Beyond the boundary: what social entrepreneurs see that systems can’t

For most of my career, I have sat in an uncomfortable space. Not fully inside the public sector. Not fully outside it either.

Like many social entrepreneurs, I have spent years moving between communities, public institutions and the spaces in between. I have attended strategy meetings in the morning and sat with people facing poverty, loneliness, poor health or unemployment in the afternoon. I have seen public services at their best: committed, compassionate and full of talented people. But I have also seen how difficult it can be for large institutions to adapt when the world around them is changing.

And the world is changing.

Across the UK and beyond, public services are grappling with challenges that are becoming more complex and interconnected. Health inequalities continue to widen. Demand for support is rising. Communities are becoming more fragmented. Trust in institutions feels increasingly fragile.

In response, we often look for new policies, new structures or new programmes. We reorganise systems. We redraw organisational charts. We create new partnerships and governance arrangements.

Sometimes these reforms matter. But I increasingly wonder whether we are overlooking something more fundamental. What if transformation depends less on what happens inside institutions and more on how well institutions learn from beyond their own boundaries?

Bringing fresh insights, relationships and learning

This question sits at the heart of a recent Local Policy Innovation Partnership Hub policy paper, Outside-In: The Role of Social Entrepreneurs in Public Sector Transformation, published by City-REDI at the University of Birmingham. In it, I argue that social entrepreneurs contribute something that is often overlooked: not just innovation, but a form of practical learning that helps public systems see things they might otherwise miss.

I describe this as ‘outside-in’ capacity: the value created when people working at the boundaries of institutions bring fresh insight, relationships and practical learning into the system. It reflects a wider recognition that institutions do not generate all the knowledge they need internally. They must also learn from the ideas, experiences and innovations emerging beyond their own boundaries.

This is not because social entrepreneurs have all the answers. Rather, they often occupy a different vantage point. Their work places them at the intersection of communities, services and systems, allowing them to observe how policies, institutions and everyday realities interact.

The distinctive contribution of social entrepreneurs lies not in being better placed to solve problems, but in seeing different aspects of them.

The challenge is structural rather than personal. Public institutions operate within a distinctive set of responsibilities and constraints. They must balance accountability, equity, consistency, political oversight and stewardship of public resources across entire populations.

These responsibilities matter enormously. But they can also make experimentation, adaptation and risk-taking more difficult. When success is measured through targets, performance frameworks and reporting systems, it is often easier to improve what already exists than to imagine something fundamentally different.

Meanwhile, outside formal institutions, something interesting is happening. Across towns, cities and neighbourhoods, people are developing practical responses to unmet needs every day. Some do so through social enterprises and community organisations; others through informal networks, grassroots action and mutual support. Together, they are finding ways to address problems that existing systems struggle to solve.

Most of these innovations never make national headlines. Many remain small. Some fail. Others never spread beyond the communities where they emerged.

But together they represent something important: a vast and often underappreciated source of insight about what is happening in people’s lives and what might work differently.

Social entrepreneurs are particularly interesting because they often occupy a unique position. They are close enough to communities to understand lived experience, yet sufficiently connected to institutions to influence wider conversations. They operate at the boundary between systems and society.

That boundary position matters.

Standing at the edge of a system allows you to see things that are harder to see from the centre. You see the gap between policy and reality. You see how a well-intentioned strategy lands in the life of a single parent juggling work and caring responsibilities. You see the patient who repeatedly attends A&E because nobody has addressed the social conditions driving their ill health. You see communities creating solutions long before institutions recognise there is a problem to solve.

Standing at the edge of a system allows you to see things that are harder to see from the centre. You see the gap between policy and reality

These experiences rarely fit neatly into performance dashboards, evaluation frameworks or board papers. Yet they often contain important clues about what needs to change.

In my experience, some of the most valuable ideas in public service reform emerge from these boundary spaces. Yet generating insight is only part of the challenge. The question is whether institutions are able to recognise and use this learning.

Creating ‘porous’ institutions 

Social entrepreneurs are often invited into systems because of what they can do. Their ability to reach communities, build relationships and deliver outcomes is valued. Their insight is valued less often.

Yet social entrepreneurs frequently accumulate a deep understanding of how policies, services and institutions are experienced in practice. They see patterns, barriers and opportunities that may not be visible from within formal organisational structures.

The challenge is not simply involving social entrepreneurs in consultation exercises. It is creating opportunities for their experience and practical wisdom to inform how problems are understood, how priorities are set and how systems evolve over time.

This requires curiosity. It requires humility. It requires leaders who are willing to acknowledge that valuable knowledge may exist beyond formal expertise and organisational hierarchies.

Most importantly, it requires institutions to become more porous. By porous, I mean organisations that can absorb new ideas, adapt their assumptions, and remain connected to the realities of the communities they serve. Not institutions that surrender accountability, but institutions that combine accountability with learning.

A different type of impact

For social entrepreneurs, this suggests a different way of thinking about impact.

We often talk about scaling innovations. But perhaps influence is not always about growth. Sometimes it is about helping systems learn.

Sometimes success looks like a commissioner seeing a problem differently. A policymaker asking a better question. A health system recognising the importance of relationships and trust. A community voice shaping a strategic decision.

These changes can feel small. Yet over time they alter how systems understand problems and how they respond to them.

At a moment when many public institutions are searching for answers, perhaps the most important question is not where innovation comes from. Innovation is everywhere. The more important question is whether we are creating the conditions to learn from it.

The future of public services will not be built by governments alone, nor by social entrepreneurs alone. It will be built through relationships between them

The future of public services will not be built by governments alone, nor by social entrepreneurs alone. It will be built through relationships between them.

For years, social entrepreneurs have often been viewed as innovators, providers or delivery partners. They are all of those things.

But perhaps their most important contribution is something else: perhaps they help systems see what they cannot see for themselves. And in a period of profound uncertainty, that may be one of the most valuable forms of public service we have.

Mark Swift is the founder and CEO of Wellbeing Enterprises CIC, a healthcare social enterprise, and a fellow of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool, and a Local Policy Innovation Partnership Fellow at City-REDI, University of Birmingham.

Header image by Erik Mclean via Pexels