A Little Perspective from the Summit

Greetings from the 2010 Social Enterprise Summit!  There is a lot of excitement here in San Francisco about the growth of social-purpose business ventures, and great hope that social enterprise has finally achieved critical mass and will soon become a vibrant social movement worldwide.  I'd hoped that the Summit would fill the gaps in my knowledge of the modern history of social enterprise, and a pre-conference session organized by REDF did just that.  From the 1970s on, federal programs including a procurement set-aside for goods and services sold by businesses employing people with developmental disabilities catalyzed the growth of social enterprises in the US.  More recently, necessity has been the mother of invention; here is an excerpt from a paper REDF developed for that session:

"In the 1990's, there was burst of activity among nonprofits interested in employing long-term unemployed people, and/or earning funds to deal with the economic contraction that was reducing government grants.  The Social Enterprise Alliance started up as a trade association.

From REDF's perspective, one of the most important lessons of that time was that earned income strategies work best if they help nonprofits carry our their core mission, not just to generate revenue.  It was extremely challenging for these enterprises just to break even, let alone generate additional revenue for other activities. 

Even in the absense of net revenue, however, social enterprises focused on job creation reduced the cost of programs that would otherwise be covered by philanthropy or government while also delivering creative, effective programs with results -- real wage-paying jobs for people unlikely to get them otherwise.  And they proved to have sustainability and staying power."

To learn more about REDF, visit http://www.redf.org/.

Integrate Vertically to Maximize Mission

A theme has emerged in my meetings with social enterprise leaders in California and Washington: many of their most successful businesses were developed to meet internal needs. Rather than outsourcing food service, medical lab testing, facilities maintenance and other essential services, nonprofits I met with created enterprises to meet internal needs more efficiently – reducing operating costs and building assets. At the same time, they developed new capacity to provide hard-skills job training and generate revenue from the sale of services to other organizations – using a double bottom line strategy (seeking social outcomes and business profits) to more fully achieve their missions.

Prime example:  Pioneer Human Services, established in Seattle in 1963, has developed a wide array of enterprises – including food service, construction, distribution and manufacturing – earning more than $30 million in gross sales annually to support their work with people overcoming the challenges of chemical dependency, mental health issues and criminal histories. To learn more, visit their website at http://pioneerhumanservices.org/products.html

Tasty Network Launches in Seattle

On January 28 & 29, 2010, my colleague Margaret and I joined representatives from 10 other nonprofits from across the United States at FareStart in Seattle to help launch a national network of food service training and social enterprise programs.  These organizations -- from Boise, Chicago, Boston, DC, Ft. Lauderdale, St. Louis, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and Tacoma -- all provide training to individuals facing barriers to employment (such as homelessness, addiction, incarceration and developmental disabilities), prepare nutritious meals for people in need, and self-generate revenue through social enterprise.  Over the year ahead, we seek to harness our collective experience and capacity to develop and replicate self-sustaining models that combine food service training, job creation, and nutritious and affordable food to address rising unemployment and hunger.

In its press release, FareStart noted that "[t]he summit set a framework for sharing experience and documenting best practices – to the benefit of both organizations that decide to participate in the networked approach, and also those organizations looking to replicate this model in their community. Specific action items and timelines were agreed to in a number of focal areas, including governance, branding, shared resources and membership.  At the conclusion of this first summit, participants enthusiastically signed on to help incubate a collaborative, national network that supports the growth of food service training and social enterprise, providing tangible benefits to its members and populations served and working to increase the collective impact of all involved." 

I'll blog again after this group reconvenes at the 2010 Social Enterprise Summit + World Forum in San Francisco in late April.

Fellowship Schedule

January
26-31: Seattle Study Tour - FareStart; Pioneer Human Services

February
18-21: San Diego Study Tour - Partnerships With Industry; Planned Parenthood of San Diego & Riverside Counties

April
27-30: 2010 Social Enterprise Summit + World Forum, San Francisco; Visits to Delancey Street Restaurant and Greens

June
6-11: Harvard Business School - High Potentials Leadership Program
20-July 2: Stanford Business School - Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship

November
11-16 New York City & Yonkers: Comfort Foods/Project Renewal; The Doe Fund; Greyston Foundation & Bakery; Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

December
1-5 London:  Jamie Oliver Foundation - Fifteen; Hoxton Apprentice; Shoreditch Trust - Acornhouse & Waterhouse; Crisis - Skylight Cafe; Social Enterprise London; Anchor House; BHP Associates