Our approach to social enterprise is one that focuses on social entrepreneurs creating community-engaged, community-shaped organisations*. We have found that it is a combination of personal support and development, project knowledge and leadership skills which leads to the creation of robust, responsive, effective and sustainable solutions to unmet needs.
In SSE’s experience, creating new organisations to address disadvantage is a personal process. Social entrepreneurs often have personal experience of the issues they are trying to solve. They identify with the project they are establishing and take personal risks to make it happen. They can feel isolated and need personal as well as project support. This is rarely recognised in traditional training and organisational development, which focuses on imparting technical knowledge and skills. SSE helps entrepreneurial individuals to combine personal and project growth with business skills development.
It is also our experience that action learning is the most effective approach for individuals leading social change. They develop their business and life skills through applying their learning directly to the project that they are in the process of establishing or leading.
"Entrepreneurship is about an attitude, a mindset and a set of personal characteristics"
Entrepreneurship is about an attitude, a mindset and a set of personal characteristics; and (social) entrepreneurs most effectively combine their resourcefulness, drive, opportunism, and innovation in the form of practical action, not theoretical learning. SSE believes that peer support and group learning are maximised by a diverse intake of students, leading a wide and inspiring range of projects.
The SSE programme is open to entrepreneurial individuals who are serving communities and addressing issues including:
- Innovative projects for young people and children
- People disadvantaged by social or economic circumstances
- Health and education projects
- Neighbourhood renewal projects
- Refugees and asylum seekers
- Black and minority ethnic groups
- People with disabilities
- Environmental projects
- Crime and community safety projects
Students, range from 19-74 in age, roughly half are women and half men with a mix of educational experiences including those with no formal qualifications and others who are professionally or academically qualified.
This diversity within the student group enables a rich crossfertilisation of ideas, the creation of collaborative projects, and high levels of reciprocal learning during the course of a programme.
Having established the efficacy of the methodology in significantly enhancing the effectiveness of social entrepreneurs, SSE then set about sharing that best practice and replicating the model around the UK. The SSE Network currently includes the original centre in East London, SSE Fife, East Midlands SSE, SSE Ireland (Belfast), Aston SSE (West Midlands) and, Liverpool SSE.
[see Regional Schools on left-hand side]
The Network works as a social franchise: local independent, community-led agencies are licensed to create and run programmes with SSE’s help on design, learning and quality. The same characteristics that we seek in our students (engaged with community, entrepreneurial, experienced, committed etc.) are those that we seek in our local and regional partners. The core services provided to the Network include a quality system, best practice guide, branding (literature + materials), extranet/web, policy work, media and PR, and internal/external evaluation.
We are currently working to develop schools in Cornwall, Cumbria, the Black Country, Yorkshire and the South East. If you would like more information on the status of these developments, or are interested in becoming a partner organisation / franchisee in your region, please get in touch or download this potential partner brochure (large pdf) for more information.
