Cathy Pharoah gave a little commentary on social enterprises.
She used the example of Linda Kirk who was a very enthusiastic but maybe rather idealistic social entrepreneur who failed to sustain her social enterprise.
Her idea was to provide employment for poor and vulnerable women in County Durham. Her business caught the attention of local media and of course she had many requests to fund her enterprise. And yet, with a sufficient demand, and financial fundings, Ms Kirk an experienced business woman had to close her business down.
Ms Pharoah mentioned this "The cult of enterprise has held iconic status in the sector over the past decade or so. But the fact is that in a sector where income is under pressure on all fronts, entrepreneurialism is no longer just an aspiration; it's a necessary condition of survival. "(2012, para.1)
It is SO true that the entrepreneurial aspect of an SE is very essential to keep it sustainable and unique. It is not sufficient to get by with passion and a business head, being innovative and creative is equally if not more important for social entrepreneurs.
In the last paragraph, she mentioned that we mustn't rely on charitable funds to sustain us because social enterprise are essentially businesses! And businesses have to be sustainable and self-reliant.
She proceeds to say "Existing social enterprise approaches place huge importance on entrepreneurial mindsets, on personal abilities to be innovative, creative, action-oriented, problem-solving, a leader (are you feeling up to the job?). But I think the sector already has these qualities in bucket-loads. They explain its successful growth over decades."(para,5)
Do you feel up to it?? I have always looked at social entrepreneurs and the big responsibilities that embody.
Even as I endeavour to start up my own social enterprise (8fahrenheit) with my classmates, I am preparing myself for the future challenges that it might bring. Especially when we start to incorporate the social side to our business. I am most worried about the part what we have to mangage beneficiaries because I feel that that might be most difficult. Not too worried about the sustainability though...everyone likes icecream right?!
Ms Pharoah continued "Enterprise failure (or success) in the social sector has little to do with these attributes, and the rhetoric is masking the real challenges of the small-scale local enterprise sector. One is poor access to intelligence and analysis of local market opportunities, and how they can best be used to meet need, or to fund ways of meeting it. The other is the ongoing lack of appropriate easy access to small-scale, higher-risk social finance. Small ventures need help to respond quickly and flexibly when a market opening appears."(para.6)
^^v
Isn't this where we come in?
Seems like we're all trained to retrieved information and properly analyse the market opportunities!
Maybe all what would be good is to have upgrade classes for social entrepreneurs training them in analysis skills and things like that, so that everyone would be well equipped to harvest opportunities in the social sector sustainably.
So, r u ready?
Reference
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