Scaling with an S

I am always wondering, more than wondering to be honest, it is the focus of my PhD afterall! – how can we make it easier, more straight forward, give more support to help social enterprises scale. Of course, it is not always the best option for a social enterprise to scale. Sometimes a social enterprise operating at a local community is working very well. However if scale is on your radar as a social enterprise I believe there are 4 key areas that need to be considered. For alliteration purposes I have wrapped them up into the 4’s - Sustainability, Scope, Succession & Sharing.

Sustainability

To scale a business, you need to have a successful business model in place, a business model that works and is robust. Of course, globally and here in Ireland there are plenty of social enterprises that have managed to scale quickly without a robust business model that has been tested – however these are the exception. And to quote one of my favourite chick flick movies – ‘We have to stop thinking we are the exception – we are the rule’. Too often, social enterprises don’t understand the nuts and bolts of their business model. What are the core elements of your business both social and economic that make it achieve the social and financial goals. These are the starting blocks for scaling your social enterprise.

When I was training as an accountant with Roches Stores, my boss would drum into us ‘Cash is King’ – and that is as true for a large department store as it is for social enterprise cafes – indeed I would say it is more important because there is arguably more on the line. Typically as social enterprises, we often focus on that social impact story, as we should – however if you do not have enough cash in the bank it is quite simly game over. And so, I would say to any social enterprise looking to scale – you need to get up close and personal with your balance sheet and really understand it, what are your profit margins? Of course, I would say that – once an accountant, always an accountant! But don’t be put off by your financials – there are a host of great resources available to support learning about them. It is up to us to become equipped with the skills, even if you have a great finance person on your team, or on your board. It is vital that everyone is familiar with the key basics.

SCOPE

One of the key learnings that I have taken away my research is the different pathways there are to scaling. Often when I thought of scaling a social enterprise, my thoughts automatically turned to opening a new branch in another area. However, whilst that is of course one way – and might be the right way for some – there are a whole host of other options. The first port of call when scaling should be looking at what are you scaling, figuring out the scope. Mostly commonly we scale because there is a greater need within the community you are already working with and so you need to scale out your social impact to address other issues, or perhaps there is another community that is facing the same social need and the social solution of your social enterprise can help. Then comes the how – it may be through a branch, offering out a social francise or creating an open-source platform where others can use your social solution. It’s not an easy decision to make, however deciding the scope is one of the first key decisions on the scaling journey as it will impact what strategy you use, how you finance scaling and the key success factors you will need to achieve.

Sharing

The world has never been more connected, during the pandemic I went to table quizzes, sing-a-longs, a wedding, birthday parties, yoga, gigs, book clubs and a murder mystery party…all on zoom. And so sharing our ideas and learnings with others has become much easier. We need to embrace the creative opportunities in front of us and share our learnings so others can learn and make different mistakes to the ones we have, is crucial. Social enterprises are not about creating individual or shareholding wealth, there should be no competition between us, we are stronger when we are together, when we can learn from one another. Scaling social impact is complex and we need to step on to the next level and avoid constantly repeating the same patterns and not getting results. We have a unique advantage in Ireland in that we are a small community, it’s often said Ireland is like a village – and everyone has gone to school with someones cousins neighbour, we find it easy to build connection with one another and we need to use that to our advantage and collaborate and share in a deep and meaningful way. This means more strategic partnership between organisations and yes this is messy and challenging, organisations may have different values or ways of doing things but we have to avoid time wasting and unnecessary duplication. I believe the government and funders can play a key role in facilitating this.

Succession

A number of 3rd level students are at this time eagerly stepping into lecture halls to learn about social enterprise, right up to masters level. This is very good news for social enterprises that have ambitions of scale, however much like the current ‘war on talent’ that exists in the private sector, the social enterprise sector is no different. We need to be able to invest in, retain and nurture our talent. To use Jim Collins’ famous quote ‘we have to have the right people on the bus’. The people to drive the start-up phase of your social enterprise might not be the right people to drive the scaling phase. We want high standards, high social returns and a high level of professionalism from our sector. We cannot rely on the altruistic heart of employees. We need to renumerate employees at a level that makes sense and ensures they have security and can build a future for themselves, otherwise we will see a massive drop off in talent. Social Enterprises are changing the course of Ireland, making it a safer, better, more inclusive place to live – why would we not invest everything and remove every obstacle we can to ensure they can succeed and scale and help eradicate many challenging social issues.

It is a wonderfully exciting time to be part of the social enterprise sector, there is so much change and so much possibility in our midst. Many businesses are choosing the social enterprise business model because it makes sense. As we stand on the frontier of a climate disaster we are finally learning that we cannot continue with just business as usual. That has not been the right way to live for the future I believe we all want. A more equitable and just society. Where we finally start to close the gap between those who have and those who have not. Somehow the world has gone slightly out of kilter, the choices we have been making as a society have been selfish and disregarded the welfare of so many and harmed our beautiful planet, but bit by bit social enterprises are playing a key role in putting it right again.

But aspiration, inspiration and enthusiasm are not enough to scale the social impact of social enterprises. We need robust measuring tools, we need reliable and real access to finance, we need accountability and we need knowledge. All the stuff an accountant like me dreams of! But most of all, we need to pull together, to work together, to collaborate and to share.

‘Trust your passion, identify your dreams, and find the courage to share them with others, no matter how many times they call you a fool’ - Bill Strickland