for charities, we're essentially talking about monetising existing IP, products or services; and creating linked organisational entities that keep the benefits of being a charity while also allowing commercial activity that can drive profits back into charitable services.
I'll talk a bit more about these as things progress with Bang. We're getting close to business plan stage for some new ideas, and it will tell us if our ideas are viable. If all goes well, I'm hoping to learn some useful stuff for USP too!
For now though, here's some interesting presentations on business model innovation that are relevant regardless of whether you're working in the charity or commercial sectors.
- http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/management20-competitive-advantage-through-business-model-design-innovation/
- http://www.slideshare.net/infe/web-20-business-models-270855/
- http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/40-minutes-on-business-model-innovation/
- http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/business-model-design-and-innovation-for-competitive-advantage/
- http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/describe-and-improve-your-business-model/
Finally... thanks to those of you who wrote in about this blog, particularly Safs and Katie, who've kept in touch with encouragement all the way. All helps :)
Sunday, 30 March 2008
One of the main questions floating around the summit was one I discussed a short while back, i.e. 'What is a social entrepreneur?' In part this was because one of the three pitches didn't really seem to fit the unspoken definition. You might say the definition doesn't matter, but it does because social enterprises, and startups in particular, need both new policy and funding models to prevent their social goals being overridden by business imperatives.
Pushing profits from an enterprise into non-profit areas, or simply doing charitable work alongside running an enterprise didn't really seem to go down well as social entrepreneurship; which I personally think is a fair point. Philanthropy already exists as a way of life and having a social conscience or running ethical businesses is great, but still not the same thing.
What makes 'Social Enterprise' different to what's gone before is the new trend towards the use of corporate principles to drive enterprise robustness in what was traditionally a non-profit and charity dependent space. Like many others I feel this is a positive move as long as it doesn't compromise the primary goal of making the world a better place.
The hierarchy of importance here is clearly on the social rather than financial connotations of the term that comes from entrepreneurs being traditionally associated with the singular business of making money. The term 'enterprising' in its essence however is about finding workable solutions in challenging situations, and maybe this is the definition of the entrepreneur we ought to be focusing on.
My Definitions of Social Enterprise:
Social entrepreneurs are people who create and implement innovative and independently sustainable solutions for addressing social issues.
Social enterprises then can be defined as "Enterprises effecting positive social change, independently and sustainably."
---------------
Do you believe you are a social entrepreneur and does this definition makes sense to you? Comment and let us know!
Pushing profits from an enterprise into non-profit areas, or simply doing charitable work alongside running an enterprise didn't really seem to go down well as social entrepreneurship; which I personally think is a fair point. Philanthropy already exists as a way of life and having a social conscience or running ethical businesses is great, but still not the same thing.
What makes 'Social Enterprise' different to what's gone before is the new trend towards the use of corporate principles to drive enterprise robustness in what was traditionally a non-profit and charity dependent space. Like many others I feel this is a positive move as long as it doesn't compromise the primary goal of making the world a better place.
The hierarchy of importance here is clearly on the social rather than financial connotations of the term that comes from entrepreneurs being traditionally associated with the singular business of making money. The term 'enterprising' in its essence however is about finding workable solutions in challenging situations, and maybe this is the definition of the entrepreneur we ought to be focusing on.
My Definitions of Social Enterprise:
Social entrepreneurs are people who create and implement innovative and independently sustainable solutions for addressing social issues.
Social enterprises then can be defined as "Enterprises effecting positive social change, independently and sustainably."
---------------
Do you believe you are a social entrepreneur and does this definition makes sense to you? Comment and let us know!
Monday, 11 February 2008
I think even social entrepreneurs aren't entirely sure whether they're community saviours or business entrepreneurs but here are the standard definitions
- Ashoka: Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems.
- Skoll Foundation: The social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of transformational change that will benefit disadvantaged communities and ultimately society at large.
- Wikipedia: A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.
Personally I think these are all just exercises in the use of big and fancy words.
I see the social entrepreneur in a more simplistic light. I see it as anyone struggling with the conflict between making a social difference (connotation ethical) and making money from it (connotation unethical). If the money thing isn't a factor then you're essentially just social, and if the social aspect doesn't drive you then you're probably just an entrepeneur.
It's a weird dichotomy that I have to admit to facing myself. I'm not really interested in anything unless it has a positive human impact and the whole business of making and managing money gives me the willies, but at the same time I really don't think I could go back to being paid an average wage again. I wonder if I'll ever resolve this properly or if I'm destined to keep walking this slightly uncomfortable tightrope?
Are you a social entrepreneur? Tell us what you think!
Friday, 11 January 2008
Amazingly enough after my mention of School of Everything, I went along to a w00t session last night for social innovators looking to share ideas and help; and it was run by the School of Everything guys, which was a great coincidence. Still not quite sure what w00t is, but got invited to the Disruptive Social Innovators event in Feb which sounds great. Definitely like what they’re doing, and particularly Andy Gibson’s new political philosophy of Sociablism! Even found out there is actually a School for Social Entrepreneurs. Kept trying to push away mental images of Jack Black and the School of Rock, but it really highlights how far the capitalist circle has turned.
My friend Meriem also pointed me to an Entrepreneur test set up by Rachel Elnaugh, who it turns out is one of the women off Dragon’s Den. Check it out if you like. Beware she uses terms like Alpha and Zeta, which should’ve been a warning sign, but I needed a break so gave it a shot out of curiousity. First note – if you’re not a fan of tests where you have to order multiple options that all seem equally applicable this will pain you. And of course there’s always a few in there that simply don’t apply at all – on any scale. Leaves you desperately trying to figure out which order won’t conclude you to be no kind of entrepreneur at all!
Rachel has 9 different types of entrepreneur – yes 9!
(source – Rachel Elnaugh)
I quite wanted to be a ‘mumpreneur’ for the sake of bucking a trend, but apparently I’m a ‘sociopreneur’ which I guess is about right; and so while I apparently want to ‘change the world’, it seems that Rachel has decided I ‘may lack drive and commercial skills‘. A few years here or there of business consulting to multinational corporations don’t count I suppose. More than a touch of the old star sign bullsh*t about the categorisation I fear! Nevertheless an interesting bit of fun.
My friend Meriem also pointed me to an Entrepreneur test set up by Rachel Elnaugh, who it turns out is one of the women off Dragon’s Den. Check it out if you like. Beware she uses terms like Alpha and Zeta, which should’ve been a warning sign, but I needed a break so gave it a shot out of curiousity. First note – if you’re not a fan of tests where you have to order multiple options that all seem equally applicable this will pain you. And of course there’s always a few in there that simply don’t apply at all – on any scale. Leaves you desperately trying to figure out which order won’t conclude you to be no kind of entrepreneur at all!
Rachel has 9 different types of entrepreneur – yes 9!
- Ultrapreneur
- Alphapreneur
- Passionpreneur
- Sociopreneur
- Bosspreneur
- Execpreneur
- Dadpreneur
- Mumpreneur
- Safepreneur
(source – Rachel Elnaugh)
I quite wanted to be a ‘mumpreneur’ for the sake of bucking a trend, but apparently I’m a ‘sociopreneur’ which I guess is about right; and so while I apparently want to ‘change the world’, it seems that Rachel has decided I ‘may lack drive and commercial skills‘. A few years here or there of business consulting to multinational corporations don’t count I suppose. More than a touch of the old star sign bullsh*t about the categorisation I fear! Nevertheless an interesting bit of fun.
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