2016: the year in social enterprise
We kicked off this year with a story about flatpack shelters for refugees. Our writer Max Girardeau described visiting the 'Jungle' camp in Calais before including the statistic that around 3.5m refugees are living in UN provided tents at any one time.
There’s no knowing what has happened to some of the former 'Jungle' inhabitants and we can only guess how many people will be going into tents as they flee Syria. Later in the year we went to Berlin to find out how one organisation is trying to integrate refugees.
Big Issue Invest had some more cheering news at the beginning of the year. Its Social Enterprise Investment Fund II fund closed with £21m committed to invest in ‘businesses with ambitious social impact goals’.
The Big Issue also turned 25 this year. Founder John Bird took to the stage in rumbustious form to declare that he would continue to fight poverty. More power to him and the rest of the Big Issue team.
The World Economic Forum in Davis came and went with observations that the world was still predominantly run by men. “And I’m not sure it’s going that well,” said CEO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg.
It was a big year for social impact measurement. Not only did the School for Social Entrepreneurs reveal it was the most in demand topic amongst the courses they offer, but Pioneers Post Quarterly published results from a wide ranging survey about the issue.
The survey revealed that there was a good deal of knowledge about impact measurement and that practice was widespread. However, the choice of tools available to measure impact and the jargon heavy language around it only seems to confuse potential practitioners.
Human beings are designed to co-operate, they’re not designed to kill each other
It was also a good year if you were Spencer, the driver of our Black Cab. Passenger chat you would have heard would include: "Human beings are designed to co-operate, they’re not designed to kill each other”. Or alternatively someone objecting to having their picture taken: “Terrible lighting, darling.”
Despite Brexit, we like Europe, particularly the European Social Innovation Competition. An kind of Airbnb for older people that promotes social inclusion and combats loneliness you say? Oh, go on then, yes please.
Big Society Capital asked people what they thought of it and gamely accepted the criticisms that were then volunteered. In other news, a report from David Floyd and Dan Gregory suggested going to the banks might be as good as the social investment finance intermediaries if your social venture needed investment. Pioneers Post also exclusively revealed the British team that is promoting impact investing around the world.
The biggest shock of the year (apart from the winner of the US election) was the Office of Civil Society moving to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Rob Wilson, the minister for civil society, has explained the reasoning behind the move to us – all will be revealed in the next issue of the Quarterly.
Social Enterprise UK did more sterling work this year, arranging a photocall outside the chancellor’s front door in Downing Street. The occasion was to encourage big business to incorporate social enterprises into their supply chain. Seven corporates blocked access to George Osborne’s letterbox in the name of encouraging other captains of industry to spend £1bn ‘buying social’ by 2020.
The SE100 Social Business Club was busy, with events in London, Bristol and Manchester. The tour will reach Scotland in 2017 and those wishing to get involved should click here. For those running social ventures we delivered features on how to come up with a theory of change, how to get yourself a top mentor and how to boost your social media profile.
As with every year, there were also goodbyes to say. The social enterprise world will be much the poorer for the loss of Pamela Hartigan.
The best country in which to be a social entrepreneur was revealed. Perhaps the winner wasn’t too surprising; more of an eyebrow raiser was that Asia scored highly for the female social entrepreneurs out there.
A few celebrities dropped in to join the social enterprise party this year. Ex vice president Al Gore wowed the crowd at the Skoll World Forum, Lily Cole lit up the Natural History Museum for Chivas’ The Venture and Michael Sheen dropped by Borough Market to draw the spotlight to Social Saturday.
As we got closer to Christmas, awards season kicked in and, as there always is in social enterprise, there were plenty of winners. Lest we forget, the beneficiaries of all the social ventures should be the ones we are thinking about going into 2017.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful Christmas.
Photo credit: Sweta Meininger
