How Can We Scale Land Based Social Enterprise?

Learning Lessons from Social Innovation

Today’s workshop

• About the research

• Case study overviews– relevance to land based social enterprise

• Break

• Concepts and tools– putting it into practice

The Research: Why, Who, How?

• Managing environmental assets: the need for innovation

• Risks and difficulties in scaling social movements

• Our approach: critically examine the development trajectory of other community led social innovations

• Methodology: desk research, case studies, interviews with the final five sectors

• Outputs: informing the innovation debate- blog posts, workshop, audience summaries, final report and….

Innovation is….

the process by which an idea that is new to an organisation gives rise to a new set of activities

the process that starts with the emergence

of an idea that is developed into a new set of organizational

activities, technologies, products, or servicea process not an

outcome, it can have positive and negative

spin offs a pathology that can hinder the development of a social organisation

Social innovation is…

a new idea that meets unmet needs good ideas that, when applied, work to generate social value and drive

changes in established culture, behaviours or organisational

systems a complex process that profoundly changes the basic routines, resource and authority flows, or beliefs of the social system in which it occurs

… about system change

Social entrepreneurship: how an individual operates

Social enterprise: how an organisation operates

Social innovation: how a system operates

ScalingScaling is:

• extending the value of the investments made

• doing more of A or doing A better to generate more of B

• “expanding impact” not “becoming large”

Scaling can happen by:

• Organisational / sectoral growth

• Directed diffusion

• Takeover or emulation

• Diffusion

HIV/AIDs Community-Led Health ServicesHistory: • Epidemic - fear, ignorance, isolation,

stigma, & outrage

Form: • Community groups and charities providing

services, campaigning

Development:• Statutory funding, changing patient demography and new activities • Mergers between NGOs, government partnerships and competition

Getty Images

HIV/AIDs Community Led Health Services

Themes:

• The freedom to innovate, experiment and to criticise systems

• A trade-off between service provision and campaigns, professionalism and volunteers, community involvement

• Distortions caused by large amounts of central funding and changes in policy focus and priority

• Tensions between the need for national plans and local knowledge

Development Trusts

History• 1970s formal origin, surge since 2000s from

public bodies

Form• Communities focused on an asset, diverse spectrum

of uses and arrangements, shifting mix of income

Development • Growing push from government and local authorities

Development TrustsThemes:

• Replication allowing diversity to be maintained, each meeting local needs

• Strongly focused on localities so need to balance scaling and innovation

• As public bodies ‘push’ for asset transfer, but with reduced support- trusts (and others) may take on too much, acquire liabilities

• Does taking on ownership of assets help or hinder the delivery of an organisation’s social value?

Community RecyclingHistory• Excess waste from throwaway products,

decline in municipal recycling collection

Form• Collection groups with grants, job creation

income and sale of materials

Development• Easy availability of money and legislative change• Bidding for local authority contracts, competing with private sector who

appropriated their innovation and shut them out, social value lost

Plastics and the lorax

Community Recycling

Themes:

• Move from community pull to government and funding pull

• Importance of financing, leadership and administration

• Scaling vs. continuous innovation / diversification

• Impact vs. value - what is lost when an innovation mainstreams in this way?

The Land Management SectorSupply side

• Large numbers of small groups

• Often informal

• Range of forms and motivations• Traditional “friends of groups”• Organised, values-driven groups• People meeting their own needs • Unorthodox groups

Demand side

• An openness to new approaches from (some) public landowners

• Linked to austerity and budget cuts

• Localism agenda is helping provide legitimacy & a framework - but no funding

• Enthusiasm from (some) individuals within landowning organisations

• Barriers to implementing new practices

DISCUSSION

• What resonates?

• What is relevant for the land-based sector? • What is different with land?

Local Food Growing

History• Food scares, health and localism concerns

Form• Diverse groups with sales, volunteers and

external funds

Development• Big Lottery and government pushing with programmes • Network of local providers / producers must be rebuilt -

possibility of ‘local food hubs’

Local food network

Local Food Growing

Themes

• Striking a balance between being ‘good’ and being a business

• Scaling means networks – an ecology of producers, processers, retailers

• Practitioners feel the need for policy changes e.g. planning, investment and definitions to help – what does ‘local food’ mean?

Community EnergyHistory• Rising energy costs, energy security,

environmental concerns

Form• Renewable energy generation (of different forms)

and energy efficiency• Partly or wholly owned by the local community,

majority at least partially grant funded

Development• Sector growing with some policy push, government programmes,

feed in tariffs, and strategies, though infrastructure needed badly.

Click Green

Community Energy

Themes

• The need for external input - finance, infrastructure, policy

• Financial concerns seen as a ‘trojan horse’ to produce social value

• Practitioners fearful of appropriation/abuse by private sector

DISCUSSION

How Can We Scale Land Based Social Enterprise?

Learning Lessons from Social Innovation

Key Concepts and Tools

• Push vs pull

• Types of scaling vs transferability of knowledge

• Scaling vs innovation

• Social impact vs social value

• Niche vs mainstream

Pull vs push

• Demand side “pull”

Recognition of needs that are not being adequately met, by social entrepreneurs and campaigners, who then seek to address these needs

• Supply side “push”

Social entrepreneurs and campaigners are encouraged by funders and policy-makers to meet needs through a particular innovation

Scaling vs replicability

Controlled

Uncontrolled

Low replicability High replicability

Organisational growth

Directed diffusion

Takeover or emulation

Diffusion

HIV Recycling

Asset transfer

Energy Food

Scaling vs innovation

• scaling successful past innovations may make future innovations less productive

• scaling of a single service mitigates against trying new approaches, leading to scale rather than radical innovation

• ongoing cycles of innovation may make scaling less productive

• pushing innovation at the expense of strengthening more routine activities may actually destroy rather than create value

Social impact vs social valueSocial impact: the value created for beneficiaries, society, and the world - value that cannot be reduced to economic wealth for owners or consumption benefits for customers

• Social value = the howe.g.creating training and employment opportunities or building social capital

• Social impact = the whate.g. normalising recycling or changing the face of palliative care

Niche vs mainstream

“If the private sector comes into a niche market, open up and let the service get mainstreamed – move on, create new products and services, and conquer new markets”

- Liam Black

Discussion

1. What resonates for you / your organisation?

2. What feels useful about these concepts?

3. What feels difficult about these concepts?

4. How / when might you use them?

5. What would help you in using them in your own context?e.g. toolkit / checklist / video / animation etc