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very clear dichotomy you seem to see between a commercial approach and having clear and fundamental social goals
It is partly because of this that the UK government recently introduced Community Interest Companies. They are a type of organisation which briges the gap between for-profit companies and charities/co-operatives. Basically in a CIC, the members are legally prevented from selling off the assets of the company - which is the main problem with for-profit agencies engaging in this work (and co-operatives as well).
However the aim of the CIC is definetly profit-making, just within a social goal framework (what that framework should be has been left open for now). So the idea runs that people such as chaoflux23 should be able to draw a salary from the income generated by the work.
The two problems in my experience are that many of the ideas touted for social enterprises either require a degree of community coherence to work and that this carries a cost thats not calculated on a balance sheet and/or the income that could be generated isn't sufficient to provide a salary. Hence you get the situation described by chaoflux where they are not really making a living off of it and (my supposition is) that they feel rather than take the money they plough it back into the work. In effect they are not really sustainable without some form of continued external support and a lot of free time being given up by those involved.
This is especially true, in my experience as someone who supports people trying to achieve the goals of the summary, for arts based projects. After all if the clients could afford to purchase the service, then a for-profit would probably have moved in.
There isn't really a goood solution to that one. Going back to Future Perfects original post I don't think there's a dichotomy but I do think that entrepreneurs you help would have to put themselves on a scale from fully for-profit to totally voluntary. The further to the voluntary end of the scale you are, the more likely you will need funding from some outside source.
The other issue is how do they measure their social and environmental outcomes? There's a tendency I've noticed to assume that social enterprises must be good because they are 'social', when in fact in fact round here, Central London, most of them come about because of a lack of for-profit or statutory provision.
I always check with social entrepreneurs whether the social part of the enterprise is social because it is owned by the community or because it meets some community need. In the latter case that need is rarely clearly identified beyond projecting the values of the entrepreneur onto the surrounding community and assuming that is good rather than checking that the actual provision is sufficient.
As for how to do it, firstly anyone who wants to run a social enterprise should decide what they are going to get from the experience - is money as important as the work, less so, more so? Its not 'a bad thing' to choose the latter answer, just be prepared that the idea may not make money. Can the enterprise tap into richer clients and use the money to fund the services it provides to people who can't afford them? Is the entrepreneur part of a group of people sharing the same values etc, or are they doing it by themselves? If the latter then theymay find that much of the talk around social enterprise assumes a group of people are involved and that ownership is shared amongst them - often this doesn't appeal to solo enterpreneurs.
Don't know if that helps you but any other questions or ideas you;ve got I'd be happy to chat about |
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