Social Enterprise 1

MONEY FOR SOMETHING

15-03-2008

Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg recently hosted the inaugural conference of Social Enterprise West Midlands - an organisation dedicated to promoting socially aware, not-for-profit companies. Here he explains why he was so impressed by what he saw.

I’ll be honest – when they asked me to do the gig at the Merry Hill Copthorne, I was vaguely aware of social enterprise but hadn’t realised quite what it was. All I knew was that it sounded vaguely worthy.

And of course it is. The idea of running a socially conscious business then ploughing the profits back into more good works is inherently noble.

What I hadn’t quite grasped was the scale of the thing. Social enterprises can be as vast as the Co-Op or John Lewis; or they can be small scale community ventures like the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme which trains people from a range of disadvantaged backgrounds to mend old tables and chairs and sell them on through a single shop in Ludlow.

In any event, they all share a vision of business being about more than just the bottom line; it needs to make a profit to survive, sure, but can offer more to society than lining shareholders profits.

It’s a principle with a long and noble tradition in this region, dating to one of Birmingham’s greatest institutions Cadburys – so I decided to turn over much of this weekend’s Stirrer to some of the companies involved.

I was impressed by them and enjoyed reading their stories. I hope you do too.