The Editor's Post: Diversity in social enterprise: do positive attitudes lead to positive action?
Our SE100 data deep-dive reveals good but nuanced news on UK social enterprises' attitudes to diversity, B Corps provide good jobs, a preview of what's to come in September: this week's view from the Pioneers Post newsroom.
“Equity, diversity and inclusion runs through your organisation.”
These were the words of one of the judges, Tim Soule of Social Investment Business, as he presented the Diversity Pioneer award to Sirlute at this year’s SE100 awards ceremony on 15 July in Manchester, England.
Sirlute is a black-led, working class-founded social enterprise, which offers mentoring and creative learning workshops in music, graphic design, fashion and more to young people in East London. (Listen to our podcast with founder JR Josephs here.)
Soule highlighted how Sirlute had embedded the notion of equal access throughout everything it did, including how it designed programmes for young people, offered materials that were accessible for neurodiverse people and had a youth advisory board.
“Their commitment to DEI practices are an example to us all,” said Soule.
And, in spite of US president Donald Trump’s attacks on equity, diversity and inclusion efforts resulting in business leaders around the world hastily pushing it down their agendas, new analysis which we’ve published this week shows that (at least until their most recent financial year ends) the members of the UK’s social enterprise movement still believe it is important to them, as so beautifully demonstrated by the activities of award-winning Sirlute.
My colleagues Laura Joffre and Shay Bowman have dived into the data from the last five years of applications to our SE100 awards, which we run in partnership with NatWest Social and Community Capital, and discovered that, in spite of tough operating environments, social enterprises have been increasing their efforts to establish EDI policies and appoint ‘champions’ within their organisations. But are these efforts making a difference in practice? Take a look at their conclusions here.
Linked with this, a report out this week from B Lab, the body that oversees the B Corp accreditation, concludes that B Corps offer better quality employment than their mainstream counterparts – including taking account of equity issues, as well as offering a living wage, decent benefits and more.
August’s impact essentials
During August, the Pioneers Post team is breaking from our usual schedule. Instead of this weekly news-led email, we’ll send you a series of ‘impact essentials’ newsletters that highlight some of the key themes and content that we’ve been featuring so far this year. We’re excited to bring these to you, so do look out for them in your inbox!
Finally, my colleague Anna and I will be at the Latimpacto Impact Minds conference in Colombia, which starts on 1 September. Here’s a preview of what are likely to be the key talking points among impact investors in Latin America and the Caribbean. Do look us up if you’re there, and make some time to come along to our ‘storytelling for impact investors’ workshop too.
Top stories this week:
Social enterprises in the UK push forward diversity efforts in challenging times
B Corps top 1m employees, as report shows they outperform peers on providing good jobs
Expert Insight: How the UK's Better Futures Fund could create system-level impact
Top image: stock via Freepik.
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