Social enterprise and social innovation: Strategies for the next ten years

I read this paper and wanted to share it with the class. This paper gives a good review about social innovation, where it stands, and how will it shape up in coming years. This paper also focuses on the role of the government in social enterprise sector and how public policy should be formulated for this sector.

It talks about the basis of social enterprises. Their existence signifies the fact that market won't come up with the required innovative solutions. They are established to meet the needs in those areas that government services do not have the capacity to reach. States now prefer to fund those enterprises that can provide public goods and services in a more efficient way. Its also the realization that government finds it difficult to cater to the diverse needs of the population. Social enterprises are aware of these distinct needs and can give a more focused and a personalized solution to the people. Public services provided by the government are independent departments with no integration between these services. Social enterprises provide more integrated services. Services provided by the government, sometimes do not involve the people compared to social enterprises who measure their impact from the level of community involvement in their project.

In mid 1990s, the policy goals were more focused on how to increase the amount of social enterprises and social entrepreneurs. The paper states that as this field becomes more populated and complex, this policy goal is no longer sufficient. In coming years the focus needs to shift on what social enterprises can achieve together, measuring their impact more accurately.

Since policy goals initially placed importance on increasing the supply of social entrepreneurs, they were heavily influenced by the concept of venture capitalism to fund enterprises. In coming years, public policy would seek outcomes such as social impact and sustainability. The important question is that if public policy has the right tools to measure the impact of social enterprises. Governments need to formulate a public policy platform that provides the much needed connection between government enterprises and social enterprises. The focus should be more on increasing interaction between social enterprises and between social enterprises and public institutions that have the assets and networks to apply social innovation at scale.

The paper states the following ingredients for a social enterprise policy

1. Expanding the Giving Economy. This means facilitating and spreading the culture of giving and volunteerism among the populace. People should not only donate their money. They should also donate their time to the causes of social enterprises.
2. Strengthen Social Enterprise: By building large scale solutions that can inspire others to do the same.
3. Social Enterprise State: maintain social sector as the major supplier of services and use social enterprises strategically to bring innovation in public services.
4. Socially Responsible Business : The biggest impact of social innovation would be the change in how businesses and markets operate in the future.It will show how social responsibility can be a new source of competitive advantage and innovation for companies.

• Government funding in social enterprises that are considered too risky may set new standards in business practices.
• Government can also promote creation of new metrics for social value creation or damage which existing shareholders or investors can use to pressure companies to improve their social performance.
• Government can expand and improve the scope of social investment funds such as social impact bonds in UK.

Its a very good paper. I hope everyone spares their time to read it.

Here is the link

http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/cms/xstandard/social_enterprise_innovation.pdf