By Brian Jones, Chief Executive of Partnership of East London Co-operatives

As a Social Enterprise delivering healthcare services, we are committed to the principles upon which we were founded, however, it is equally important to recognise that the organisation has to be financial sustainable to meet future demand.

I became CEO of the organisation at a time when we had lost a major contract and more than half of the 350 workforce were due to be transferred to the new provider; there was an urgent need to understand the core costs of the business and reduce the size of the organisation.

In order to deliver savings successfully you need to engage with staff, ensuring that they form part of the journey. Senior leaders within the organisation should remain positive about the process, providing reassurance to staff about the future.

In the past six months, we have delivered more than £1million of financial efficiencies, enabling vital funds to be redirected towards the frontline care of patients. This has been achieved in a number of ways, including the renegotiation of property rents, performance management of suppliers and by also focusing on the workforce and the internal culture.

It is important to recognise that any pursuit of cost savings should not be done in isolation or in a way that could be perceived as a ‘top down approach’; this can destabilise a workforce as people naturally feel unsettled and nervous about their job security. In order to deliver savings successfully you need to engage with staff, ensuring that they form part of the journey. Senior leaders within the organisation should remain positive about the process, providing reassurance to staff about the future.

By having this early discussion with staff, they felt part of the process, affording them the opportunity to produce sensible ideas to reducing costs.

I believe that we have been successful, because we have engaged our people in the process, being open and honest about the need to reduce our overheads and reposition the organisation; enabling us to invest in delivering high quality, safe services for the future. Like your organisation, our staff were hardworking and dedicated to delivering a high quality service to the patients that we serve, however, we knew that we needed to focus time and energy upon specific areas. In advance of starting this journey, I met with staff to explain the strategy that we would be pursuing and the rationale for it, ultimately, reducing overheads, enabling us to redirect those savings towards improvements.

By having this early discussion with staff, they felt part of the process, affording them the opportunity to produce sensible ideas to reducing costs. Despite pursuing a significant financial recovery program, the most recent staff survey has produced some unexpected results; high levels of staff satisfaction and recognition from staff that they felt valued by the management. These were some of the highest levels of staff satisfaction that we have achieved in our 14 year history.

Organisations shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed to renegotiate with suppliers; we pursued an approach of informing our suppliers what we were willing to pay, versus what they were charging us.

With limited contractual information, the fastest way in which I was able to determine potential areas of savings was by simply spending a few hours reviewing our bank statements. This gave me an immediate snapshot of our suppliers, the costs attributable to each and provided me with an understanding of where to focus my time.

Organisations shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed to renegotiate with suppliers; we pursued an approach of informing our suppliers what we were willing to pay, versus what they were charging us. There are numerous websites available where you can benchmark a vast array of different services, and we were able to use this as a baseline for conducting negotiations. Using this approach, we were able to reduce the cost of across a number of areas ranging from consumables through to software; all without a requirement for us to extend our existing contract periods.

We used a similar approach to that which is widely seen across the retail sector at the moment, of liaising with our landlord to obtain a rent reduction at our corporate offices. Initially hesitant, the landlord agreed a compromise which enabled our organisation to a real term rental and service charge reduction.

Embarking on an efficiency program can be daunting, but this can be a lever to effective change whilst still managing short term priorities with strategic goals and long term vision. It’s a balance between realising the positive economic aspects of change in conjunction with social aspects of workforce engagement.

The process of delivering financial efficiencies are typically focused upon identifying and achieving savings, identifying new ways of working can also be used to reduce costs. We are, at pace, now working with partners across the UK and Europe to develop new services based upon AI technologies. The repositioning of the organisation, coupled with our reduced overheads has meant that we have been able to pursue growth opportunities – we are on course to increase turnover by 20% this year.

Workplace change shouldn’t necessary have a negative effect. In our case, whilst undoubtedly there were pressures of managing an increased workload, there was an upbeat vibe across the organisation. Embarking on an efficiency program can be daunting, but this can be a lever to effective change whilst still managing short term priorities with strategic goals and long term vision. It’s a balance between realising the positive economic aspects of change in conjunction with social aspects of workforce engagement.  Leadership provides the key, to facilitate and realise cost savings within a stable environment.  Once balance is achieved, it then provides a platform for growth, sustainable development and produces the foundations from which the organisation can build upon.

In the final of a short series of blog posts on sustainable leadership and team-work in social enterprise, leadership coach and social entrepreneur Tim Segaller explains why strong working relationships can make all the difference

So far in this blog series, I’ve explored two foundations for long-term success in social enterprise. Firstly, authentic vision and leadership: founding your business on the solid ground of a focused social vision, and on your natural leadership strengths – rather than unrealistic and pressurising ideals. Secondly, mental resilience: maintaining energy and inspiration in the face of complex pressures – through simple but powerful mindfulness-based techniques.

The third foundation is building strong relationships. As social beings, we all thrive when we’re in good connection with others. Surrounding yourself with the right people – and getting them on board with your social mission – is critical for your business. This includes all the people you work with or for – employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

Some people may have more natural ‘people skills’ – but it’s also possible for anyone to learn how to nurture and strengthen healthy relationships at work. In my work with leaders and teams, there are two related ways I help them do this.

Firstly, let’s look at emotional intelligence (EQ) – the subject of much research in the last 20 years. Put simply, it’s about understanding and being comfortable with the emotional landscape of both yourself and those around you. Leaders and managers with a high EQ are able to really ‘get’ other people – their motivations, preferences, and challenges – and use this knowledge to make good decisions in everyone’s best interests. Helpfully, the best way to train EQ is through precisely the same set of mindfulness-based skills as outlined in my previous blog on resilience. It’s all about deepening your awareness of self and other.

Secondly, there’s the ‘co-active’ model of leadership and communication. Sometimes the people we work with or for may get stuck – bogged down in complexity and over-thinking, or lacking confidence or relevant experience. When that happens, there are simple processes you can follow to help others access their own problem-solving resources. It’s about stepping into a ‘facilitative’ mode and giving others the space to think clearly and creatively – rather than stepping in to micromanage or fix things for them. Not only does this support others’ long-term development, it also frees up your time and energy to focus on the bigger strategic picture.

As I come to the end of this blog series, let’s sum up my three foundations for sustainable leadership and team-work into a single narrative. By cultivating inner qualities of resilience and resolve, you’re able to think more clearly, calmly and creatively. This allows you to access the ‘fuel’ of your authentic vision and leadership strengths – to keep you going when marketplace challenges get tough. Personal resilience also naturally leads to great working relationships, which are an essential support to anyone navigating the rocky landscape of growing a successful social business.

Tim Segaller will be running a workshop on ‘Sustainable leadership and team-work in social enterprise’ at the Social Enterprise Mark Conference on 20th June 2019. Book your conference tickets here. To find out more about Tim and his leadership coaching and training, go to www.enlivenedminds.com

In the second of a short series of blog posts on sustainable leadership and team-work in social enterprise, leadership coach and social entrepreneur Tim Segaller explores the importance of mental resilience for social enterprises

My first blog set out the challenge of sustaining energy, creativity and inspiration in the face of complex challenges. I introduced three key foundations:

1. authentic vision and leadership;
2. mental resilience;
3. strong relationships.

In exploring the first foundation, I explained why your vision and mission statements should be authentic, inspirational expressions of your desired social impact. And I made a case for an ‘authentic’ leadership ethos – based on your own natural leadership strengths – rather than striving to become the ‘ideal’ leader. This blog focuses on the second foundation: mental resilience.

Running a social enterprise can be tough (while rewarding!). Once the ‘honeymoon’ set-up phase has passed, there are many complex challenges: securing finance for scaling up, managing cashflow, and recruiting the right people. Such challenges can lead to frantic fire-fighting and plate-spinning. You may manage the intensity for a while. But eventually it’s likely to catch up with you – leaving you and your teams stressed, exhausted and inefficient. In the worst cases, it can lead to burnout or going bust.

The good news is that there are simple approaches to help you maintain energy and inspiration in the face of these stresses. Taken from the practice of ‘mindfulness’, they’ve been shown in neuroscience research to develop a steady mind – for focus, clear thinking and productivity. I’ve helped hundreds of people learn these skills, structured around a simple ABC formula:

​Awareness – of your mental and physical experience

Being with experience – creating space to deal with intractable problems and challenging emotions

Choosing wisely – by responding flexibly instead of reacting automatically

For a taste of this approach, try this short exercise: Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Notice sensations of breathing in your belly. If your mind gets distracted – by thoughts, memories or plans – just come back to your breathing. Keep doing this for a few minutes.

This exercise gives your brain a ‘power rest’, allowing the mind to become clearer and sharper, and the body more energised. It’s like rebooting yourself – so you can approach whatever is ahead of you with more clarity and resolve.

This is what resilience is all about, and it’s arguably the most important capacity at work. It allows you to adapt wisely to fast-changing conditions, which is critical for social enterprises. Sometimes the bright glare of your social vision can obscure the need to shift focus or tweak your business model. Resilience gives you mental agility to continually fine-tune strategy to meet the twin demands of delivering on social impact, and securing revenue and growth.

When you’re resilient you’re also better able to relate better to the people around you, and to build strong relationships. That’s what I’ll be exploring next week in my third blog.

Tim Segaller will be running a workshop on ‘Sustainable leadership and team-work in social enterprise’ at the Social Enterprise Mark Conference on 20th June 2019. Book your conference tickets here.

To find out more about Tim and his leadership coaching and training, go to www.enlivenedminds.com

In the first of a short series of blog posts, leadership coach and social entrepreneur Tim Segaller explores how social enterprises can sustain energy, creativity and inspiration for the long haul

The passion, determination and creativity of social entrepreneurs are qualities to be celebrated. They are driving the growth of the sector, and broader social change.

My experience as co-founder of a coaching and training social enterprise, and in coaching leaders and teams in organisations, has taught me the critical importance of sustaining these qualities in the long-term – particularly in the face of complex challenges like accessing finance to scale up, managing cash flow, or recruiting and retaining the right people.

Most social entrepreneurs have shown they have the capacity to deal with tough challenges, otherwise they wouldn’t have got their businesses off the ground in the first place. But we all have our breaking points under pressure – in the worst cases leading to total burnout or going bust.

So how can you and your teams sustain energy and inspiration year after year, even when the going gets tough? That’s what I’ll be exploring in this blog series. I will set out three key foundations:

1.  authentic vision and leadership;
2. mental resilience;
3. strong relationships.

Starting with the first: authentic vision and leadership. Every business needs a clear vision to provide ongoing focus and motivation to its people. This is particularly so for a social enterprise, as delivering on its social mission is usually as important as the need for revenue. So it’s vital to ensure your vision and mission statements fully and accurately reflect your original inspiration. They should be clear, heartfelt expressions of the social impact you want to achieve and why. Crucially, they should feel authentic and uniquely yours – rather than a worthy but bland general statement that you can’t really connect with.

On the theme of authenticity, let’s turn to leadership ethos. An easy trap to fall into, particularly in challenging times, is to think you must master new leadership models or skillsets. Of course there are always useful new tricks to learn. But often striving hard to reach a ‘corporate’ ideal can leave you feeling stressed and exhausted – preventing you from thinking clearly and acting decisively.

It’s far better to lead naturally, as yourself, based on your own distinctive leadership style and inspiration – trusting you’ve got what it takes to succeed. I’ve seen this many times in my work with leaders and teams: things run more smoothly when people play to their strengths and make space for their completely human imperfections.

None of this means that you should be complacent or resistant to learning and change. Successful social enterprises adapt to their environment – shifting focus and strategy, and evolving their business model. I’ll be exploring exactly this in more depth in my next blog, in the context of my second foundation – mental resilience.

Tim Segaller will be running a workshop on ‘Sustainable leadership and team-work in social enterprise’ at the Social Enterprise Mark Conference on 20th June 2019. Book your conference tickets here.

To find out more about Tim and his leadership coaching and training, go to www.enlivenedminds.com

By Kat Luckock, Founder of Share Impact

By Shaziya Somji, Managing Director of Harris Accountancy

This is the third in a series of posts Shaziya is writing for our guest blog.

Once an organisation decides to pay individuals, it will need to consider setting up payroll in order to pay the correct income tax, national and pension contributions.

To set up payroll, the organisation must register with HMRC as an employer and submit payroll information monthly or quarterly to HMRC, along with the payment of PAYE and NIC.

Employers don’t pay the first £3,000 of employer’s National Insurance Contributions, provided certain conditions are met. From April 2020 this allowance will be restricted to employers with a NI bill less that £100K.

There are instances where an organisation can pay individuals as self-employed individuals/contractors. However, the organisation has to consider off-payroll working rules (information available on the Gov.uk website).

There are three main areas to consider in order to establish if an individual is employed or self-employed:

Control

Who decides what, how, when and where the worker completes the work?

Substitution

Can the worker send a substitute?

Mutuality of obligation

Is the employer obliged to offer work and is the worker obligated to accept it?

Below is an outline of the rates applicable for payroll:

• Income tax: payable from gross wages at 20% at basic rate or 40% for higher income earners.
• NIC Employee: 12% or 2% for higher income earners
• NIC Employer: 13.8% payable by the organisation
• Pension by employee: 3%
• Pension by employer: 2%

For all of the above, there are allowances – please see links in the list of references below.

Shaziya Somji is Managing Director of Harris Accountancy; an accountancy firm specialising in working with CICs and Social Enterprises. For further details or advice on tax for your organisation please book a free call  via 0121 4558055 or online at www.harrisaccountancy.co.uk.

References:

• https://www.gov.uk/paye-for-employers/setting-up-payroll
• https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/employed-or-self-employed
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions
• https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates
• http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/automatic-enrolment-earnings-threshold.aspx

By Julie Hawker, Joint CEO of Cosmic

Cosmic was Social Enterprise Mark holder number one. Although that position was very closely contested by the Co-operative Group South West!

In those days, I was heavily involved as Chair of RISE – the regional body supporting social enterprise developments in the South West – and therefore was also part of the team which developed and successfully launched the Mark. I also served for several years on the Board of Social Enterprise Mark CIC, working to develop its strategy for national and international developments.

For all of the years since then Cosmic has continued to support and encourage the further impact which the Social Enterprise Mark can make to the wider sector and business in general. The Mark has been a fundamental part of Cosmic’s brand identity for well over a decade now, and it has proved a highly effective way to promote to the world our social impact credentials.

Cosmic’s commitment to social enterprise remains as strong as ever, and the Mark acts as a regular reminder for all stakeholders – staff, Directors, partners and clients.

In more recent years, Cosmic has been able to embed the Mark into all of our marketing and promotional materials. As the sector and the Mark has gained wider recognition, it has become easier to describe how we use our business model to achieve social impact, but at the same time, the Mark still represents a very useful tool for us to engage in questions and discussions about how the model works at Cosmic. Describing that our commercial services (web development, training and tech support) have the ability to generate profits, which are then 100% utilised to develop social impact projects and match-fund our work in this area with other sources of funding has become a key message for our stakeholders and clients.

For example, our investment in digital apprenticeships for our own business and others, or more recently our involvement in the Enhance Social Enterprise programme, which provides digital business support for other social enterprise; both of these involved Cosmic’s own investment to achieve social impact. More broadly speaking, Cosmic operates every day in achieving social enterprise – staff, directors, partners and members all act as ambassadors to social enterprise, constantly seeking ways to achieve more social impact and share this ethos.

Cosmic is very proud to have been Social Enterprise Mark holder No.1 and we very much consider ourselves as a sector leader and ambassador. We will continue to champion the role which social enterprise plays in improving society in UK and abroad.

Julie Hawker is Joint CEO of Cosmic, a social enterprise based in Devon, which is very highly regarded for its work in addressing digital skills development and digital inclusion as key priorities across the region. Julie is also a Social Enterprise Mark Ambassador, committed to raising the profile of the Social Enterprise Mark.

By Kat Luckock, Founder of Share Impact

This is the second in a series of posts Kat has written specially for our guest blog.

It’s true that balancing social and environmental priorities with commercial and financial requirements of a social enterprise is a challenge we all face as social entrepreneurs. However, what I’ve noticed, and increasingly been surprised by, in many quarters of the social enterprise sector is a resistance to talking about and focussing on finance, income strategies and profit to the detriment of many organisations’ success.

This seems especially the case for early-stage social enterprises or those who haven’t received external support or backing from investors. In my experience a commitment to ‘doing good’ often gets in the way of prioritising a strategy to generating reliable income. And for many early stage solopreneurs with social or environmental aims, confusion about whether profit is allowed or the conflation of making profit with being wealthy sits very uncomfortably.

“Profit in and of itself cannot be seen as a dirty concept. Rather it should be understood that it’s the choice of how to spend or invest that profit that differentiates a social enterprise with other types of business.”

I suppose it does take a particular type of person to set up a business which doesn’t allow for personal profit or shareholder returns (at least not without limits). More often than not it’s about being able to do a job that’s aligned to one’s values and commitment to make a difference on an issue they care deeply about.

The risk however is that those of us working in the sector conflate the issue of limiting personal/shareholder profit with the need to create organisational profit. The difference being that organisational profit can be used to deepen or scale the powerful social or environmental impact the organisation was set up to achieve, rather than line the private pockets of individual shareholders.

Profit in and of itself cannot be seen as a dirty concept. Rather it should be understood that it’s the choice of how to spend or invest that profit that differentiates a social enterprise with other types of business. As such, it seems essential to me, as a social entrepreneur, to focus on both: delivering the social / environmental impact and creating a robust income strategy to enable it.

Where income and finance are not taken seriously the impact is limited and the social enterprises themselves struggle to continue at all or become dependent on increasingly constrained grant funding (with all its restrictions and limited timescales). This in turn hinders the sector as a whole and limits our collective opportunity to demonstrate the difference social enterprise can make to challenging the status quo (and those we compete with on a global scale), not doing business as usual, and most importantly tackling global inequality and environmental degradation.

A secondary symptom of not focussing on wealth generation (within a social enterprise) is individuals working more hours for less income; reduced competitiveness to attract the best people for roles; lack of investment in training and development; and limited research and development for innovation or expansion in to new markets.

Without profit we limit the possibility of the social sector to expand and challenge “business as usual” to the detriment of people and planet.

To conclude I want to share three reasons why getting more comfortable with generating profit is beneficial to your social enterprise:

1) It enables sustainability

With an operating profit you know you have reserves to take you into the next financial year. Consistent profits and sustainable income also allow you to plan more than 6-12 months down the line. Being able to create a strategy of what you want to achieve that extends 2-5 years in to the future helps you make big decisions and move your business forward.

2) It enables space for research, innovation and development (note how I didn’t say growth)

With profit you can choose to invest in the areas of the business that are struggling or new areas you want to develop and expand in to. Without an operating profit it’s very difficult to find money to invest in the development of your business and harness potential opportunities in the market place. Notably this isn’t always about growth or scaling the impact but could be about improving your service, developing products or simply deepening the impact you have by being able to invest more in your social or environmental cause.

3) It increases opportunity for investment

As someone who is no expert in investment this is just an assumption, but it is my understanding that an investor or funder is always going to look more favourably on a social enterprise that is able to demonstrate how it will maintain a sustainable income and generate a profit beyond the term of their investment.

On the whole, as I understand it, investors and funders want to help organisations start, get to the next stage or innovate something new (for profit or impact) but they don’t want to fund you indefinitely. They want to know their investment or grant will pump-prime your initiative and allow you to maintain operations afterwards – so they can see a return on investment and celebrate your success with you. So planning for profit and setting this out in your proposal will give them more confidence that it’s possible to happen.

Kat Luckock is an Impact Strategist & Business Coach for social entrepreneurs and ethical retailers. She specialises in helping businesses measure and communicate their social and environmental impact to stakeholders and customers so they can build communities of support and increase sales and income.

Kat works with social entrepreneurs all over the world and is excited to write a series of posts for the Social Enterprise Mark blog throughout September. To find out more about Kat visit the Share Impact website.

By Kat Luckock, Founder of Share Impact

I like to think of social entrepreneurs as innovative ground-breaking, revolutionary AND tech savvy. The type of people who want to create change and are at the fore-front of the technology landscape – maximising the best tools to advance their business and deliver phenomenal impact.

Although there are many examples of social entrepreneurs who are like this, the majority of us at the early stage of business (1-3 years in) tend to be stuck in the reality of do, do, do and not lifting out head up to discover what tools could help us.

Okay so you’re using email, Office 365, sharing documents with your team via Google Drive (or something similar), and frequently look up your competitors on Facebook or LinkedIn but you have no idea what else is out there to help your organisation when it comes to digital technology.

No one would argue that when it comes to digital technology the world has moved on phenomenally over the past 20 years. In fact, the pace of change is difficult to keep up with at times. But how are we supposed to keep apace of all these changes and more importantly identify and decide which technologies are most useful to us day-to-day in our business?

In the first of my four guest blogs (released over the next couple of weeks), I wanted to share a variety of tools that could help your social enterprise increase its productivity, save time and as a result save money.

All the tools mentioned below are free to use, with upgrades for extra features and larger capacity. I’m sharing both tools I’ve used and some I’ve heard others recommend. They cover everything from diary management to lead generation, sales to CRM systems.

The first thing I want to introduce you to though is a little thing called Zapier. It’s like a wonder tool that links everything up so you can automate workflows and alleviate repetitive tasks in your business. Seriously, I could write a whole blog post just about this, there’s so much possibility with the tool. But if you’re using some of the other tools I mention below and you want simplify how they all connect up then check if Zapier can do that first.

Time killers! I focus in the rest of the blog on things that eat up time in your business, which could be simplified, automated or completely avoided with one of these tools.

General

The first one I know we all struggle with is losing passwords. Especially when you’re working across teams, you have new volunteers or interns helping out every couple of months, and you have to update your passwords regularly to stay secure. LastPass is your answer. Never forget a password again and give access to team members at the click of a button all in one secure place.

Time waster number two; Printing out documents like contracts and funding applications to sign and then scan back in to your computer to send via email. HelloSign is a simple tool that allows you to sign documents electronically, without all the faff and unnecessary printing.

Been sent a file or document you can’t open? Cloud Convert  supports the conversion between more than 200 different audio, video, document, ebook, archive, image, spreadsheet and presentation formats without having to download any software on your computer.

Diary Management and booking meetings

How many hours do you spend on the phone or emailing back and forth to customers and stakeholders trying to find appropriate times to book in a meeting or call? For finding a convenient date for team or group of people Doodle is an amazing tool.

But what about when you want to allow customers and clients to book a call or meeting with you directly from your website or Facebook page? Calendly is my number one tool for showing when I’m available for meetings and helping customers book a call or meeting in my diary, without me ever having to speak to them. It also automates an email to confirm the booking and there are settings for reminders. You can also sync it with your Google Calendar (ICal or Office calendar) so you know when it’s been booked in too.

Lead Generation

Do you spend hours looking for B2B leads on LinkedIn? Try Dux-Soup; a great tool that visits thousands of profiles for you, using key words and existing networks. When people see you’ve been looking at their profile they’re much more likely to look at yours and get in touch.

Video Conferencing & Webinars

Do you spend a lot of time on the road going to meetings? Why not organise more video calls to save you time, money and carbon emissions. It’s still face-to-face, you can share documents, screens, invite others in and record the calls with Zoom – my go-to video call platform. I run my business from my laptop and I couldn’t be without Zoom, it means I can connect to clients all over the world and jump on a call with my remote team members for weekly check-ins. You can also add bolt-ons for webinars and more than 10 people.

Email Communication & Sales Funnels

So you’ve probably heard of MailChimp and maybe you’re using it. I loved Mailchimp when I first started as a social entrepreneur. It was a great way to design and send weekly newsletters to our mailing list. It’s even easier now you can create opt-in forms and landing pages to capture email address on your website or via social media. And it probably is the simplest way if you’re just starting out with a mailing list and want to create a simple email sequence to introduce yourself and warm leads up.

But for the more advanced there’s the paid-for Convertkit or ClickFunnels; two great tools for creating more advance sales funnels for different audiences, leads and product types.

And if you want more of a CRM built in, Dubsado, Hubspot, 17 Hats and Capsule are recommended (although I’ve never used any of these myself).

Social Media Scheduling & Automation

If you’re not scheduling your social media so it automatically posts each day, you’re probably wasting time or not being consistent enough on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram. Hootsuite, Buffer and Planoly (an App  for Instagram only), amongst many others, are great tools to schedule all your posts for the month ahead so you do it once and forget about it.

Project planning and team organisation

Trello and Asana are two of the most popular platforms I see people using for project planning and team organisation. I also like Wunderlist for creating quick to do lists and setting deadlines or reminders for things.

Simple Graphic Design or Document Creation

Not a graphic designer? Don’t have the funds for Adobe Suite? I use Canva every single day in my business because it’s so easy to create graphics and documents.

My last money saving tip…

If your website is just for sharing information about your products or services, or you have an e-commerce store, don’t spend thousands with a web-developer – use simple platforms like Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Weebly or Shopify to set up your website quickly and cheaply (from as little as £20/month including domain).

Kat Luckock is an Impact Strategist & Business Coach for social entrepreneurs and ethical retailers. She specialises in helping businesses measure and communicate their social and environmental impact to stakeholders and customers so they can build communities of support and increase sales and income. Kat works with social entrepreneurs all over the world and is excited to being featured in the Social Enterprise Mark blog for the next few weeks.

By Ed Whitelaw, Head of Enterprise & Regeneration at Real Ideas Organisation

We need to talk about anarchism. Once you get past the often mis-leading, negative, bomb-chucking stereotypes of the proceeding centuries, many of the ideas contained within the, by definition, very broad church of anarchist thought are quite sensible. Indeed, in many cases emphasizing balance and moderation. They also have the potential to provide at least part of the answer to society’s infinitely complex growing list of challenges, from political disenfranchisement to growing inequalities, aging populations, environmental degradation and shrinking public services.

Be it by necessity and by design, anarchic ideas, and practice, are increasingly evident all around us. While the wider anarchist “movement” intermittently flares up, burning hot and fast, but ultimately short-lived like a virus in the popular mind – in moments such as Occupy – a more sustained, transformative genera of anarchism is growing, more like mycelium through the forest of society day-by-day.

These aren’t quick, but they are steady and cumulative steps, and coming from both directions – from activists and government alike – politics and politicians know this is needed. From localism, devolution and cooperative councils to the increasing prevalence of self-managing, self-organising, agile, matrix managed businesses and civic organisations. Running all the way from subsidiary in European Union, right the way through to energetic indy-towns such as Frome and Buckfastleigh. Though where this is often most evident is in the ever-growing UK-wide movement of enterprise driven social action: social enterprises, b-corps, community business, coops and just good businesses – a restless growing wave the anarchopreneurs balancing economic independence with social value, personal liberty with collective solidarity. This is beyond the politics of the Left or the Right, it is the politics community leadership – taking action and accepting social, and economic, responsibility.

South West England provides further examples. The Transition Towns movement grew out of Totnes, and just 20 minutes down the road, the “Plymouth Model”, the UK’s first Social Enterprise City where hundreds of socially enterprising organisations, with an enabling local government partner and a welcoming business community are driving everything from regeneration to education, from healthcare to clean energy and even the creative and digital industries. Towns like Watchet, where a group of local people, the Onion Collective (predominantly women) have painted an effective picture of what “taking back control” should actually look like. Igniting a range of locally owned community businesses following all-too-common market failures, resulting in the loss of local industry.  Projects include a visitors’ centre, a new green space community park and regular summer street markets, even reimagining the East Quay waterfront as a new space for studios, restaurants, galleries and visitor accommodation.

This community owned – anarchic – action is increasingly seeping into the mainstream. From the recent incorporation of the South West Mutual, part of a national network of the soon-to-be people powered regional banks, to the Big Lottery’s own endowment trust – Power to Change – that is tirelessly working (in both Plymouth and Watchet) to create locally owned, community accountable businesses and services up and down England. And then, Carne Ross’s story of his remarkable journey from diplomate to anarchist – The Accidental Anarchist – lands slap-bang in the middle of your BBC viewing – now something is really up?

Britain today is alive with constructive anarchism, anarchic ideas and substantial real action.

We need to talk about anarchism. We need to talk about community owned change. Take Proudhon for instance, one of the leading anarcho-theoreticians, sometime described as the “connoisseur of paradox” (or other words, he understood the need for balanced view!), who first adopted the word anarchist to describe himself and along with Godwin is often credited with “creating” anarchism. His position here could be summarised in three parts:

1. Participation – far from being the absence of governance, he saw anarchism as the mass participation in government: limiting but with necessary layers of government, built from the people or the workshop up. Initially, and primarily, this came about via economic more than political means, growing networks of social and economic administration – “the cure for social ills cannot be found on political level and must be sought in the economic roots of society”.
2. Local ownership – his most famed pronouncement – “property is theft” wasn’t a statement against the ownership of private property, only against the disproportionate ownership of large scale capital and assets by private interest, and/or indeed the state, what he termed the “cumulative proprietors”. With an emphasis on democratic and social value, he welcomed private ownership and saw economic liberation as fundamental to wider political freedom – “political right requires to be buttressed by economic right”. In a Smithian way he was an advocate of genuine free trade, as an effective regulating structure for society and recognised that, to a larger extent, communities are often remarkably good at managing themselves. Proudhonism, often cited as the philosophical bedrock of anarcho-syndicalism, envisaged a society organized around cooperating local businesses-like enterprising organisations, working units of society (social enterprises, coops and community business, even SMEs?), inter-trading and federating as needed on the larger scale.
3. Reform –  flying the face of the anarchist caricature, Proudhon rejected revolution, favouring reform over time through education, fiscal policy, credit reform and new forms of social corporate ownership – he even tried to set up a mutual, Peoples’ Bank. At the heart of this was a good honest grasp of human nature, a Hayekian recognition of complexity, the value and need for personal liberty and individualism, well balanced with the important need for, and indeed facilitated by, community collective good.

We need to talk about anarchism. We need to move that anarchist debate beyond a quirk of the 19^th century; beyond the flash of passion, courage, but ultimate tragedy of the Spanish Civil War; and beyond the unhelpful black bloc stereotypes. We need to move it to where it belongs – in our daily lives. Anarchism is more than a fringe political movement of the shadows, it is something that is happening and as C. S. Scott suggests with his “anarchist squint” it’s a way of looking, thinking and behaving. If we look at the world through the anarchist lens, we see it all around us and with many encouraging results.

While anarchism has often been good at defining what it is against, it is less clear when it comes to practical application and what it is for. Community enterprises are finding new, real ways for more people, often at the furthest fringes, to participate in society economically and therefore, also democratically. They are creating more meaningful forms of ownership, putting the means of production not in private or state hands, but in the hands of local people, and they are changing the way society works. Reforming healthcare, learning, social care, energy production, housing, pubs, venues, the creative industries, business services, finance and even banking – now government too? Isn’t this what Proudhon was talking about? We need to talk about anarchism.

Originally posted on Real Ideas Organisation blog on 19th July 2018

By Jonathan Alder, founder and Co-Director of Alder and Alder

Your brand is a powerful communication tool that has the potential to differentiate you from competitors, and make you interesting and relevant to your audience. If you can harness the power of your brand it will give you the opportunity to influence what people think and how they behave. It will give you the power to change things.

And there is a need to change things. Existing models are struggling to adapt to the new demands that business and society is placing upon them. Change is all around us, and undoubtedly brings challenges, but it also brings opportunities. It brings the opportunity to do something different. Something new. Something better.

Social enterprises have the opportunity to be the change and bring the solution. But to win a new audience you have to explain why you are the solution.

As a social enterprise your brand is a particularly powerful tool. At the heart of each organisation is a ‘purpose’ – the reason they exist. This is the foundation of every brand. In commercial businesses ‘purpose’ can get lost, because the focus is often on making money, rather than making a difference. This is where the opportunity for social enterprise emerges. As a social enterprise it’s ALL about making a difference, and that’s attractive, not just to your stakeholders, but to the wider community.

Brand building can seem a daunting prospect, but breaking the process down into stages can make it much easier to manage. I’ve identified three stages that provide a practical approach to harnessing the power of your brand.

1. The first stage is Brand Definition. Social enterprises need to clearly articulate the advantages their model can offer to each stakeholder group they engage with, when compared to the existing solutions available. For organisations that are selling a service or product to customers, differentiating a social enterprise approach from the commercial model of competitors can be even more important, as the trend for values-driven purchasing continues.
2. Brand Design, the second stage, is focused on the tools an organisation will need in order to communicate with stakeholders. Engaging, persuasive, powerful communication is fundamental to influencing how your audience behaves, especially when you are offering something new or different. The quality of your visual communication will help you to compete more effectively against, what some stakeholders might consider, more ‘professional’ commercial competitors.
3. The final step is to bring your brand to life. I call this stage Brand Delivery. Society is looking for change, but they don’t necessarily know where to find it. If you have an alternative solution you need to take it to your stakeholders and present it as a viable option, not some kind of worthy compromise. You will need to find an effective and efficient way to deliver your message, whether that is in print, in person or online.

The business sector – and society at large – is experiencing change and uncertainty. People are frustrated and looking for alternative solutions. This is the opportunity for social enterprise to move from a niche model to the mainstream. But to achieve that transition social enterprises need to communicate clearly. It’s time to harness the power of your brand, and build one that helps you to define, design and deliver your message.

If you would like to learn more about how to harness the power of your brand, I’ve written a guide to branding for social enterprises, Time For Change.