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August 2011 Issue:
John Milbank
Riot and response: England's violence and civil society
Robin Murray Danger and Opportunity - social innovation, the
financial
crisis, and the new social economy
Noel Pearson
"Individuals,
families, communities must take power over
their own destinies"
Daryl Taylor Fire and Rain: Everyone wants to rule
our world
Street by Street
Recovering the art of neighbourliness
John Muscat The
End of Green Statism
Geoff Mulgan
Social enterprise: The new frontier?
Geof Cox
What's real social enterprise?
Vern Hughes
Reflections on social enterprise in Australia
Harold Dimpel An entrepreneurial Australia?
Colin Ball It's the community, stupid!
Self-Directed Services
and Personal Budgets
Expressions of Interest
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Events
John Milbank Riot and response: England's violence
and civil society
John Milbank is a leading
writer on civil society, social theory, theology and
politics in the UK, whose work underpins the emerging
realignment in British politics. Here he comments on the
"bankruptcy of both liberal left and neo-liberal right"
in response to the recent riots.
"The response to the recent wave of
riots in English cities has exposed the ethical
bankruptcy of both liberal left and neo-liberal right in
English culture.
 In
the case of the left, a latent callousness and
authoritarianism has been laid bare. Many London
liberals were quick to call for draconian police
responses once they were given the impression - in part
by exaggeration in the "quality" media - that their own
civic precincts might be under threat.
They tended to justify this stance
by pointing out that the supposed riots were really a
mass spasm of criminality, in which an orgy of looting
of consumer durables was the outstanding feature.
In this respect Rowan Williams,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been right to say that
these activities are impossible to "romanticise." But on
that account he has not concluded, like some
left-liberals, that a lack of serious political purpose
on the part of desperate fourteen-year olds means that
one only needs to analyse their actions within the
categories of "criminality."
This has been a much more
widespread reaction on the right, which sits ill with
their supposed new compassionate sensitivity to social
and structural dimensions. More commonly, left-liberals
have suggested that, in these respects, we need look no
further than economic downturn, inequality of
opportunity, government cuts and withdrawal of social
services.
Yet precisely because they tend to
think in terms of governmental control as the decisive
factor, liberals tend to adopt harsh attitudes to those
deemed to have failed to live up to local authority
disciplines.
Thus some on the left at least
initially supported new actions by Conservative local
authorities to evict from council rented properties the
parents of rioters. But as the conservative Peter
Hitchens has pointed out, this would appear to violate a
fundamental principle of British law, which holds that
you cannot be held responsible for the criminal offences
of others. Equally, a withdrawal of benefits from
rioters implies an arbitrarily-imposed double punishment
that lacks any real legal sanction.
Likewise, most on the left have
not dissented from the general chorus of approval for
parents who turn their rioting offspring over to the
courts. Yet the notion that such action is
unquestionably right is a reversion to pagan norms for
which the political order was the only sacred one...
Nor has there been much serious
discussion, either on the left or on the right, of the
fact that a large percentage of these rioters are just
children, many as young as eleven, one as young as
seven. Surely, if these youngsters have lapsed into
nihilism they deserve our compassion and not merely our
condemnation?
It cannot most fundamentally be
their fault that they are rioting, as if all of a sudden
the devil, taking advantage of an unwonted hot spell in
an erratic English summer, had decided to quit his usual
abode in the city to take up a temporary one on the sink
estates of the bleakest urban areas?
The better commentators have
rather suggested that, in smashing windows to reach for
fantasies, these children and youths are but
entertaining the same values that we now all tend to
hold. Everything such youngsters see around them would
tend to suggest that the organs of virtuality are theirs
by right, and that the virtual can be bent to control
the real. (Let us not forget that social networking was
a crucial factor in the recent events.)
While if they suppose that the
there is no moral, as opposed to pragmatic, reason for
keeping the law - given the fundamental value of
self-interest - then this is surely a conclusion that
they share in contemporary England with many wealthy
financiers, journalists, senior policeman and holders of
government office, as the News International scandal
exposed.
The link between the latter and
the young rioters was the disturbing presence of some
older rioters in their forties and in possession of
stable jobs. The shame of the riots is the shame of an
England which has sold its soul to propaganda,
celebrity, gossip and greed.
On the other hand, this is not a
suggestion that only the collective and structural
factors are decisive - even though undoubtedly recession
and arguably cuts in services have played some part. And
much more decisively, a long term increase in economic
inequality and the sinking of certain urban areas into
hopelessness must be held to blame.
Yet the oddity in the liberal-left
attitude is that it combines an objective sociological
approach with a certain moral savagery towards the
individual, as I have tried to instance. Instead of
this, we need an opposite combination of fundamental
ethical diagnosis for social problems along with much
kinder moral recommendations for individual persons.
What do I mean by this double
demand? Fundamentally, we need for all children, and
especially those in deprived areas, a much more
imaginative mode of education that will always link fact
with value, wide knowledge with creativity, details with
overall vision and private aspiration with public codes
of honour.
One element of the equation for
rescuing underclass communities is outside help; for
example, they deserve much better architecture, urban
environments and more sensitive policing.
But the
far greater and more radical requirement is the
promotion of self-help. This must include
education into parenthood and especially of young males
into the responsibilities of becoming fathers. For it is
unquestionable that children having children and women
trying to cope with children on their own is part of the
current urban problem.
Alongside an impoverished,
factory-like schooling practice, Britain is peculiarly
lacking in formal as well as formal democratic
structures for local self-government and self-policing.
 The
problem is that the tacit control and sense of the
common good based upon personal relationships upon which
social order finally depends has started to break down
in British inner cities, which are often fragmented into
different racio-religious and cultural ghettoes. (Though
it is notable that the Muslim communities behaved
particularly well during the recent troubles.)
The long-term solution, therefore,
must have to do with re-creating ethos and self-respect
- this also being the key to local economic renewal. For
the time being, the rioters, however bad their actions -
and actually because they have been so bad -
must be seen as the victims of a wider national malaise
as well as responsible actors who momentarily
took some very wrong decisions.
Here one
might venture the remark that while religious people
tend to see that malefactors and sinners are most of
all to be pitied, secular political positions are
bifurcated between a rightist and neo-pagan pure
condemnation, and a leftist scientistic patronising of
the wrong-doer as a sub-personal ineffective cog in a
wonky machine.
But because, by contrast to these
verdicts, the rioters share with the nation a problem
that is at base ethical, it must be the case that if the
young and the learning are to blame, that the older and
the instructing (at every social level) must be all the
more to blame.
For this reason, a way must be
found by the courts and the councillors to treat these
young offenders at once firmly and yet sympathetically,
for the sake of their better flourishing in the future."
John Milbank is
Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the
University of Nottingham. He is the author of many
books, including the highly influential
Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2nd edition, 2005) and
The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology
(Cascade Books, 2009).
CLICK HERE
to read the full text of this article.
Robin Murray Danger and
Opportunity - social innovation, the financial crisis,
and the new social economy
 "This
pamphlet argues that the early years of the 21st century
are witnessing the emergence of a new kind of economy
that has profound implications for the future of public
services as well as for the daily life of citizens. This
emerging economy can be seen in many fields, including
the environment, care, education, welfare, food and
energy. It combines some old elements and many new ones.
I describe it as a ‘social economy’ because it melds
features which are very different from economies based
on the production and consumption of commodities.
Its key features include:
► The intensive use of distributed networks to
sustain and manage
relationships, helped by broadband, mobile and other
means of communication.
► Blurred boundaries between production and consumption.
► An emphasis on collaboration and on repeated
interactions, care and
maintenance rather than one-off consumption.
► A strong role for values and missions.
However, this emerging economy still
lacks adequate capital, methods and skills. There are
major gaps on the side of demand, as the great majority
of public and private money is still locked up in older
models, providing services to essentially passive
consumers.
There are, too, major gaps on the side of supply.
Although there are thousands of promising initiatives,
few have grown to scale, and there is a dearth of
support to turn good ideas into big impacts.
The impending squeeze on public spending
in the face of growing social pressures makes
incremental changes and efficiency measures in public
services no longer plausible. Radical social innovation
is needed to respond to these pressures. In many cases
it will require systemic innovation – changing the way
in which whole systems of production and service are
conceived and delivered or the need for them avoided.
Many of these changes do not require new resources, but
rather radical new ways in which existing resources are
used, in which regulations are framed and incentives
provided...
 A
new social economy
By social economy I mean all those areas of the economy
which are not geared to private profitability. It
includes the state but also a ‘civil economy’ of a
philanthropic third sector, social enterprises and
co-operatives operating in the market, and the many
strands of the reciprocal household economy – households
themselves, social networks, informal associations as
well as social movements.
This ‘associative’ civil economy was strong in the
second half of the 19th century, but the expansion of
the state in the 20th century relegated
it to a back seat role. In the past 30 years, the trend
has reversed and there has been a resurgence of the
‘civil economy’, for three main reasons.
i) The user as producer
First, digital technology, the core of the new
technological paradigm, has provided the infrastructure
– or more accurately the inter-structure – that has
transformed the relations of consumers to markets and of
citizens among themselves. More than this, it is opening
up the possibility of reconfiguring the production
process around the user. In many sectors there is a
gradual incorporation of users into the process of
production.
In this reconfiguration of the economic
process, the consumer morphs into the producer-consumer,
or ’prosumer’ in Toffler’s phrase. What becomes critical
for the prosumer is an array of support to help him or
her carry out the task rather than being a passive
recipient of generalised services or commodities...
ii) Increasing
social imperatives
Second, there have been increasing pressures
on state services delivered on the basis of a
producer-driven, mass service model of provision.
One set of pressures comes from the sheer scale and
growth of the demands on these services. In the UK as in
other industrial countries there are dramatic upward
trends in obesity, chronic disease, and demographic
ageing, each of which has been described as a time bomb
waiting to go off.
It is a feature of these systems that
there is a strong element of mutual support. Again this
does not depend on new technology (Alcoholics
Anonymous for example long predates the internet)
but is extended by it. There has been a remarkable
growth of support groups among people with particular
chronic conditions, for example, as well as initiatives
to provide information and advice, and often advocacy on
behalf of specific groups. They range from informal
associations to micro social movements.
The argument here is twofold. First there are a range of
intractable social issues which are commanding an
increasing share of national economies, many of which
neither the market nor the existing model of public
services have been able to solve. Second, that there are
an extraordinary number of new initiatives both from
within the public sector and from households, co-ops,
and voluntary organisations, which have the
characteristics of the kind of distributed systems that
are a feature of the new technological paradigm.
iii) The social
economy and the green industrial revolution
The point about intractable social issues applies
equally to the environmental ones. The environmental
movement exemplifies the practices and new
organisational forms of the new social movements and has
been a prime example of the resurgent social economy.
Those involved have set a 21st century agenda – on
energy, food, waste, transport and the whole issue of
well-being and lifestyle. In each of these areas
citizens’ networks have developed their own political
economies of protest, production and consumption. They
have created a great wave of alternative technologies,
of new forms of consumption and distribution, which now
constitutes its own international micro economy."
Robin Murray is an industrial economist and writes for
The Young Foundation.
CLICK HERE
to download the full text of this article.
Noel Pearson "Individuals,
families, communities must take power over their own
destinies"
"In the past 11 years
there has been a fundamental shift in the indigenous
policy debate. It is a shift that had to take place, a
shift that I believe promises a new future, and a change
in the Aboriginal policy paradigm that is absolutely
imperative for our goal of reconciliation.
The principle of indigenous self-determination, as
some call it, or the principle of indigenous
responsibility, as I would call it, must be the
principle that permeates indigenous affairs if we are
going to make the change that's needed.
The policy principle in the future must be that
indigenous people have the right to take responsibility
and power over our own lives. Properly understood,
self-determination is the power to take responsibility,
it is to arrogate to oneself the power that for too long
has been assumed by government. Individuals, families,
communities must take power over their own destinies.
On Cape York, during the past 10 years, we have been
unrelenting about that point: we have the right to take
responsibility, we have a right to arrogate to ourselves
a power that has been taken from us, and left us
disembodied and mendicant for too long. In my view there
has been a shift across the political divide on this
question. We have the opportunity before us where
indigenous rights and indigenous responsibility can be
brought together...
There's another road we will travel at the same time
and that is the road of cultural determination, our
determination as a people to keep our identity and our
traditions, our heritage, our languages. Some of the
most successful people on the face of the earth are
people who walked two roads at once. Take the Jews, they
walked two roads at once. The road of Adam Smith and the
road of cultural determination.
I have high ambitions for my mob: I believe we can
walk two roads, we can keep our languages, we can keep
those things that are precious about our culture and our
traditions. There are also universal lessons about
development, about the importance of individual agency
and family responsibility and function that are the
building blocks of successful communities.
A similar challenge faced the Australian people with
regard to the sclerotic pre-1983 national economy. And
the correct policy principle that we successfully
managed to instill in all sections of society is that of
competition. An analogous challenge lies ahead of us in
relation to the question of indigenous responsibility.
We must have a massive cultural change in the way in
which government operates and unless everything we do is
premised on the idea that indigenous individuals -- and
their families and their communities -- take charge of
their destinies and take responsibility for the power
and the consequences of that power, then we will just
see an ongoing cycle of anxiety about the fact
indigenous Australians do not yet occupy a fair place in
the country."
CLICK HERE
to read the full text of this article.
Daryl Taylor
Fire and Rain: Everyone
wants to rule our world
 Daryl
Taylor lives in Kinglake, north of Melbourne in the
Kinglake Ranges, an area severely affected by the 2009
bushfires which claimed 173 lives.
Daryl and his partner Lucy lost 4 neighbours in the fire, and many more in the township of Kinglake. Only one house in four streets in their neighbourhood survived. Only 3 couples in their circle survived with their relationship intact and remain in Kinglake. Lucy lost her full-time position following the disaster. Daryl lost his home office and all work resources. Together they lost their home and two cars. Daryl made a remarkable presentation to the Fire and Rain conference on 1-2 August 2011, hosted by the Centre for Civil Society, entitled Tiers for Fears, exploring the trauma generated by governmental tiers and dysfunction, on top of the trauma generated by the bushfire.
Daryl paints this dysfunction in this way:
Governmental Strategy
| Field/Situation |
Performance |
|
•Emergency Response |
•Manifold Systems Failure |
|
•‘State of Emergency’ |
•Federal Leadership Not Sought |
|
•Premier & Cabinet |
•Corporate Neo-Liberalism |
|
•‘Community - Led’ Myth |
•Centralised - Professional |
•Human Services
|
•Embeds Individual Welfare |
|
•External Expertise |
•Recovery ‘Psychologised’ |
|
•Army Dismissed |
•Our “Go to Guys” Gone Too Soon |
| •GROCON Contracted for construction work |
•Community Rebuild Agency Lost |
| •Vic Bushfire Relief and Reconstruction Authority (VBRRA Bureaucracy) |
•Not Empowered to Compel |
|
National Principles
|
•The VBRRA Minimalist Model |
| •Local Government |
•Failed State - Catatonia/Defiance |
|
•Regulatory Framework
|
•Now 5 Layers of Government |
| •Community Recovery Committees |
•Granted ‘Advisory Status’ Only |
Daryl describes the relief and reconstruction efforts that result as:
Parent-Child Dynamics
"Unacknowledged are the conflicts inherent in the different positions taken (and world views advanced) by the various different actors:
government officials: managerial - strategic
helping professionals: psychological - therapeutic
community leaders: parochial - representational
Central to such potential conflicts is the degree to which the primary actors identify with their role, authority, objectivity and their ‘rational parent’ professional status.
In this context, a parent-child dynamic, or a ‘politics of dominance’ ensues (often despite the very best of intentions), or is instituted, when what’s really needed is peer to peer or ‘partnership practices’ that are mutually supportive, enabling, participatory and co-creative."
Daryl's presentation is available here for download as a Powerpoint file (61 slides, 12.3 MB).
 At the Fire and Rain conference, community participants spoke repeatedly of the marginalisation of community members in a field that relies principally on the community to achieve its goals. The experience of being one community voice in a room of 60 government voices is commonplace, and characterises the deep imbalance between government and civil society in our social development.
A one-day workshop will be held in November to explore the shape of a national community-based disaster organisation which will aim to right this imbalance.
Kate Lawrence is convening a working group on the development of a national community-based disaster organisation and may be contacted at info@civilsociety.org.au
Street by Street Recovering the art of neighbourliness
 Street
by Street
is
a
national neighbourhood support program that links
people who live in the same street or nearby.
The focus is on practical helping tasks
such as taking the bin in and out, hanging washing,
getting a few items from the shops, or getting mail
from the letter box.
We would like to hear from
individuals and organisations around the country
interested in participating in rolling out
Street by Street
on a national scale.
Community centres, service clubs, neighbourhood houses,
community health centres, scout and guide groups, and
voluntary associations are some of the organisations
participating in auspicing a local
Street by Street initiative.
An
Information for
Participants Kit
is
available here.
Our goal is
100 auspiced
Street by Street
groups by the end of 20110.
And
1000 by
the end of 2012.
Neighbours not volunteers
Participants in a
Street by Street
link-up are not volunteers,
they are people in a voluntary relationship with their
neighbours, as neighbours.
The aim of
Street by Street is to recover
the practice, and art, of neighbourliness. We don’t want
to surround this activity with rules and regulations,
nor do we want to subject participants to the usual
procedures that volunteers in formal organizations are
subject to.
Street by Street is a very simple program that aims to re-kindle
links between neighbours that might once have formed
spontaneously but which, in our day and age, require a
little facilitation. It is our intention to run
Street by Street as a simple informal network, operating on a very large scale
across Australia.
More
information is available at
Street by Street.
An
Information for Participants Kit is
available here.
John Muscat The End of
Green Statism
 As
the Commonwealth Government flounders on all sides in
introducing a carbon tax, it is worth reviewing the
collapse of the Copenhagen Convention a year and a half
ago. This Convention was to adopt an enforceable treaty,
binding on the world's highest emitters, as the
centrepiece of the UN's multilateral process in response
to climate change.
John Muscat argues that Copenhagen marked the beginning
of the end of Green Statism. From here on,
voluntary action and enterprise by citizens is the only
way through the governmental impasse.
"Copenhagen wasn’t a first step;
it was the last step. It marked the end point in a long
cycle of top-down, bureaucratic, multilateralism
launched at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. This all came
unstuck in the very different world of 2009.
The geo-political rifts on
display at Copenhagen can’t be papered over with the
diplomatic equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card.
Essentially, the UN process is hostage to a standoff
between the two largest emitters and their respective
camps. On the one hand there’s China (for which read the
Communist Party, whose grip on power depends on high
rates of carbon-spewing growth) and so-called rapidly
industrialising countries like India, Brazil, South
Africa and Indonesia. On the other there’s the United
States (for which read representatives of
energy-producing regions in Congress, which must ratify
any treaty negotiated by the President) and most of the
developed world.
Negotiations are rarely successful when both parties can
only lose. Climate talks are about the apportionment of
pain and blame, with benefits flowing to a third
category of poorer countries, so the prospect of a
workable compromise between the major camps is remote.
Expect emissions to go on rising...
Of course, individuals, firms and organizations in the
private sector are always entitled to act on their own
initiative, should they feel strongly about the issue.
There just isn’t a rationale, or moral justification,
for coercive state action.
As John Humphreys of Sydney points out, “it is an
indication of the sorry state of community groups that
when faced with a problem, they spend millions of
dollars whingeing and asking other people to do
something“. He proposes that “instead of whinging and
waiting for politicians to become benevolent, people who
are worried about anthropogenic global warming can take
immediate action”. Climate activists and concerned
citizens should put their money where their mouths are.
On a practical level, Humphreys estimates that if
activists were to organise a system of voluntary
“workplace giving”, whereby people could opt to allow
0.5 per cent (or more) of their income to go directly
into a “climate fighting fund“, more that $1 billion
would be raised if only one third of Australians
participated. These funds could be used to buy
low-emission energy from alternative energy producers
for sale to into the power grid at the going market
price. For one thing, this would spur investment in
alternative energy technologies without inefficient
meddling from government.
 This
is one of many courses open to those who profess to be
alarmed about the coming cataclysm. We’re often told
they’re in the majority. Since the future of the planet
is at stake, why should higher contributions matter?
If green activists and entrepreneurs can generate demand
for expensive but clean energy sources, the government
should facilitate this market by removing barriers to
entry, not by mandating or subsidising particular energy
options. If property developers can generate demand for
high-density “green” housing, planning officials
shouldn’t regulate against this, just as they shouldn’t
regulate against low-density housing. The same applies
to transport and cars. Let consumers choose. This is the
real “market solution” to climate change (assuming a
solution is needed), not the fake market represented by
a cap-and-trade ETS.
Surveys and electoral returns show that the affluent
tend to be more concerned about green issues, so this
approach has an added advantage. It relieves wealthy
greens of the moral hypocrisy inherent in demanding
state interventions which produce glittering
opportunities for them, while shifting the pain
disproportionately to the most vulnerable in the
community."
John Muscat lives in
Sydney and
is a co-editor of
The New City,
a web
journal of urban and political affairs.
CLICK HERE
to read the full text of this article.
Geoff
Mulgan Social enterprise: The new frontier?
 Geoff
Mulgan has been a leading thinker and writer on social
innovation and social entrepreneurship over the past
fifteen years. In this article, he reflects on the
phenomenon of social entrepreneurship over this period,
and where it might be heading.
"Only a couple of years ago,
Jeremy Paxman snorted with
derision when a Newsnight
interviewee mentioned the
possible role that social
enterprise might play in public
services. Surely the very idea
of social enterprise was a
ridiculous fantasy: how could
something be social yet also an
enterprise? His disbelief was
disconcerting for the UK’s
70,000 or so social enterprises.
But the cynics and sceptics have
been largely silenced by a tide
that has taken the overlapping
concepts of social enterprise
and social entrepreneurship into
the mainstream of public life,
more than anyone could have
expected a couple of decades
ago.
Some of the seeds of this shift
were sown in the mid-1990s, when
a cluster of new organisations,
including the Community Action
Network and the School for
Social Entrepreneurs, sprang up
to promote the idea of mixing
business means and social ends.
Little of what they proposed was
entirely new. The tradition of
socially focused business goes
back at least to the 19th
century; Britain has
historically been rich in
entrepreneurial charities,
mutuals, cooperatives,
industrial and provident
organisations, and socially
committed family firms. Robert
Owen was one of many leading
Victorian entrepreneurs who were
convinced that enterprise could
also have a social mission. The
late Michael Young (a former RSA
Fellow and recipient of the
RSA’s Albert Medal in 1992) was
dubbed by Daniel Bell “probably
the world’s greatest
entrepreneur of social
enterprises” for his creation of
dozens of new ventures in the
1950s.
But the climate of the 1990s was
particularly propitious for
social entrepreneurs. Parties of
the left had lost their
antipathy towards the language
of enterprise, while those of
the right were emerging from the
extremes of Thatcherism and
Reaganism...
Two decades on... There is much
to celebrate in this history of
growing confidence and
effectiveness. It has helped to
make our economy more
pluralistic and resilient, and
our public services more
creative. Having been part of
many of these projects over the
past two decades, I cannot help
but welcome the ways in which
good people and good projects
have been given due recognition.
So why not just celebrate?
One obvious reason is that
social enterprises are taking a
hit as public spending is
slashed...The bigger issue,
however, is that some of the
hopes of a decade or two ago
have not been realised. Social
entrepreneurs claimed to bring a
new mindset to business, along
with radically improved results.
But analysts have struggled to
tie down what this means and
whether it is true. Do social
enterprises and entrepreneurs
have a special ability to access
resources, such as volunteer
labour or unused buildings, or
to combine assets in more
effective ways? Is their
advantage essentially about
commitment and the ability to
lock in loyalty? The jury is out
on all of these questions.
Another hope was that, by now,
our societies would be
celebrating a new kind of hero.
In the 1990s, social
entrepreneurship meant unique
individuals – people such as
Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh,
John Bird in Britain and Wendy
Kopp in the US – succeeding
against the odds in solving
entrenched social problems.
Michael Young set up the School
for Social Entrepreneurs to
discover and train just such
exceptional individuals, hoping
that they would bring a special
chemistry to solving social
problems. At the time, there was
little support for such people,
and the arrival of new funds
such as UnLtd, which provides
small grants to individuals
wanting to create new social
enterprises, has been a healthy
corrective. But the emphasis
on individual heroes overshot
and was, at times, almost
comically oversold, particularly
by certain American
organisations, whose Oscar-style
ceremonies and awards celebrated
what some saw as a ‘club-class’
elite of social entrepreneurs,
often with MBAs from western
universities and privileged
backgrounds. The language of
magic and alchemy used to
describe social entrepreneurs
encouraged muddled thinking and
action, obscuring the extent to
which most successes depend on
the chemistry of teams and
places, not just individual
brilliance.
The uncomfortable truth is that,
despite the hype, there has been
no growth in the number of
social entrepreneurs who are
household names. The UK’s Jamie
Oliver might be a partial
exception, but he also proves
the rule, since his primary
identity remains that of a TV
celebrity.
The third disappointment has
been the lack of commercial
investment. There were high
hopes in the 1990s that big
finance would become seriously
interested in social enterprise.
But the facts are sobering. A
2010 survey showed that
commercial investment has been
paltry.
Other parts of Europe have done
better. A couple of years ago,
Italy launched
Banca
Prossima, which
is solely dedicated to social
enterprise. In Spain, regional
banks such as
BBK
in the Basque country routinely
invest large sums in social
ventures. The British banks, by
contrast, talked a lot about
social responsibility but made
their bets on what turned out to
be much riskier propositions.
The fourth disappointment is
the continuing absence of scale.
Fifteen years ago, it was hoped
that big social enterprise
brands would emerge in fields
such as food and transport,
becoming in time as ubiquitous
as Sainsbury’s or Vodafone.
Today, while there are some
visible brands with a social or
mutual dimension, including John
Lewis and the Co-operative
Group, few social entrepreneurs
have achieved the scale they
hoped for."
Geoff Mulgan is chief
executive of NESTA (National
Endowment for Science Technology
and the Arts) in the UK.
CLICK HERE to
read the full text of this
article.
Geof Cox
What's real social enterprise?
 Geof
Cox is a social enterprise
developer currently working on a
new fair trade model for
hard-pressed families with
Oxfam in Russia, and the
UK-wide roll-out of the
miEnterprise supported
self-employment network for
people with disabilities or
other barriers to paid work.
Here he takes up some of Geoff
Mulgan's points:
"The article on social
enterprise by Geoff Mulgan
raises some good questions about
whether social entrepreneurs are
fulfilling their potential. They
also provide a welcome antidote
to the usual pre-perestroika-Pravda
flavour of much writing in this
area, which only tells the good
news! However, the piece also
misses a more fundamental
question about the adequacy of
the usual conceptual frameworks
for analysis of what is really
happening in social
enterprise...
We have to shift
to a new
paradigm. This
means shifting
focus from the
relatively small
number of social
enterprises that
happen to fit an
official
definition, or
can be used to
forward a
government
agenda, towards
the much larger
movement of
alternative
lifestyle
businesses,
portfolio
workers,
organisations
with or without
staff,
activists,
freelancers and
networks working
not to redeliver
public services
but in more
challenging and
more
internationally
relevant areas
like the
environment,
local food, fair
trade and the
open source
movement.
In this context
Geoff Mulgan’s
count of recent
social
enterprise
disappointments
looks plain
old-fashioned.
The conventional
idea of business
‘growth’ is
precisely what
most social
entrepreneurs
are trying to
get away from.
Not only because
the coming
adjustment of
our whole
economy has to
be towards
buying,
transporting and
using much
less, but
also because the
big bland brands
world of
globalised
business, cloned
high street and
remote
call-centre robs
us of real human
contact, value
and fulfillment.
The networked
home worker, not
driving into an
energy-hungry
office or
factory every
day, taking some
time to shop
locally and cook
some slow food,
spend time with
the kids, get
involved in
their community
and focus on
well-being
instead of
growth; they are
not going to be
social
enterprise
celebrities, for
sure, but they
might
nevertheless be
driving more
radical change.
If this
sounds to you
like a ‘place in
the country’
idyll, please
note that I’m
working with
precisely this
kind of social
enterprise
network among,
for example,
people with
learning
disabilities in
the UK, and
women
house-bound by
caring
responsibilities
in an all-but
closed-down
former closed
town in northern
Russia.
The really
important
questions here
are about how
social
enterprise
networks can
replace
conventional
investment,
whether we can
achieve
economies of
scale while
empowering local
people and
communities, how
we can freely
share knowledge
but retain our
originality, and
how sharing can
reduce our need
for hundreds and
hundreds more
things
that don’t
really make us
happy.
And we need to
develop an
entirely new
brand-paradigm
for this kind of
social
enterprise: one
that will
propagate brands
that are
participative
and
community-owned,
that are about
collaborating
more and
consuming less,
and that can
combine the
trust in the
familiar that
drives
conventional
brands with a
new respect for
the unique and
the local and
the individual.
Geof Cox is a
social
enterprise
developer
currently
working on a new
fair trade model
for hard-pressed
families with
Oxfam in Russia,
and the UK-wide
roll-out of the
miEnterprise
supported
self-employment
network for
people with
disabilities or
other barriers
to paid work.
CLICK HERE to
read the full text of this
article.
Vern
Hughes Reflections on social enterprise in
Australia
Harold Dimpel An
entrepreneurial Australia?
 "From
the perspective on an entrepreneur who has front line
experience with what it takes to take an idea from
start-up through to commercialisation (and an ABC TV
New Inventors winner), there is an enormous gulf
between the "desire" to create a culture of backing
innovation to actually doing it.
While there are many good arguments for why governments
should provide assistance to innovators, the reality in
Australia is that we do not have a culture of backing
high risk ventures outside the relative comfort and
familiarity of mining or property. Do a straw pole: who
within your networks has invest ANY money into a
start-up? I bet most of our friends have more than 95%
of their money in mining or property related shares.
I mean can you blame people?
The actual hard truth is that most so-called "investors"
don't really invest, they talk alot about it.... Give me
someone who puts their money where their mouth is and
hands over real cash for a "risky" idea. For it is
without this culture of taking a risk that we as a
nation run the risk of not backing home-grown
innovation. I am not talking about the big end of town
in the $1M + zone - these guys can look after themselves
and their are great government programs to support
big-ticket R & D.
I am talking about the lone entrepreneur who has come up
with an idea and just needs $50 - 100k to get to the
next stage. This sort backing goes a long way for these
guys. From my direct experience in the industry, this
type funding is very hard to get. Everyone wants the
perfect deal.... Well, this is kind of like waiting for
the perfect man or woman.....it won't happen - you have
to create them."
Harold Dimple is an
entrepreneur and a former winner of ABC TV's The New
Inventors.
CLICK HERE
to read the full text of this article.
Colin Ball It's the community, stupid!
Colin Ball has been active in third sector organisations in the UK. West Africa, Malaysia and Australia for 40 years, and now lives in Brisbane.
He has just published
It’s the
community, stupid! In
this book, Colin sets out challenging new directions for the organisations that comprise Australia’s third sector.
These radical proposals include:
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scrapping ‘charitable law’ entirely, even expunging the word ‘charity’
from the sector’s vocabulary; |
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recognising instead that openness, inclusivity and ‘for the common good’
are the essential defining characteristics of third sector
organisations; |
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distinguishing (when tax concessions and other
benefits are given)
between genuinely independent organisations and
those that have
become agents for the delivery of government
welfare services; |
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ending the imperialist behaviour and attitudes
of what Colin calls the big and powerful ‘institutionalised voluntary
organisations’;
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liberating people’s potential rather than
regulating it. |
Colin writes: "Numerous enquiries
into and reviews of aspects of the work of Not-for-Profit organisations, or those of them known as
'charities', have gone on over the past 10 years and more. Never has so much effort
produced so little change! But perhaps that is no bad thing because much
of it started in the wrong place (mainly 'regulation'), and then headed in
questionable directions (such as strengthening links between government
and the sector via compacts)."
Colin argues that these reviews
should begin with function and identity. He puts forward four features of organisations that should
characterise entities in the third sector:
voluntary; independent; not-for-profit;
and Not self-serving in aims and values;
and then asks how Australian NGOs
measure up?
"Voluntary?
there are some organisations that claim to be
'voluntary' but have actually come into existence because of a statutory
requirement. They can be clearly distinguished as such and should not be
entitled to call themselves or be seen and treated by others as voluntary
organisations ...
Independent?
Much government funding or organisations has for
a long time been conditional upon the organisations doing things in ways
and towards ends that are defined by government. In blunt terms this
means that those organisations that accept such conditionalities are no longer
independent ...
Not-for
(personal or private) -profit or gain? Many
organisations need to do some heart-searching on their practices insofar as this
yardstick is concerned. I believe that many have become corrupted. Some of
the signs of such corruption are:
►
Mirroring either or both of the
private and public sectors insofar as the rate for the job' is concerned and especially insofar as the
salaries of senior staff are concerned.
► Getting into the payment of
incentives, bonuses and 'performance- related pay' to staff at any level.
► Hiring and firing staff
indiscriminately in order to create cultures of fear within organisations.
►Having uncomfortably great
disparities between the highest- and lowest paid staff in an organisation.
Not
self-serving in aims and values? What we are
trying to get at here is the inward-looking and exclusive tendencies of many types of
community organisations. While such organisations as
self-interest-promoting professional associations, gated communities and private
schools might satisfy the 'voluntary', 'independent', and 'not-for-profit'
aspects of the definition, they do not satisfy this one.... We need to break
the mould that many organisations appear still to be shaped by: professional
community and social/ community workers providing services (defined by
them and /or their funders) for disadvantaged people. There are other
models that offers ways to enable and encourage broad community engagement in
working with disadvantaged groups.
The four defining characteristics - voluntary, independent, not-for-profit, not self-serving/ not restrictive - should be the basis on which we judge whether an organisation does or does not merit a place in this 'sector', and thus whether it qualifies for the privileges and benefits associated with such a place...
To qualify for a place in the
third sector (including being registered as a third sector organisation) the
organisation much be able to demonstrate that it is all of voluntary; and
independent; and not-for-profit; and not self-serving/ restrictive in membership.
That should be the basis on which
the laws relating to the third sector are framed, and replace 'charitable law'. It should be called
'Third Sector Law'.
Perhaps the next greatest change
that is needed is for the large organisations to stop practices that are harming communities
and the efforts of their organisations. Some, indeed, have become the new colonialists: tendering for and establishing projects and program outlets
in communities where they have no roots and little inclination to establish
them.
An equally serious problem has
been the willingness, indeed enthusiastic willingness, on many to cast aside their altruistic values
and independence, in favour of becoming appendages of government and/ or mirror
images of for-profit corporations.
Many have become
supine servants of government, accepting without question whatever government asks of them. Many have moved, seemingly at lightning speed, through one giant leap, from being
soup-kitchen-handout-old fashioned charities to 'dog-eats-dog', 'modern' competing
service-providing corporations. In making such a transition the only
thing that has not changed is the disempowering effect on people and
communities of their provisions and services."
CLICK
HERE to purchase a copy of this book ($30
inc delivery).
Self-Directed Services
and Personal Budgets
Expressions
of Interest
A National
Steering Group on Self-Directed Services and Personal
Budgets was established in May to exercise leadership and
coordination across Australia in the development of self-directed services and
personal budgets
in aged care, chronic and
mental illness, disability, special education and vocational training, and other areas of intensive personal
and social support for individuals and families.
The brief of the Steering Group is to
develop tools, systems, infrastructure, peer and professional supports for large numbers of
Australians in exercising self-management in their personal and social supports.
Expressions of
Interest are invited in the following areas:
CLICK HERE for further
information on Self-Directed Services and Personal Budgets.
Members of the Steering Group are:
 Siegfried Drews
(VIC) managed his wife Mardi's 24 hour care needs through a technology portal he designed himself to assist in the recruitment and direct
employment of staff.
[photo, right: Siegfried]
Claire Rennox (QLD)
worked on the
introduction and ongoing implementation of Direct Payments in Scotland and is now working in
Disability Services, Queensland with individuals who are utilising self directed care.
Lorraine Hitt (WA) is Chair of Planned Individual Networks in WA, is negotiating self-management arrangements for her 47 year old
son with multiple disabilities, and works as a Local Area Coordinator
with the Disability Services Commission.
Margaret Gray (VIC) is developing models for her 92
year old mother's EACH
aged care package.
Trevor Parmenter
(NSW) is Emeritus Professor and
Foundation Chair of Developmental Disability
at the University of
Sydney and is a leading researcher and innovator in ageing, community living, and
physical and mental health.
Ruth
Robinson (NSW) is Executive
Officer of the Physical Disability Council of NSW.
Peter Sparrow (SA) is CEO of the
Carer Support
and Respite Centre, and carer for his 21 year old step daughter who has physical and
intellectual disabilities.
George Vassilou (VIC) manages his ageing mother's care package and his 23 year old daughter Natasha's disability package.
[photo, right: George and his
mother]
Wendy Hudson (WA) is Manager of PolicyDevelopment and Quality Assurance at
Alzheimer's Australia WA, and a long time advocate of self-directed care.
Colin Peterson (VIC) is Finance Manager of the Cerebral Palsy Support Network.
Sherryn West (QLD) is Business Services Manager
for Micah Projects, developing individualised support arrangements for people
experiencing or at risk of homelessness and mental illness.
Brian Wild
(VIC) lives in Echuca and, together with his wife
Lynne, manages the support packages of their adult sons with
disabilities.
Livia Auer
(ACT) is carer and legal guardian of her 32 year old
sister Melanie who has an intellectual disability, and has recently
begun managing Melanie's support package.
Peter Baker
(QLD) is Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland's
Rural Clinical School.
Annette Herbert (SA) manages a support package for
her 32 year old daughter Renee who has cerebral palsy and life threatening
epilepsy.
Maree Ireland (VIC) is a person with multiple
disabilities and coordinates a project on self-directed approaches at
field - furthering inclusive learning and development.
Ruth Davey (SA) is a Director of
Community Support and
parent of a daughter with an intellectual disability participating in
Phase 1 of self-managed funding in SA.
Christine Regan
(NSW) is a parent of a 33
year old daughter with Down Syndrome, is Senior Policy Officer for Disability for the
New South Wales Council of Social Services, and is secretary of the
NSW Council on Intellectual Disability.
Leslee Hogan (QLD) lives in Atherton in Far North
Queensland and manages a support package for her 25 year old son Paul who
acquired a severe brain injury at the age of 20.
Kerry Hawkins (WA) is a family carer for her
husband who has schizophrenia.
Suzette Gallagher (VIC) has managed her 45 year
old son Shaun's disability package for 20 years.
Suzanne Haydon
(NSW) is an innovator and film
maker and carer for her ageing mother.
Deb Shipman
(NSW) lives in Coffs Harbour and is developing
self-directed supports in ageing and disability through Mid North Coast
Community Care Options.
Ian Bruce
(SA) is is a volunteer social advocate with
experience in business who has managed a consumer-directed EACH package on behalf of
his sister.
Miriam Dixon (NSW) is CEO of Parkinson's NSW.
Sue Harrison (VIC) is a parent of a 26 year old
daughter with intellectual disability and mental health issues, in receipt of a small
respite package.
Tracey Forster
(VIC) is Manager of Self-Management
Support at Goulburn Valley Health in Shepparton.
Coralie Jensen
(NSW) is a parent of an
adult son with an intellectual disability, and Chair of
Side by Side Advocacy.
Sharon Van der Laan (WA) is Executive Director of the
Genetic Support Council WA.
Jennie Somerville (NSW) is a survivor of mental illness
and advocate for self-directed services in mental health.
Galina Kozoolin
(VIC) is Aged Care Manager at South Eastern Region Migrant Resource Centre.
Ali Ayliffe
(SA) is Manager of Care Services for Older People at
UnitingCare Wesley.
Sam Mauchline (QLD) is a parent of a 40 year old
son Paul requiring 24 hour support and care.
Jennifer Mollett (NSW) lives in Wollongong and has
worked on self-directed services in New Zealand.
Vern Hughes (Convenor VIC) is a parent of two sons
with autism and mental illnesses and Director of
Social Enterprise
Partnerships.
Volunteer Three roles available with the
Centre for Civil SocietyThe Centre for Civil Society is experiencing huge
growth in the scope and scale
of its activities. If you are looking for a
volunteer role that is intellectually stimulating and practically
challenging, we want to hear from
you.
We have
three roles for which we are seeking to appoint
volunteers. Applicants are
invited from all states and territories, for varying
time commitments.
-
Events Organiser
-
assisting in the organisation of forums and conferences
-
Writer -
mentoring and support is available in writing
news and opinion pieces on various topics which
fit the Centre's agenda
-
Administrative Assistant -
assisting in various administrative, financial
and database management tasks
If you
have an interest in any of these roles, please send
a CV along with a covering letter on your
interest in the work of the
Centre to
Liz
Stewart.
Organising by Federal
Electorate
CLICK HERE
to register
in your electorate (there is
no cost).
On registering, participants
will be connected to an online forum in their
electorate, and will receive access to resources and
guidelines for local activity.
CLICK
HERE for
more information.
Events
August 1/2 2011:
Fire and Rain: Social
Innovation and Leadership in Natural Disaster Management and Emergency Services.
National Conference
Melbourne
1-2 August 2011.
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THE CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY
We are the only think tank
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MAKING IT
PERSONAL
Charles Leadbeater, Jamie Bartlett and Niamh Gallagher
have authored this highly influential Demos Report on Self-Directed
Services and Personal Budgets. This small publication is set have a lasting
impact on social policy debate for many years to come.
Charlie Leadbeater
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LEFT AND RIGHT?
"The Left and Right have been as bad as each other. The
Left has allowed its distrust of markets and endless
faith in government to obscure the importance of civil
society. The Right has been so focused on replacing the
state with markets that it has forgotten how to
cultivate a trusting society.
This is the politics of
the absurd. The Left identifies with the good society
but rarely talks about the mutualism and trust between
people. The Right recognises the importance of moral
obligation but gives the impression of trusting market
transactions more than civil society."
Mark Latham, Mutualism: A Third Way for Australia,"
1999.
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consultant(s)
Alternative to school-teaching and unemployment. What
the dejobbed, rightsized and
decruited become. Something to do after politics or
sport. Lifestyle incorporated. The plague-rats of
managerialism.
'So that said, you can get consulting
work knowing very little, as long as you can do what the
client is paying you to do, and do it well.'
- The Consultant's Consultant
(Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary
Clichés, Cant & Management Jargon, page 84.)
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together people in each federal electorate (150
electorates around Australia) to work locally in
engaging our communities and our representatives
in an agenda of respect, empowerment, inclusion.
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MAKING IT
PERSONAL
Charles Leadbeater, Jamie Bartlett and Niamh Gallagher
have authored this highly influential Demos Report on Self-Directed
Services and Personal Budgets. This small publication is set have a lasting
impact on social policy debate for many years to come.
Charlie Leadbeater
Click here
to read
Making It
Personal. |
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CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY
brings together people in each federal
electorate (150 electorates around Australia) to work
locally in effecting change and influencing policy and opinion, with a
special focus on disability, mental health education,
and family carer issues.
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"It is ten years now since 500 people gathered at the University of NSW to inaugurate a network of social entrepreneurs in Australia. Ten years before that, localised networks like the Community Enterprise Network in the inner north of Melbourne were working below the radar on what later came to be called 'social enterprise'. The aim in gathering social entrepreneurs nationally in 2001 was to take advantage of the factors identified by Geoff Mulgan to accelerate activity in and support for social enterprise on a large scale.
Ten years on, many of the "disappointments" identified by Mulgan ring true. In addition, there have also been a significant number of unforeseen consequences of the "mainstreaming" of social enterprise over this decade. A few observations:
First, the concept of social enterprise has been taken up by governments, charities, philanthropists, and researchers in often very undiscerning ways. Almost any community project in Australia can now call itself a social enterprise and no-one will raise an eyebrow. The Centre for Social Impact, established by a consortium of university business schools, routinely uses the term 'social enterprise' to refer to any social or community organisation. This has brought an emptying out of the content of what was previously defined quite clearly as "a market-based venture for a social purpose".
Second, notions of what constitutes 'enterprise' are highly elastic. This ambiguity was present from the outset in the Social Entrepreneurs Network (SEN), with 'enterprise' stretching from any activity undertaken by a charity or a local council that generated revenue, to fundraising and consultancy work in the not-for-profit sector on 'diversification' of income streams, to businesses that derive some or all of their income from market-based trading activity. Not all innovative or creative activity is entrepreneurial, but there has been a tendency to use the word "entrepreneurial" as an antonym for "charitable", particularly, and ironically, amongst charities who think being charitable is now terribly old-fashioned.
Third, differences in power, resources and culture between individuals and communities, on the one hand, and charities and funded agencies, on the other, became a deep chasm very quickly. Most of the best known social enterprises were originated by entrepreneurial individuals, but in Australia, it was charities and funded agencies who captured the social enterprise field within a few years of its inception.
By the middle years of this decade, most charities and service delivery agencies had a corps of Social Enterprise Managers and Practitioners on their payrolls, developing ventures that represented "entrepreneurial" extensions of their mission. These have characteristically confined social enterprise to employment creation projects and community resource centres, both highly dependent on grant income for their viability.
Following the forced dissolution of SEN in 2003 by three rogue consultants (Richard Zee, Leo Bartlett, and Alison Oldfield) who took advantage of its open structure, charities and funded agencies established two social enterprise development intermediaries in their own image. Social Ventures Australia and Social Traders were created by large charities in Sydney (The Benevolent Society, Smith Family, the Macquarie Foundation) and Melbourne (Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australian Multicultural Education Services, and the Helen McPherson Smith Trust), and adopted corporate cultures drawn from a hybrid of big business and big charity. These corporate cultures held little interest in entrepreneurial individuals and communities that were not part of the large service delivery chains - individuals and communities were deemed to lack "capacity" of the kind possessed by the large charities.
This confusion of cultures remains entrenched in these intermediaries. Social Traders, for instance, was established by charities with $4million of Victorian Government money, to promote social trading. But as an entity, Social Traders does not trade. It derives 99% of its income from grants; it concedes that it is not a social enterprise; and it has recruited its staff from the corporate sector with no knowledge or experience in starting a social enterprise.
Fourth, Mulgan's observation that social enterprise has "helped make our economy more pluralistic and resilient" may be true of the UK, but it cannot be said of Australia. Here, the the charities, foundations and institutions that have colonised the social enterprise idea have tended to develop ventures that are just as top down in their managerial structure as any bureaucracy or corporate. They have tended to bypass both the old mutual and cooperative models with their emphasis on member ownership and participative governance, and the new networked forms of enterprise, in favour of what Geof Cox calls "old-fashioned" models of "the firm". This has often led to charity-directed social enterprises reproducing passive clienthood rather than a culture of empowerment and participation.
Fifth, hopes for a significant movement away from the community sector culture of "grant-seeking" and "grant-dependence" has not eventuated. Indeed, the grant-seeking culture has arguably deepened over the past decade whereby anyone with an innovative idea has been encouraged to seek a government or foundation grant to develop a social enterprise. My view of this trend remains unashamedly conventional - if a project requires a government grant to be established, then it is probably not an enterprise.
Finally, a further unintended consequence of the social enterprise phenomenon in the past decade has been an accelerated marginalisation of voluntarism. Voluntary responses to social issues have tended to be discounted as unfashionable, in favour of "enterprise" responses, when sometimes a voluntary response is the best response. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency to think every social problem can be solved with a grant and a business plan.
Only some social problems can be solved with a grant and a business plan. The wisdom required to know the difference, has not, regrettably, increased as we had hoped."
CLICK HERE to send your comments on this article.