Thought Leadership

To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, we asked some of our members, whose work focuses on achieving gender equality and empowerment, questions regarding their views on intersectionality.  Our social enterprises saw intersectionality as necessary for their services to represent the complex experience of the community they serve. They highlighted the need to listen and learn from diverse experiences, to be inclusive and respectful. What is intersectionality? Intersectionality is a useful framework for understanding the many kinds of discriminations individuals contend with. Its starting premise is that everyone is made up of multiple and layered identities, which includes gender, race, class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, socio-economic backgrounds, and migration status. For example, A working-class bisexual woman may encounter discrimination based on her socio-economic status and sexual identity.  As advocates of gender equality, we have a responsibility to consider everything and anything that subject women to prejudice and marginalisation. The truth, however, is that operationalising intersectionality is complex. We tend to focus on identity dimensions we are most comfortable with. However, if our advocacy represents only the experiences of some women, we will fail to achieve equality for all women.  Intersectionality entails we identify the needs and consequently think about what resources we need to tackle the multiple discriminations faced by all women.  Few organisations have access to all the resources they need to operationalise intersectionality, but this is where collaborations with other organisations and individuals, to expand the base of resources, can help.  Here's what some of our members had to say about this important topic. Soul Purpose 360 CIC Interview with Palma Black - Founder & Director Soul Purpose 360 CIC Soul Purpose 360 CIC is a coaching, mentoring, training, and networking social enterprise for Black women in the community development sector. Their aim is to motivate, inspire and imbue confidence in women, to enable them to contribute positively to their communities. How important should intersectionality be to advocates of gender equality? For any individual or organisation advocating for gender equality, intersectionality must form the foundation, if it is to truly include and reflect Black women. Historically, the white-led feminist movement have failed in this regard.  For example, intersectionality is essential for understanding the unique challenges that Black women face, as well as for developing effective strategies for fighting for our rights. This is because Black women experience oppression and discrimination on multiple levels due to multifaceted aspects of our identity and an intersectional approach would recognise the complexity of this. Black women experience gender-based violence, institutionalised racism, and economic inequality, among other forms of oppression. Intersectional feminism allows us to recognise this. How can we be inclusive of everyone and respect all parts of a person's identity?  One of the most important things we can do to ensure inclusivity and respect for all parts of a person's identity is to practice active listening. That means really taking the time to listen to someone and try to understand their experiences and perspectives without judgment. Black women are not a homogenous group. We should also be open to having conversations about differences in gender, race, and other identities, and be willing to learn from and support each other. Additionally, we should strive to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and accepted, regardless of their identity. What are the challenges that can sometimes be faced when using an intersectional approach? Some challenges that can be presented include feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of intersecting identities and experiences that need to be taken into consideration. Another challenge can be navigating conflicting perspectives in a way that is respectful and inclusive of all identities and experiences. Some may struggle with the idea of recognising the privilege that exists within the various intersecting identities, as it can be a difficult concept to grapple with. Ultimately, it is important to be aware of these challenges to better equip oneself with the tools necessary to use an intersectional approach in a meaningful and productive way. soulpurpose360.co.uk You be You Interview with Bilkis Miah - CEO & Founder of You be You You be You provides lessons, workshops and activities for school and parents, with the aim of breaking down gender-based stereotypes, with the aim to shift the perceptions of schools, families and children, to open possibilities for the next generation.  How important should intersectionality be to advocates of gender equality? We believe intersectionality is important. We’re layered humans with multifaceted aspects of our identity and intersectionality ensures we’re encompassing the whole person. How can we be inclusive of everyone and respect all parts of a person's identity? We can listen actively to people’s stories and learn from these lived experiences. What are the challenges that can sometimes be faced when using an intersectional approach? A challenge includes the complexity of trying to tackle multiple layers of discrimination. To what extent does an intersectional approach inform your organisational strategy? You are welcome to explain your experience. Intersectionality is at the core of our organisational strategy.  We must think about our communities and all the levels of prejudice they may face, in order to fully serve them. youbeyou.co.uk Butterfly Books Interview with Kerrine Bryan - Founder and Author of Butterfly Books Butterfly Books are a Social Enterprise that create children’s educational books. Their books are career-focused, aimed to inspire and educate children of the career options available to them, to reduce gender bias in job roles. Some of their books include ‘My Mummy is a Footballer’ and ‘My Daddy is a Nurse.’ How important should intersectionality be for advocates of gender equality? Intersectionality is very important as achieving equality, inclusion and diversity is complex. However, it can be difficult to address all problems with limited resources. For example, our children’s books focus on gender equality, and we try our best to address intersectionality through our illustrations as best we can. However, we believe that collaboration is an important way to consider intersectionality, through partnerships with organisations that have a focus in other areas. How can we be inclusive of everyone and respect all parts of a person's identity?  Through expanding our knowledge of other people’s cultures and genders. This can be through attending events, or reading literature that you wouldn’t normally. Additionally, understanding the community you serve is key. What are the challenges that can sometimes be faced when using an intersectional approach? One of the challenges is losing the impact you intended to create, by trying to spreadresources across too many areas. To what extent does an intersectional approach inform your organisational strategy? You are welcome to explain your experience. As a Black-owned business we are aware of the challenges faced regarding race. Although this is not the focus of our business, intersectionality affects us as business owners. Therefore, we are conscious of this when writing and illustrating our children’s books, with the aim of ensuring we represent the community we serve. butterflybooks.co.uk By Sabrina Doshi, supported by Dr Lilian Miles - Reader in Sustainability and Social Enterprise, Westminster Business School, University of Westminster

Lambeth community food charity- Healthy Living Platform- is looking to take on the running of the community café in Myatts Fields North Community Centre. The café space has been empty since December and Healthy Living Platform believes they are best-placed to take over the space and run the facilities for the benefit of the whole community. Healthy Living Platform plans to run the café as a social business, creating connections across the local community and supporting a range of different causes. The charity plans are for the café to provide community support such as: Low-cost after-school food for families on free school meals   Food markets supporting local suppliers   Volunteering and work experience for local young people  Employment opportunities for residents   Food Ambassador Training – a bespoke community cooking course that supports a wide-range of Lambeth residents to get Food Hygiene Level 2 and into employment. The Crowdfunder launched at the beginning of March 2023 and will run until the charity has raised at least £25,000 to support the start-up of the café. The £25,000 will support the initial café setup costs including: refurbishment of the space salary costs for local staff for the first 3 months buying food to cook delicious, healthy dishes Everyone who donates will be rewarded with a foodie-offer such as a free coffee at the café or an invite to a healthy lunch. Healthy Living Platform also plans to run a number of Supper Clubs at the café space on weekday evenings, as part of its fundraising for the space, and will provide more details soon. Tickets will be priced at £15 and each week would have a different theme around food or cultural celebrations. Healthy Living Platform already runs several food projects out of the Myatts Field North space, including: Community Food Pantry – staffed by a team of local volunteers and visited by over 50 residents a week. The pantry offers low-cost food, including a choice of up to 10 fruit and vegetables with set prices from £2.50-£5 Low-cost Tuesday Lunch Club – with support from Lambeth Council, a pay-what-you-can healthy lunch offered to all the community – currently supporting 40 people a week with food and takeaway options. Workshops for families from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds – learning to cook on a large-scale, cook healthy meals on a budget using limited cooking equipment and with give-aways including air-fryers and slow cookers. Holiday Activities and Food – Healthy Living Platform is working with Pinnacle Housing and Protouch to deliver healthy cooked lunches and food activities for children on Free School Meals for 8 days during the Easter holidays. ************************************* Quote from Sam Mason – Pinnacle Housing Association  ‘Staffed by excellent local volunteers and backed up by expert staff, the pantry not only supports our community to access high-quality, low-cost food on their doorstep, but also gives us a centre of gravity around which to shape our community offer. It’s now hard to imagine the centre without them and we’re looking forward to expanding our activities with HLP in the coming months.’ Quote from local residents at Myatts Field North ‘Amazing community service - You get tea coffee and a nice warm place to sit and wait’ ‘There are very hardworking staff they are very kind, helpful and welcoming’ ‘It encouraged me to eat healthy. And the vegetables and fruits are fresh. It is very helpful to us’ 7 March 2023 For more info: www.healthylivingplatform.org Instagram: @living_platform Helen – Strategic Development helen.wiggins@healthylivingplatform.org Or email: contactus@healthylivingplatform.org

Social investment is a funding source that many have never heard of, need to learn more about or may be unsure whether it’s for them. In this webinar Adrian Bean from Key Fund helped demystify the world of social investment running through how it works and what kind of support is out there. The webinar aimed to help social enterprises with great ideas but need the capital and support to make them happen. 2 March 2023

In these troubled times, it is welcome that the expanded Dormant Asset Scheme will provide £880 million to essential causes, including through social investment and a Community Wealth Fund. The results of the Dormant Assets consultation were announced today. Funds will continue to be used for youth, financial inclusion and social investment wholesalers. There will also be a new Community Wealth Fund which will give long-term financial support (whether directly or indirectly) for the provision of local amenities or other social infrastructure. This is an important milestone because of the impact this will have on communities through the work of social enterprises, trading charities and other community-based businesses. The consultation recognises the importance of extending affordable, patient, flexible capital and highlights findings of the Adebowale Commission on Social Investment which recommended that social investment must reach more minority-led organisations and disadvantaged communities. Existing Dormant Assets continue, including a £31 million fund which will enable community and social enterprises to install energy saving technology in their buildings and help them meet the growing need for their services as a result of cost-of-living pressures. We look forward to more details on how this funding will be allocated. It is imperative that it is distributed fairly and used to support communities and places in need. Our CEO Peter Holbrook said: “This is an important and positive development. Dormant Assets offer huge potential support for social enterprises and the communities they serve. We are pleased to see that the Adebowale Commission has influenced improvements for social investment. We look forward to supporting how the Community Wealth Fund is shaped, as we know the vital work that social enterprises do at a hyper-local level and the importance of place-based infrastructure. These are extremely challenging economic circumstances. We hope the Spring Budget next week will provide further hope and support to drive social enterprise solutions.”

The State of Social Enterprise (SOSE) survey, which runs every two years, is live! We’re inviting all UK social enterprises to take part. We know social enterprises across coops, community businesses, start-ups and more get surveyed a lot. So, why should you give up your time for it?  1. Drive policy change SOSE data helps drive policy change for social enterprise. For example, it informed public policy which led to the creation of Big Society Capital and Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, contributing to a social impact investment market of over £6.4bn. It supported Social Value legislation and underpinned calls for sector support during COVID. 2. Shape a powerful narrative Did you know that social enterprises generate £60bn GDP and 2 million jobs? That’s SOSE data. And we want to update it this year.  3. Contribute to the UK’s largest dataset for social enterprise Central government comes to us for this data. Social investors, national sector bodies, local and combined authorities – they all access this data to inform policy and practice. SOSE data is central to analysis such as the Adebowale Commission on Social Investment.               4. Build understanding SOSE data is used by researchers and academics to better understand many areas of social enterprise, from rural ecosystems for social enterprise, to improving routes to market, the data is core to research across sectors, regions and impact areas.  5. Data for your social enterprise SOSE provides a benchmark for social enterprises to better understand their own performance and learn from others. For the first time in 2023, SEUK members will receive benchmarked results from their survey data in the pilot run of our Better Business Benchmark tool.  We’ve simplified the survey this year. If you took part in 2021, you won’t be asked all questions as we’ll use data you’ve already provided.   You’ll need info on your financial turnover, profits and staff demographics to hand – as well as an overview of how you generate income. The survey shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.   If you do one survey this year, please make it this one. How to take part   All SEUK members and social enterprise contacts will be contacted by respected research company BMG research – look out for an email from them. Not heard from BMG yet? Please drop BMG a line to confirm your interest – you can request a telephone call back, or to do the survey online: socialenterprisesurvey@bmgresearch.com Social enterprises which are not SEUK members are also encouraged to take the survey – email socialenterprisesurvey@bmgresearch.com to express your interest in taking part. “Evidence matters – and the state of the sector surveys helps us all to get a better understanding of the pressures facing social enterprises, be that frontline staff, policy makers or funders. It helps to connect the dots and create the evidence base we need to spot trends, challenges and opportunities and provide the support social enterprises need.” - Lydia Levy, Head of Impact and Evaluation - Access -The Foundation for Social Investment. “There has been a lot of progress in supporting social enterprises to access the investment they need to create and sustain impact but we know there is still so much more to do. The SEUK SOSE survey gives us vital data on where barriers still exist in equality of access to finance, where products need to be improved and a better understanding of the current and future demand for capital. Simply put - what is working well and what is not. SOSE is a key tool in helping us to understand how our money can best be put to work.” - Melanie Mills, Head of Social Sector Engagement, Big Society Capital “The State of Social Enterprise (SOSE) is the best and most consistent source of in-depth data on social enterprises. At Social Investment Business, we believe passionately about supporting social enterprises with the right finance and support to build a fairer society. We believe equally passionately in the role of high-quality data and insights to make that support as effective as it can be. We are therefore proud to support SOSE and encourage all social enterprises to take part in the research” - Nick Temple, CEO Social Enterprise Business. SOSE is supported by:

Two Midlands-based social enterprises have joined forces with a stunning countryside venue to offer a complete ethical events package which is good for the planet. The team at ChangeKitchen CIC craft innovative ethical menus, specialising in vegetarian, vegan and special diet options, while providing work opportunities for people who face social exclusion. That vision is shared by Jubilee Events, who employ those with multiple barriers to work as part of their marquee hire team and also offer event management services. When paired with the exclusive Meynell Langley estate, it results in bespoke, socially-responsible events for both corporate and private customers. The partnership began when Derby University contacted founder and managing director of Jubilee Events, Matt Parfitt to celebrate DE-Carbonise – a three year collaboration between the University of Derby, Derby City and Derbyshire County Council. Matt then approached director and founder of ChangeKitchen, Dr Birgit Kehrer. Here’s how the partnership developed in their own words: "Jubilee Events was approached by a university who wanted to hold a special celebration event to mark the end of some environmental research. The brief was simple: you have a great venue and a fantastic marquee - can you find us an excellent, social, 100% vegan/vegetarian caterer? My first and only thought was ChangeKitchen. And after the first canapes at the tasting event the client was licking their lips (literally!)" - Matt Parfitt, Founder & Managing Director, Jubilee Events. “As working as environmentally sustainably as possible has been part of our founding principles, we loved it when Matt from Jubilee Events got in touch to cater for an event for Derby University and City to celebrate the DE-Carbonise collaboration.We were even more delighted that the event took part at the beautiful Meynell Llangley Hall near Ashbourne, which is run in a climate friendly way, too. It feels there is so much synergy between the 3 organisations, we really hope to be delivering many more events together in this partnership.” – Dr Birgit Kehrer, Director and Founder of ChangeKitchen. Here's how the partnership with Meynell Langley estate works: Both social enterprises are dedicated to breaking down barriers to the labour market. Jubilee Events is one of two social enterprises set up by Matt Parfitt which are both owned by parent charity – Grace Enterprises, the other being award winning cleaning social enterprise Radiant Cleaners. Both Jubilee Events and Radiant Cleaners have a mission to transform lives through supportive employment offering holistic support to the people they employ from mentoring and coaching to regular reviews. In one season of trading, Jubilee Events have ten Living Wage jobs and run 20 events: ChangeKitchen are an award winning green, climate friendly caterer which began trading in 2010. Its focus is also on employment, supporting people furthest from the labour market, but during the COVID pandemic they also branched out to supporting people in need with healthy meals cooked from surplus. So far they have cooked and delivered over 70,000 meals and are in the end phase of a kitchen expansion that will help them at least double their positive social and environmental impact within a year. You can find out more about ChangeKitchen’s work creating opportunities and tackling the ongoing crisis of food insecurity in this short video: jubileeevents.co.uk changekitchen.co.uk

Delivered by the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) and Voice4Change England, and funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) – the VCSE Contract Readiness Programme‘s objective is to enable greater participation of charities and social enterprises (otherwise known as Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations) in public service procurement. The VCSE Pathway The VCSE pathway is the primary part of the programme. It offers charities and social enterprises a range of webinars, short and long courses to help them understand the public procurement process and provide them with support to better compete for public sector contracts. Upcoming courses and webinars can be found on the SSE website CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE VCSE PATHWAY AND GET INVOLVED The Commissioner Pathway The commissioner pathway offers a range of support for public sector commissioners to help them understand the charity and social enterprise sector and how best to work with them. Social Enterprise UK are leading on the commissioner engagement stream of the programme. This will involve working with government at a strategic and departmental level to make it easier for government to engage with VCSE suppliers. At a strategic level, this work will include: Working with Contracts Finder/Find a Tender on enriching the VCSE data held by government. Driving engagement with government platforms/tenders from a wider range of VCSEs. Building a Champions network of commissioners to help them to drive the agenda forward.  At a departmental level, SEUK will also be: Benchmarking departmental spend with VCSEs by using SEUK’s datasets to help departments. understand how much they’re spending with VCSEs and how they can do more. Engaging staff through a series of “Demystifying the VCSE sector” webinars. Driving new relationships through a series of targeted meet the buyer events working with relevant VCSE suppliers for specific departmental/category level spend. SEUK are working closely with DCMS to drive all of the above activity with the relevant areas of government. If you work for a department and would like to engage with the programme or find our more please email the DCMS public sector commissioning team at public-sector-commissioning-team@dcms.gov.uk

Here at Data Orchard CIC, our research shows that a lack of knowledge and skills about data is a major problem across the nonprofit sector, and that leaders are generally not making data-informed decisions. We think leaders are the key to advancing data maturity and to securing organisational commitment to drive improvements. With this in mind, we’ve launched a brand new training course designed especially for nonprofit leaders, board members and CEOs to teach the big picture things you need to know and understand about data, so you can lead your organisation’s journey to getting better with data. The 5-week course is available for enrolment now, with the first cohort running 26 April - 24 May. We’re offering a 10% discount to social enterprise leaders, using the code SEUK10 and a discounted rate for the keenest early birds. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO BOOK YOUR PLACE