Giving Insights > Profiles > Learning lessons in social entrepreneurship

Learning lessons in social entrepreneurship

The government’s Big Society agenda is all about encouraging people to take responsibility for social issues. Nowhere is this approach more apparent than at the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), which helps people to use their entrepreneurial abilities for social good. SSE runs a network of schools around the UK and has turned out more than 600 graduates since it was founded 14 years ago by serial entrepreneur Michael Young (Lord Young of Dartington).

It offers a year-long programme of support to social entrepreneurs—creative, ambitious, enterprising people who work for public or social benefit, rather than being solely motivated by money.

‘I describe it as a cross between Richard Branson and Mahatma Gandhi,’ says Nick Temple, director of policy and communications at SSE. ‘These are people who have entrepreneurial traits—they are willing to take risks and hold responsibility, they seize opportunities, they’ve spotted a niche or need—but they’ve chosen to apply them for a social benefit.’

SSE’s programme is based on a peer-to-peer model, where students learn from other social entrepreneurs. ‘The social entrepreneurs they learn from have been there and got the T-shirt. They can talk about what they’ve learnt, and more importantly, what mistakes they may have made,’ says Nick. ‘We give individuals the full support they need to develop their organisations. And they come out at the end with a ready-made support network.’

Building legitimacy

SSE’s students come from all walks of life. You might find someone without GCSEs who has been unemployed for years sitting next to a recent graduate. The school is determined that fees and qualifications should not be a barrier to participation, and it offers grants and bursaries to involve disadvantaged people.

In Nick’s experience, the main challenge facing SSE’s students is not technical, legal or financial. Rather, it is about building a sense of legitimacy. ‘If you go to a job interview and are given the job, your sense of legitimacy comes from knowing that the interviewers obviously thought you were good. Social entrepreneurs start with no legitimacy. They have to earn it from the community and the people they work alongside, which can be a challenge.’

People become social entrepreneurs for many different reasons. Some are looking for more meaning in their work. Others are driven by a personal mission, which can come from their own experience of growing up, the community they live in, or an issue that has touched them and given them a passion and desire for change.

One such entrepreneur is SSE graduate Tokunbo Ajasa Oluwa, who was a journalist frustrated by the glass ceiling in the media world. In 2007, he set up the journalism academy Catch 22 to help people from all backgrounds to get into the industry.

‘Journalism is a sexy, inspirational sector [that] relies on people being able to work for free,’ Tokunbo explains. ‘If you come from a poor background you can’t do that. Yet it makes ethical and business sense to have people from different backgrounds working in the media. I wanted to nurture undiscovered talent and provide a gateway to the industry.’

Tokunbo enrolled with SSE a week after he set up Catch 22, and he believes that the SSE programme was a crucial refining process in growing and developing his social enterprise.

‘You need to be brave to be entrepreneurial, but my background was risk averse and structured. The SSE helped me to develop my confidence and made me realise what I was capable of. I was able to cold call people like the editor of Time Out magazine because I had this belief in myself and my idea. It also taught me practical skills such as presentation and financial management skills.’

Understanding the impact

Like all good social entrepreneurs, SSE is keen to measure the impact of its work. It has recently started working with NPC to evaluate its programme, looking both at its students and its students’ enterprises. According to Nick, ‘In the last big evaluation we did in 2007, we did a good job of gathering information on the organisations that the graduates had set up. This time, we’re keen to look more at the impact of the programme on the entrepreneurs themselves, and to really understand what impact the organisations they have set up have had on the community.’

SSE chose NPC to carry out this evaluation because of our ‘strong track record and credibility … NPC is able to put a real value on things, beyond just the financial. We’re hoping to use the report with funders and stakeholders, to help recruit students, and to improve our work internally. It will be key to how we develop.’

Ultimately, the success of SSE lies in the success of the social entrepreneurs and enterprises it nurtures. Since he attended the SSE programme, for example, Tokunbo’s Catch 22 has grown significantly. It now has eight employees and some impressive partners, including The Economist and the BBC. Tokunbo believes that without SSE, ‘we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are now.’ SSE gave him guidance on setting up and managing an organisation, balancing commercial activity with social impact, and becoming sustainable.

Tokunbo is ambitious and has high hopes about the future of his enterprise. ‘I want Catch 22 to be a mainstream recruitment source for the media industry,’ he says. ‘I come from an African home that taught me to use education as a tool and to not let my working class surroundings define me. Some people want results straight away. But our business is like Thai food. It takes an awful lot of preparation. But then you create something really fantastic.’

SSE will publish NPC’s report later in 2011. Look out for more information on our website soon.