FAQ: Local Governments & Social Enterprise
These are the comments responding to Joanne McNeill's request for examples of local governments supporting development of social enterprises.
Added to the FAQ by npEnterprise moderators, Rolfe Larson and Andy Horsnell, on December 13, 2006.
(1) From Lynn Knox <lknox@ci.portland.OR.US>
In Portland OR, USA, we have developed multiple social enterprises as part of
the Economic Opportunity Initiative (also included are intensive workforce
training & micro-enterprise projects with support services. The goal of the
Initiative is to increase the income of participants by a minimum of 25% over
three years. All participants are very low income from homeless folks to new
immigrants to minimum wage workers and struggling businesspeople. We don't have
sufficient data yet to compare the effectiveness & costs of job training focused
social enterprises to straight job training (both will include support services
in our projects),or small business oriented social enterprises to more
traditional, individually owned micro-enterprises. We will do that comparison in
about a year. Currently there are about 1500 initiative participants all of
whom are seeing significant income increases. Please contact me for more
information.
Lynn Knox, Economic Opportunity Program Manager
City of Portland Bureau of Housing & Community Development
503-823-2385
(2) From Harry Rhodes <hrhodes@growinghomeinc.org>
The City of Chicago, Mayor's Office of Workforce Development, gave out three
social enterprise venture awards in 2006, each for $175,000. The awards were
granted to: Growing Home Inc., the Safer Foundation, and Goodwill Enterprises.
All three have social ventures that work with formerly incarcerated individuals.
(3) From Allen Bromberger
<allen@perlmanandperlman.com>
There are many ways government can play a positive role in the development (and
growth) of social enterprises. And vice versa. I have quite a few clients that
provide goods or services to local governments. Favorable purchasing policies
could be key if they were widely adopted. Another one of my clients is a vehicle
for local economic development, serving as a vehicle for a public-private
partnership (involving government and private sector investment) which will be
profitable, but not enough to attract only private sector capital. In that
venture, the government "buys" jobs and enhances its tax base relatively
cheaply, and the private investors get a reasonable return with relatively
little risk. Everyone wins. In my view, the key is to focus on mutually
advantageous and compelling outcomes, not structure, and not on promoting social
enterprise for its own sake. Form will follow function.
(4) From Jerr Boschee <jerr@orbis.net>
Local government plays a central role in the development of social enterprises
throughout England -- Tony Blair made social enterprise a priority more than
five years ago by setting up a Social Enterprise Unit within the Department of
Trade and Industry . . . since then, local authorities throughout the country's
nine regions have been actively involved in the development of social
enterprises through both Regional Development Agencies and smaller units of
government . . . this past May, the government took another step by creating a
new cabinet position called the Office of the Third Sector
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/the_third_sector/ , which places a priority
on the development of social enterprises -- additional information can be found
at
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
The latest step is a new action plan
for social enterprise entitled "Social Enterprise Action Plan: Scaling new
heights," which has been launched by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon
Brown, and Cabinet Office Ministers Hilary Armstrong and Ed Miliband. The plan
aims to raise awareness of what social enterprises can achieve and encourage
more participation and investment. Below is the press release issued November 16
announcing the plan.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2006/061116_seap.asp
(5) From David Rendall <drendall@moc.edu>
The best article I've seen on this topic is from the book Leading for Innovation
by Hesselbein, Goldsmith and Somerville. Chapter 9 is titled Innovation in
Government and was written by Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of
Indianapolis, Indiana. Goldsmith actually created an Enterprise Development
Office along with numerous other market-based innovations. You can read more
about his experiences by going to the link below.
http://www.governingbynetwork.com/Management/Indianapolis.html Pittsburgh,
Milwaukee, St. Louis and Seattle also have excellent partnerships between
government and social enterprises. It may be worth investigating those
particular cities. I just returned from Sydney in October. I presented two
sessions on Social Enterprise at the Jobs Australia National Conference.
(6) From Roland Burkert <rburkert@rolandconsulting.org>
I have developed several social enterprises where government has played a role.
For us, a key success factor is to find ways to align the social enterprise with
the economic development strategies of the local government. Positioning the
social enterprise as a strategic ally for both local government and the
important industries the government is trying to develop makes good sense on
several levels. This positioning has led to important introductions and
alliances that have dramatically improved earned income and our ability to
attract grants.
We have obtained substantial
government grants for new buildings and equipment by emphasizing that our social
enterprises will create jobs, reduce unemployment and raise per capita income.
We show how our enterprises lift people out of poverty by providing job training
and skills that are in demand in local industries that are strategically
important to the economic development of the community. In other words
employment in our social enterprise is often the first rung in a career ladder
for people that would otherwise require government assistance.
Many people, including those in
government, perceive non-profits as a drain on the economy. Therefore, it helps
if the social enterprise can provide an economic impact analysis that clearly
and convincingly illustrates the economic benefit it provides to the community.
We always keep an eye out for
problems the local government is trying to solve and then see if there is an
opportunity for a social enterprise to play a role. For example: The State of
California banned landfill disposal of electronic waste. That created an
opportunity for us to develop a social enterprise that employs people with
developmental disabilities to recycle electronic waste. The State provided a
grant and technical assistance to start the program, which is now self
sustaining.