The thread that connects these very different individuals in different areas at different stages of their lives is the opportunity that social enterprises have given each of them to change things for the better.
A social enterprise is basically a business with social objectives. Any profits are reinvested in the business or in the community, rather than going to shareholders. By using business solutions to achieve public good, social enterprises can play a valuable role in helping to create a sustainable and socially inclusive economy.
NewLife Regeneration Construction is a social enterprise that develops and refurbishes social housing. It was launched three years ago, at a time when social landlords were recognising that their responsibility to disadvantaged and marginalised communities extended beyond bricks and mortar. Our belief then and now was that the enormous sums invested every year in developing, maintaining and refurbishing properties could be used to create tangible and sustainable benefits for local people.
When the company began, the challenge was twofold: to build something from nothing, and to ensure that we made good on our vision of generating social capital. "Regeneration" was on everyone's lips, but it needed to be grafted onto the commercial realities of supply and demand in the marketplace.
We now have £9m of work on our order books and are genuinely self-sustaining, thanks to a growing number of social landlord and private sector customers who recognise that dependable service delivery can actually be compatible with the attainment of social goals.
We must inspire and enable people to work, and ultimately equip them to start their own businesses
NewLife is one of three social enterprise members of Trees, a charitable industrial and provident society to which organisations donate profits for re-investment in a variety of community development and regeneration projects. The other two Trees members are Thorpete Associates, a provider of gas and electrical installation and servicing to housing associations and councils, and Highpoint, a £6m centre of excellence for community development and resident-led regeneration that opened this year in Leicester.
A great deal of NewLife's work is new build, refurbishment and maintenance. But demand is also growing for a "one-stop" reletting service that we recently developed in partnership with Thorpete. This combines gas and electrical safety inspections with decorating and property repairs in one fell swoop.
One size doesn't fit all
So how successful has social enterprise been in aiding the wider community, and what lessons have we learned on the way?
Just as there is no one-size-fits-all solution to neighbourhood renewal, our objectives have varied from project to project and area to area. In one place, the priority might be to engage school children in project work. By stimulating their imagination and creativity, we can help them to better understand their own living environment and how it has been shaped by the local economy, share in owning its present, and think about its future.
In another community, it might be about giving jobseekers who have experienced prejudice or are otherwise disadvantaged in the jobs market new skills and training. Elsewhere, it might involve working with partner contractors to add value to the procurement process and ensure economic benefits are retained within the community.
In many deprived communities, people neither know what they want to do, nor what they are capable of
Some clients ask us at the outset of a project to generate a certain number of apprenticeships in the belief that this is a panacea to a neighbourhood's ills. Unfortunately, it often isn't. In many deprived communities, low educational attainment and an entrenched culture of dependency can mean people neither know what they want to do, nor what they are capable of.
What residents tell us they value is a chance to find a sense of direction. We can offer them this through first-hand exposure to different facets of a project, or by giving them the chance to delay their start on a study or training course until they have confidence in what they want to do.
A long, hard slog
It is hard work. Braunstone, for example, is a New Deal for Communities pathfinder area of Leicester where we are working with Braunstone Community Association and Leicester Housing Association on the refurbishment of 220 worn-out former council houses.
We consulted with the entire community to explore work experience and training opportunities for local people. In a neighbourhood historically stigmatised by poverty and under-achievement, no fewer than 100 residents approached us to talk about their experiences and aspirations, and to listen to what we had to offer.
As a result, we are creating 55 jobs and placements over 20 months, not only in the course of housing and environmental work, but also in innovative recycling and catering initiatives to support the project. For those for whom site-related work was not the way forward, we are linking up with other organisations in the city to provide the support necessary to harness their potential in other ways.
UK social enterprises
Some social enterprises start off as businesses and others are in transition from their beginnings as voluntary sector organisations, dependent largely on grants and volunteers. There is no single legal model for social enterprise. They include companies limited by guarantee, industrial and provident societies, and companies limited by shares. Some organisations are unincorporated and others are registered charities. The Edinburgh-based Forth Sector was launched 12 years ago to tackle social exclusion. It has a guesthouse, a specialist laundry, a catering business, an embroidery service and an IT business. Each firm aims to generate over 50% of income from sales and integrate employees with mental health problems into the workforce, working alongside able-bodied staff. The Furniture Resource Centre Group (FRC) in Liverpool is a one-stop furnishing service for social landlords. FRC collects, refurbishes and restores furniture for the homes of those on low incomes. From being launched six years ago as a £1m not-for-profit organisation with 20 employees and 80% of its revenue coming from grants, it now it has a turnover of £7m, employs more than 100 people and 97% of its income is self-generated. The Goodwin Centre, founded in 1994 by volunteers in Hull, includes a community cafe, creche, IT suite, Jobshop and offices. The centre also has a wireless CCTV project that has reduced crime on the estate by 45%. In 1997 Goodwin employed one person and turned over £17,000. Today it employs 67 full-time and 10 part-time staff, with 55 local young people on the waged New Deal project. Turnover is £3.2m.The official line
The government, which launched its Social Enterprise Unit in October last year, revealed its social enterprise strategy on 23 July. Announcing plans for an award for the fastest growing social enterprise in inner-city areas and the promotion of greater understanding of social enterprises, trade secretary Patricia Hewitt said: “Over the years, perceptions of business success have changed. There is now an increasing recognition that a successful business is also a responsible business. In many ways the culmination of this process has been the growth of the social enterprise – proof indeed that producing profits and strengthening societies are not just compatible, but interdependent.”Source
Housing Today
Postscript
John Montague is managing director of NewLife Regeneration Construction and was the central region "Social Entrepreneur Of The Year" in Ernst & Young's "Entrepreneur Of The Year 2002" awards programme
No comments yet