While research is still being carried out in this area, we have termed the phrase 'social derivative' to capture the way in which we think system social enterprises operate and have impact. Just as derivatives in the private sector have exploded in recent decades (in essence they are a more complex form of insurance) so too we think we are on the cusp of an explosion of social derivatives being created. Social derivatives are in our vision able to scaleably address the new and chronic risks which 20th century state 'social insurance' struggles to affordably address, by more closely linking the beneficiaries (be it donors or tax-payers) with the agents (be it public sector workers, business people, nonprofit employees or volunteers) with those in low-income communities. For each party, risks and risk aversion (or culture) can often be the key barrier that prevents existing public and private initiatives from having their full intended impact. Social derivatives help to reduce risks whilst helping to improve the quality of any social initiative, and just like their financial counterparts, we want to see social derivatives that are highly leveraged in their impact, both in terms of bang for buck and in terms of how many people are empowered by them given their small initial and ongoing size. In this way we think they may act like highly infectious social movements, though we do see them being real organisations rather than loose associations.
As our thinking around this topic and research develops, we will be posting more on social derivatives, but we would love to hear what you think about this them and the possibilities and problems they might create.
The system social entrepreneur has appeared for the first time in a Tory leader's speech! Inspired by Shaftesbury's work in this area, he talked about how system entrepreneurs might be able to help build the infrastructure needed to address poverty related issues in partnership with government. Some on the left have sought to rubbish the notion that charities and social enterprises can tackle at scale the challenges that we face, but this is where system social entrepreneurs could come in handy, building the kind of initiatives that can scale, just as the latest generation of dot coms such as flickr and myspace scale, often by getting customers and stakeholders to build them up in a participatory fashion.
The more complex debate here is going to be around funding. Will the Tories be tempted, given the likely poor state of government coffers in the next decade, to use the advent of more system social enterprises, to roll-back funding leaving the private sector and donors to pick up the slack? Or will there be more of a move among policy-makers towards Brown's emerging vision of a strong public sector ethos in which system social enterprises are at most instruments of the state. We'd like to see system social enterprises operate somewhere in the middle. They do deliver public benefit if they achieve their aims, whether it be in tackling health inequalities, or finding teachers and headteachers for challenging schools, working on issues that neither the government of the private sector can or want to address - but they also work best outside of the restrictions and political influence common to pure state-run initiatives. The sector will need a diversity of funding to grow and thrive, but the payback whether you are the state or a private funder could be huge as they find ways to empower more and more people more efficiently and effectively.
Read Cameron's speech here http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=134139.
Addressing inequality is a huge task, which no-one can undertake alone. Just as the internet promised much but didn't initially deliver the kind of gains that it's starting to deliver, we believe that social entreprise can be taken to another level in the fight to address poverty.
By posting this blog, we hope in particular to communicate some of the thinking and work we're doing around system social entrepreneurship, which is something that enthusiasts and the public can get engage with in different ways. In this way, just as for the system social enterprises themselves, the public can take part in exploring the causes of inequality and owning the solutions as well.
This blog represents and important part of our journey. So do get involved. We are passionate about your contributions!
Nat recently led a team reviewing current school meal policy and the food production value chain in schools on behalf of Young Foundation/Absolute Return for Kids with a view to the potential creation of an alternative school meal provider or network of providers. As part of this, he explored current policy, the views of individual participants in the value chain (parents, pupils, school leaders), and proposed recommendations for all stakeholders involved in policy and practice. He and his team helped determined main blockages in the current system related to pricing and two major costs involved in food preparation (labour and materials), leading to �??risk averse�?? attitudes (resulting ultimately in poor quality meals) among schools and food service companies. School food has very much been in the news lately with the advent of Jamie Oliver's School Dinners series, but what this project highlighted are some of the causes, including the deregulation of school food standards and the focus of service companies on reducing labour costs (which have risen over time as a proportion of costs as food has become more affordable) by prepreparing meals offsite. This in turn has led to the low levels of culinary skills of catering staff and cheap mass-produced food such as the famed Turkey Twizzlers which Jamie has uncovered. The project is still ongoing, and there is potential for a system social enterprise, not so much in the area of food preparation as highlighted in the media, but in the need for a way to recruit, train and appoint community entrepreneurs within schools to act as local Marketing Managers to link catering staff with the needs and agendas of the teaching and school support staff, and reach out to pupils so that all children benefit from healthier, education-friendly, tastier meals.
In collaboration with Professor Jean-Philippe Bouchaud (University of Paris), Shaftesbury is exploring the relationship between risk and inequality utilising econophysics techniques pioneered by Bouchaud. We are building simulations describing the impact of risk on individual decisions to transact and connect with other agents within a socially networked economy. These simulations will be based primarily on variables such as net wealth, income, taxation, the �??velocity�?? of the economy and associated risk profiles.
Social entrepreneurs are those who take aspects of entrepreneurship most commonly but not exclusively associated with the private sector, using it for social good. In its most enhanced form, the business model underlying such entrepreneurship includes an element of income self-generated from the social economy.
There are two main types of social entrepreneur (though on rare occasions both types can appear in one person): community social entrepreneurs and system social entrepreneurs. Community social entrepreneurs are locally based, working at grass-roots level. System social entrepreneurs have both the skills and the inclination to grow initiatives to national size, affecting the entire system. System social entrepreneurship tends to take a strategic top-down approach working on issues that governments and the public see as some of the most intractable and challenging, but by working with community entrepreneurs on a grass-roots level it hopes to make real impact as well on the ground reaching parts that governments and other traditional agencies find harder to reach.
For large-scale social improvement (in the public sphere and elsewhere), both community and system entrepreneurs are needed, working together to address poverty.
The Shaftesbury Partnership is an ethical business, founded in 2006. Its mission is to address poverty through research, consulting, recruitment, and training. The four key sectors addressed by Shaftesbury are education, health, environment and criminal justice. At present, Shaftesbury is involved in project initiatives in each of these sectors working with so-called 'system social entrepreneurs'. Shaftesbury aims to understand the key drivers behind inequality and use this understanding to support innovation throughout society as a means of addressing it. Central to Shaftesbury�??s work is the development of �??social derivatives�??, high profile, high impact initiatives that help donors, front line workers, and those on low incomes manage the risks of working collaboratively together for mutual benefit and empowerment. Previous clients include General Healthcare Group, Absolute Return for Kids, the Young Foundation. While Shaftesbury takes its name from the great Victorian reformer Lord Shaftesbury who was a Tory, it seeks to remain apolitical, working with all parties to achieve its mission through the work of system social entrepreneurs.