Social Project vs Social Enterprise

As I discussed last week, our School for Social Entrepreneurs went to the Sydney CBD, the Westpac Building in Martin Place, for this week's session. We met with representatives from Perpetual Foundation , Philanthropy Australia and Westpac Foundation to discover all there is to know about applying for social enterprise funding. Unfortunately, the Canberra fog delayed my arrival by 6 hours and I missed the first session. I was able to catch the second session, the Westpac one.

The outstanding lesson I learned in that time is this one -- these funders are not necessarily huge institutions looking to distribute funds "from up on high". Rather, these are real people who are emotionally moved by the social welfare needs of people around Australia and the world. And they are moved by stories which entrepreneurs tell about their projects. In fact, we were encouraged not just to tell our stories but to connect with these people personally, yes one-on-one, who are in this place of decision-making. I was encouraged by this new found understanding. I am now motivated even more to tell my/our story (the stories at NationsHeart are certainly moving!) in different ways and through different mediums. Perhaps, now, even to start to collect or compile such stories that will become "our story" through the journey which is NationsHeart Connect.

Let me share another lesson I learned during our Westpac time. The representative from Westpac told us they support Social Enterprises around Australia with funding. We we told that Westpac takes a broad understanding of social enterprise, I think Westpac is saying that they are ready to support most social projects which have viability. This differs from my view of social enterprise which goes further than requiring viability but requires independent sustainability from within the enterprise.

Let me see if I can explain this.

To me, social projects are programs which are designed and run to meet needs within the community. These projects require resources outside themselves for initiation and for continuation despite, perhaps, the project generating some kind of income through trade. At NationsHeart we operate a number of social projects which are meeting needs of our community people and which create some profits but certainly not enough to continue without outside support.

I take a more narrow view of social enterprise. Like social projects, social enterprises exist for the benefit of society. Social businesses, like social projects, may need to call upon outside financial assistance (grants, loans and in-kind support) to start-up the business or to invest in capital. But the goal of social enterprise is, on the basis of a business model, to become financially and organisationally self-sustaining; even profit making. This requires a cogent business plan, a supportive client base, a viable market place and a stable governance.

While I understand that there are different views and definitions of social enterprise, I continue to believe that we need to distinguish between these two methods or strategies for meeting needs within our communities. It is my opinion that the community service sector requires both of these arms, the social projects and the social enterprises, to provide a full spectrum of care to close the gaps which exist in society. And while I encourage the support of social projects from major funders, I would also like to see clear and ongoing support of those who, like us, are working to establish social enterprises in the narrow sense of the word.

Ronaldo

27/06/09

Perpetual Foundation

http://www.perpetual.com.au/philanthropy/3798.htm

Philanthropy Australia

http://www.philanthropy.org.au/

Westpac Foundation

http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/publish.nsf/Content/WIWCWF+Westpac+Foundation

Building the Wall: one brick at a time!

At the School for Social Entrepreneurs this past Wednesday we were told that next Wednesday we will spend the day at Westpac Foundation in Sydney's CBD meeting with various executives from that institution. Westpac is a great supporter of the social enterprise model giving giving away over $16m in the past 10 years to promote social enterprise in Australia. I went straight to their website and began to read all about Westpac Foundation and soon realised that, at the moment, gaining a grant from this Foundation would be next to impossible for a number of reasons (and I won't go into that right now). After shaking off a bit of discouragement, I reminded myself of something: we are in a building process, Ron. To use the Nehemiah illustration (which is what we are using these days at NationsHeart Christian Community), NationsHeart Connect's walls are just taking shape. We are probably not even half way through the building process. We need to simply keep working one brick, one stone, at a time. The Westpac Foundation stone is not for us at this moment.

These thoughts made the vision come a clearer for me. I suddenly realised: What if we set our sites on becoming a Social Enterprise model who would actually one day become viable for receiving such support? Now that's a challenge I could take on. And that excited me. I am looking forward to meeting these executive next Wednesday who are setting the bar high for us in the social enterprise sector.

On Thursday, when I returned to Canberra to my office and shared this with my PA, we could envision the steps that we need to take to build the wall and develop an organisation that not only would meet Westpac's standards but be effective in the community. The vision now had a plan and some short term goals.

And then came the thrill.

Opening the mail an hour later, we discovered that we have been awarded a $26,000 grant from the ACT government for a Health Promotions grant we applied for months ago. Now $26k is not a huge amount of money in the world of grants out there, but for us, it's a huge milestone. It's our first real programme grant, it's our opportunity to demonstrate our ability to provide social service with quality and good planning. We just entered the arena of being a viable recipient of grant moneys for social enterprise projects. This is our first step in being able to qualify for grants from the big boys, the Westpacs, out there.

We are building: one brick at a time.

Ronaldo

20/06/09

The $26k grant we received is for a new program we call "More than a Food Bank" which will enhance our FoodHut program at NationsHeart by providing nutrition and cooking information to our Community. The grant will increase our staffing for a year and provide us with an industrial dishwasher. We believe that we will help people provide for themselves and their families nutritious and affordable meals.

Also. Westpac Foundation website

http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/publish.nsf/Content/WIWCWF+Westpac+foundation

Also. We continue to promote our Belconnen Business Breakfast for the Belconnen Town Centre on Friday 3 July 2009 at 7am. See www.nationsheartconnnect.org.au for more info.

Hope and Hard Work

Dreams are fantastic.  I don't mean those night time visions.  I am talking about our day time dreams of what we would love to see changed.  Those kind of dreams drive people to incredible accomplishments.  I have had a dream to bring together the business leaders of Belconnen Town Centre for about 3 years now.  It was one of my goals last year that never got short-listed.  I hoped that it would happen, but it didn't.  I didn't put in the hard work.

It takes hope and hard work to pull off dreams in the social entrepreneur sector.  No matter what you believe about the concept of hope -- that it is drawing upon the power and assistance of a supreme being or it is adding positive thoughts to bring about substantial change -- hope is necessary for the accomplishment of social enterprises.  We believe in the project, we believe in ourselves and we believe that the change we are bringing is vital to the future.  Hope is our mind, will and emotions accepting that belief on  a day-to-day, moment-by-moment, continuum.

Hard Work is as vital to the success of social enterprise.  Any project that has as its goal the meeting of some need or issue in society that has been untouched will require arduous labour.  Presently I am visiting all the businesses in the Town Centre and while it's not killing me it's hard work.  In fact, though people who may know me may be surprised at this, I don't enjoy it.  I don't like doing cold-turkey visits, I don't like, for the 200th time, saying my name, my project, my purpose and my invite, I don't like the feeling of vulnerability that comes everytime I step through an unknown doorway.  But I do the hard work knowing that my dream is being accomplished.  And I like that!

The opposite of hope is not despair.  In social entrepreneur circles the opposite of hope is cynicism.  Cynicism is that which says "this will never work and my dream will not come about and this hard work is useless".  Cynicism are those negative thoughts which attack our dream in all points from questioning motives to declaring futility.  Cynicism says that nothing will work to bring about our dream.  Cynicism makes the hard work even harder.

The opposite of hard work is not laziness.  The opposite of hard work is false hope.  False hope says "I don't really have the time and energy to pull off what I know I must do, I will hope that the project succeeds."  And we actually believe that statement.  We actually believe that for some reason everything we dream about will fall into our laps like a winning lottery ticket found on the street.  The opposite of hard work is believing my hopes, my thoughts and prayers and magical formulas, will bring about the fulfilment of the goals without the struggle and trouble and pain.

So what do we do?  Give up hoping?  Never be cynical or critical of our project?  No, we must find and maintain the balance.  We hope as if that's all there is and work as if hope doesn't matter.  These two, overlapping, will bring us to the place where our projects succeed and our dreams come true.

I'm off to visit more businesses soon.  This is going to work and my dream will come to fruition.  I just know it.

Ronaldo