May

10

Red Button Design–Fundraising Techniques and the Dragon’s Den

May 10, 2008

Earlier this week we attended the ‘Good Deals’, social investment conference hosted by Phil Hope in his capacity as Minister for the Third Sector and NESTA. Although I am normally cynical about such things in this case my concerns were mis-placed. The conference was successful, well-attended and interesting. One of the most fascinating examples was a brief presentation by Red Button Design, and the co-founders James Brown and Amanda Jones. Their product, a simple water-carrier and purefier was an intriguing solution for developing world consumers, but what made them really stand out was their approach to fund-raising, and the success they have achieved.
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May

10

This Blog has Become Too Theoretical–Help Us Rectify This

May 10, 2008

Most of the comments we receive on this site are spam–advertising a host of things which are inapprorpiate to mention here. In other cases they are self promotion (some of which we do publish) and we get a fair share of general cristicism–which we welcome. The comment on the last post by Samantha Morshed, who worked in Bangladesh, was one of the most useful we have ever received. She points out that many of our recent posts are just theoretical–and she is absolutely correct. We used to use social business stories to convey important trends, but have recently dropped the stories, which in my view were far more important.

So mea culpa–we have allowed our mission to drift and I take full responsibility for this. I am very grateful for Samantha for pointing this out. As this blog now gets over 1000 hits each day from all over the world, I would like to ask for your help in dealing with this justified criticism. I will try to work in more stories but would be grateful for your help in doing so. Please send me (rod@catfund.com or by commenting on this site) what you think are some interesting examples of great social businesses from around the world (and why)and I will try to work them into this blog. Thanks!!

Rodney Schwartz

Apr

28

Blended value and the end of the “trade-off illusion”

April 28, 2008

Recently I attended an interesting lecture in London Business School by Jed Emerson, an eminent figure in the area of value creation, who has done pioneering work around an organisation’s ‘Blended Value’. The idea is that the value generated by any organisation (whether for-profit or not-for-profit) is financial, social and environmental and that these three constituents of value are indivisible from one another.
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Apr

19

Social Returns: A New Horizon in Investment Management

April 19, 2008

The post below is derived from a proposed letter I sent to several major UK publications–not one would publish it as an Op Ed piece

Recently the Daily Telegraph assessed the plans of George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, for a Green Environmental Market (GEM). This GEM, supported by The London Stock Exchange, was to enable investors to track and invest in green firms in a simple way. Fiscal incentives are also promised. Ed Milliband has for some time been discreetly putting forward the concept of a “Social Stock Exchange”, which I had the privilege of debating last week, at the Voice 08 conference hosted by the Social Enterprise Coalition in Liverpool.
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Apr

15

SRI Funds: What, Where and Whither go they?

April 15, 2008

So what is SRI? Who defines it? Who regulates what is “socially responsible”? These were some the questions we pondered over our weekly lunch discussion at Catalyst. And fair enough.

So what is it? It is often hard to disagree with John Morley’s dictum that “if you want a platitude, there is nothing like a definition.” but let’s have a go. Mark Mansley, in Socially Responsible Investment: A Guide for Pensions Funds and Institutional Investors, defines SRI as “investment where social, environmental or ethical considerations are taken into account in the selection, retention and realisation of investment, and the responsible use of rights (such as voting rights) attaching to investments.” One can confidently say that socially responsible Read more

Apr

12

Behavioural economics offers hope for Social Businesses

April 12, 2008

Two articles were recently published in the press on either side of the Atlantic relating to why people spend money on social causes. Such research, which falls into the relatively new field of ‘behavioural economics’, may provide some useful insights into human behaviour for those of us involved in social business. More importantly, they identify a resource that may be tapped by social entrepreneurs—this should be very welcome given the many obstacles they face.
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Mar

24

Breaking Rules, Andrew Mawson and the Real Trick in Social Entrepreneurship

March 24, 2008

I have a rule that when two totally unconnected people mention someone in a favourable way, I immediately contact them. I have broken this rule in the case of Andrew Mawson, the Social Entrepreneur and founder of the famous Bromley-by-Bow Centre in East London, and co-founder of the Community Action Network, among many other institutions. A month after two terrific people and good judges of character mentioned Andrew favourably, I still have not met him–or even made an effort to. This is appalling and I could come up with a long list of excuses about why–so out of guilt I bought his book, “The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work” (Atlantic Books, 2008). I learned a great deal in this easy, quick and informative read.
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Mar

22

Applause for Rockefeller’s $500,000 to Study Social Stock Market

March 22, 2008

In today’s Financial Times it has been announced that the well-known US-based Rockefeller Foundation has pledged $500,000 to conduct a feasibility study of the concept of a social stock exchange (SSE) in the UK. Details of the grantees are not available in the article, but we suspect that SSE pioneers Pradeep Jethi and Mark Campanale are among those whose efforts will benefit from the grant. We applaud this news and see it as an overwhelmingly positive development for the social sector here in the UK and potentially around the world, given Rockefeller’s reach and respectability.

Mar

8

Happy Computer—a Successful Social Business Born out of Misery

March 8, 2008

Henry Stewart and his colleagues put everything in place for their exciting newspaper venture—a left-wing Sunday newspaper. They lined up a substantial amount of capital (£6.5 million), committed journalists, and the cause was a noble one so morale was good. All the “ducks were lined up” for the development of a very successful social business. Once they did launch the business went bust within weeks……that’s right, WITHIN WEEKS. It was a great idea but was badly managed with no idea of how to motivate or value its people Henry felt appalled that “a supposed social business treated people much worse than well run commercial enterprises”.
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Mar

6

“Engaged Tourism”—a New Industry?

March 6, 2008

To celebrate my 50th birthday I travelled to the Balkans and visited leading social entrepreneurs over a two month period during the summer of 2007 . In the course of preparing for the trip a good friend, Naresh Ramchandani, one of the founders of The Green Thing said to me, “you have got to come up with a name, how about Catalyst in the Balkans?” From this a concept was borne, which has led Catalyst staff and other colleagues to journey to Thailand, Sri Lanka and Canada—more recently we have launched trips to Mozambique and Micronesia with more on the way. Why are we doing this and what is it we are actually doing?
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May

10