SOCIAL ENTERPRISE NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Oxford, March 28-30, 2012 – Movie has the Oscars.  Music has the Grammys.  Social enterprise has the Skolls.  Each year for the past eight, 900 delegates from the social, finance, private, and public sectors come together at Oxford University for the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, dubbed as the premier international platform for accelerating [...]

Twitter reactions from the Skoll World Forum held at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, March 28 – 30, 2012.

Change Nation, hosted by Ashoka Ireland which brought together 50 of the world’s leading social innovators last week to work on some of Ireland’s greatest social and environmental problems, recorded 232 actions that the attendees committed to successfully apply their proven solutions in Ireland.  Based on the belief that change only comes through the action of people, [...]

Muhammad Yunus is establishing the first European branch of the Grameen model of microfinance in Scotland.  Yunus plans to raise £1 million through the newly established Grameen Scotland Foundation to set up the organization.  So far, more than £100,000 have been raised. In an article with The Scotsman, Yunus outlines the need for support. “In [...]

A new Public Services Bill enters the final reading in parliament today and if passed, would give charities and social enterprises an edge to compete for public sector contracts in the UK. The bill, introduced by conservative MP Chris White, will place duty on the Secretary of State to publish a “national social enterprise strategy” to [...]

The fact that social enterprise remains unknown to the public means social entrepreneurs need to work harder to communicate their cause.  But have no fear, Muhammad Yunus is here.  Social business will be a major theme at this year’s Scottish Business Awards taking place at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on February 23. Sir Bob Geldof [...]

Government in the UK has launched a £275 million program to increase social enterprise involvement in supporting the National Offenders Management Service Co-Financing (NOMS CFO) initiative.  They are adopting the Social Enterprise Mark definition of what is a social enterprise to determine participants in the program. According to Social Enterprise Mark’s criteria, a company must earn at [...]

It seems soccer balls are a common way to solve societal problems.  Alive & Kicking is a UK based charitable social enterprise that manufactures soccer balls in Africa to create fair employment and educate young people about HIV/AIDS.  In the most literal sense, it is keeping Africans alive and kicking. The organization has been stitching [...]

The new social enterprise centre opens on the site of former Tooley Street Fire Station located near London Bridge.  The building will be the new headquarters for Social Enterprise UK, the School for Social Entrepreneurs, and Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) Centre for Social Impact. London Mayor Boris Johnson was in attendance for the launch of the [...]

A new survey by Charity Finance found that almost 30% of the general public has never heard of the term “social enterprise”.  On the contrary, one third of the respondents correctly identified social enterprises as “a business that is more interested in meeting social or environmental goals, than in making lots of money for owners or [...]