Using urban agriculture to generate an income
Abalimi means "The Planters" in Xhosa and they have helped individuals, groups and community-based organisations to develop permanent food-growing and conservation projects as the basis for sustainable livelihoods, job creation and poverty alleviation.
They provide training and low-cost, subsidised gardening resources like manure, seeds, tools, and organic pest control at its two gardens in Nyanga and Khayelitsha townships, which are staffed by fieldworkers from those communities.
The Fezeka Community Garden in Gugulethu has 5,000 square meters that is used for growing vegetables.
Albalimi helps farmers develop their own organic vegetable gardens to supplement their diet and provide additional income.
Mike.
Cancer Research UK turns to social enterprise
The Open Ventures Challenge in aid of Cancer Research UK, one of the UK's biggest charities, is challenging budding entrepreneurs to come up with ambitious ideas for new ventures which the charity can support in order to generate more money to tackle cancer.
Whether it be independent business ventures, new ventures for an existing company or a new venture for Cancer Research UK to run itself, the Challenge will take these ideas, and the people behind them, through concept creation, team building, funding and launch.
The competition was thought up by Mojo, an organisation which seeks to broaden the pool of people able to participate in positive social change.
Cancer Research UK will select three winners from the ideas submitted who will each receive financial and organisational support to nurture their enterprise in the hope that each one will be able to raise around £10million each over five years.
The public are able to vote on submitted ideas, with some of the highlights including: After School Running Programs, Family Fun Runs and Recycling Advertising Space.
To read more about the competition visit Social Enterprise Magazine.
Visit the Open Ventures Challenge website.
Mike.
Measuring and estimating social value creation
The report profiles eight cost approaches to measuring and estimating social value creation, which are:
1. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, which is a form of economic analysis that compares the expenses and outcomes of two or more courses of action.
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis, which is often used to help assess the case for a project proposal
3. REDF Social Return on Investment (SROI), provides an alternative to purely economic measurement of return of investment.
4. Robin Hood Foundation Benefit-Cost Ratio, profits a method for assessing and tracking value creation amongst non-profits
5. Acumen Fund BACO Ratio, provides an alternative to measuring social returns
6. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Expected Return, the concept of providing a consistent, quantitative process for evaluating potential investments
7. Center for High Impact Philanthropy Cost per Impact, introduces a "cost per impact" approach where the social impact and costs are measured and compared
8. Foundation Investment Bubble Chart, illustrates a set of reporting metrics at the organizational or program level that are common across the programs of a non-profit or a segment of a foundation portfolio.
This report makes for solid academic reading, which is what you would expect from the Gates'. But it does also emphasise that there is not a one size fits all approach to measuring social return on investment with the remark that "there is no perfect methodology".
The best recent advice I have heard on social return on investment (SROI), as outlined in an interview on the Social Innovations Conversations, is to identify the one most appropriate key performance indicator (KPI) and use it to focus everything you do, rather than multiple metrics that can become confusing and difficult to track.
For example, if your organisation treats Tuberculosis sufferers, your KPI could be "Number of TB patients who have completely recovered from the disease."
Of course you need to ensure this metric is the most approiate one to track...
Click here to read the Gates report in full.
Read more on SROI here.
Mike.
Focus on opportunities within your current proposition
This is the fourth step in our series of moving your charity in to a social business.
For example, you may be a charity supporting the homeless by providing beds, clothing, food and other forms of care they so desperately need. You may be reliant on schools for donations of blankets and bedding, low cost rental from local businesses and possibly multi-lateral organisations for grants to cover basic operating costs.
I suspect that these donations are not provided indefinitely, and that they are made in conjunction with specific projects that may have a set lifespan. This means that at the end of the project you will need to reapply for funding, using valuable time and effort to obtain the funds needed to run your organisation.
If you looked at replacing, for example, the blankets and bedding that are currently donated to your organisation, with a commercial opportunity that pays for itself. This could be through selling goods that your beneficiaries made - perhaps bedding or linen that a typical consumer would buy.
This would be providing your beneficiaries (previously homeless) skills that they did not have before and a new income stream for your organisation.
This could be taken a step further by partnering with a well known brand or designer to design the goods that you are selling. This would help the designer, since he or she would be providing a valuable service to communities in need, and also give your products an associated brand that would help sell the them.
By using opportunities that are within your current proposition, allows you to reduce the risk of trying something completely new, whilst also using existing contacts and resources to move your organisation from a charity to a social business.
Mike.
Change your behaviours to operate as a social business
The third step in moving your charity to a social business is adapting your behaviours in order to start thinking and operating as a social business.
Many leading authors and leadership experts believe there are three key aspects to effective leadership in an organisation, with the ultimate “leader” being proficient in all three:
1. Technician
2. Manager
3. Entrepreneur
If I use the example of a school, the teacher is the technician, the headmistress is the manager, and the entrepreneur is she that finds new opportunities and ways of working that are used for the benefit of the students.
It is the role of the entrepreneur that needs to come to the fore when converting your charity to a social business.
You need the ability to adapt or change your behaviours in the following key areas in order to be successful in this transition.
Be an agent for change - use tactics that will work within your environment, focusing on commercial drivers to transform your organisation in becoming a social business.
Use existing resources - don’t incur high costs to make the changes required. In the short term aim to stick to your current team size and overheads, whilst focussing your energy on commercially driven revenue models rather than on donations and grants.
Commercial focus - use the opportunities provided with open markets to generate the revenue required to support your social and environmental objectives.
Don’t lose sight of the reasons why your organisation exists, stick to your vision of addressing social issues, whilst retaining strong leadership attributes to support and steer your team in becoming a social business.
Mike.
Micronutrients
Micro nutrients is the concept of providing key nutrients to mothers and children at times in their lives when they most need it.
Mike.
The Papillon Foundation
3. What are the typical challenges you come across when funding a new project?
Answer: We simply refuse to be daunted by any challenges, especially once we have the communities buy in and we simply roll up our sleeves and get stuck in.
The importance here is that it must never be a project that is forced upon the community, but rather a well researched effort that meets with the affected communities’ needs.
People, regardless of their situation, are not fools and they will soon know if you mean well, or if you simply want to stroke your own ego.
The amazing thing is that everything such as infrastructure, materials and any other requirements seem to appear, as if almost guided by a magic hand.
Believe it or not, this is exactly how we started Papillon in 2002 and some of us worked the entire first year for free.
4. You have a number of partners supporting the Papillon Foundation. Why do your partners invest in your organisation?
A culture of entitlement was created and it is this culture that we are trying to change by showing people that they have the talents to help themselves, by bringing them quality opportunities in subsidised skills training to unlock their own natural abilities.
Just as the poor are not fools, so also our supporters are not fools and they see the results of their support in our reported achievements, knowing that they also have a full partnership in these achievements.
A full list of Papillon's achievements can be found on their new website, including their 2008 annual report.
Backing success by being 'fair'
By backing the best researchers their investments would ultimately be used the most effectively for the public.
This approach is perhaps not the most democratic way to decide on what projects or communities to invest in, but it does mean that those who can make the most significant difference will be invested in.
It is, after all, people rather than structures and governance that make the difference.
In order to be successful in addressing our social issues, we need to invest in our people, not just in our ideas.
This is what I call a fair approach, when the investment is made in the people first.
Mike.
Podcast on social media
There is a new podcast from Allison Fine on using social media for social causes, with her latest update including some interesting interviews on this topic.
Mike.
Social networks for social causes
Social networks that are created in Facebook exist because people want to connect with each other. And because of these connections they can become valuable supporters of your cause if you are able to interact successfully with their social networks.
They don't join the social media sites to donate to a charity, they joined to interact with their friends.
Applications on Facebook can raise awareness as well as funds for your social cause.
Mike.