missing the mark? what the latest research about social enterprises suggests about those who support them.

At the end of each year, most people get excited about what's behind the next door of their advent calendar, or the prospect of up to 4 weeks to indulge in unlimited mince pies.

Not me.

I look forward to the bi-annual state of the (social enterprise) sector research, that's published by Social Enterprise UK which is also released at this time of year.

(But I do also love mince pies...)

And that's because I'm always interested in what data tells us about what's really being experienced within the sector by those doing it, rather than the rhetoric of policy makers, infrastructure bodies, and people who speak about the sector - and yes, being led by the data and research does frequently see me being put in the naughty corner for the upset it can cause to other bodies because it can sometimes contradict their narratives and positions...

But to be clear: I never intentionally try to embarrass anyone publicly, but have an idea that if someone is going to be making decisions that affect their enterprise and personal future (and that of their family and wider community by association) then surely we should be offering the best-informed insights and options, because it's they who'll have to live with the consequences of those choices, not us?

So - to this latest research and what I'm reading from it (although other interpretations may be, and are, available: please check out the report yourself and draw your own conclusions): Backbone of Britain - State of Social Enterprise 2025;

and as with all research, remember to approach with caution: large data sets like these only reflect the 'main middle' - there will always be exceptional stuff happening around the edges...

the sector is very unequal

Roughly half of all social enterprises are below the VAT threshold by turnover (currently £90,000), yet their average number of employees is reported as being 6. Assuming that people aren't being employed on a 1-day week basis (the only way you could get these 2 numbers to line up), this suggest a sector that is made up of a lot of small social enterprises, with a disproportionate influence of a few very large ones on the overall picture we're being presented with.

legal structure choices and experiences continue to throw up surprises

The number of CICs in the sector appears to be starting to 'flat-line' over time (which is in keeping with longer-term trends about the numbers of CICs from the CIC Regulator), in contrast with Companies Limited by Guarantee (the most commonly used, and favourite choice for social enterprises for over half a century, before the CIC was proposed by government).

This contrast between CIC and CLG isn't constrained to their seeming popularity - CLGs are also reported as typically generating higher incomes than CICs.

But the historical OG of all legal forms continues to outpace all other choices when it comes to how large their turnovers typically are - co-op societies aren't going anywhere soon (which is also reflected in their having a far lower wind-up rate than both CICs and CLGs).

an increasingly weak financial position and outlook 

fewer social enterprises are reporting being able to generate profit, with nearly half now only able to achieve a financial break-even. But this seems to be galvanising social enterprises to focus more on making sure they're getting the most of what cash they are generating:

-  1 in 3 of all social enterprises seeking support say it's in relation to strengthening their financial management;

- there's a reducing trend of how far social enterprises are able to invest in training and development for their teams;

- there's a significant increase in social enterprises seeking support around the topic of redundancy, suggesting a sector that's starting to recognise the need to make hard choices about its future.

most social enterprise trading models remain in avoidance of delivering  public services

In keeping with historical trends, the main customer type of all social enterprises isn't the public sector to deliver contracts on behalf of, but us, the general public - only 1 in 5 social enterprises base their business model on delivering public sector contracts, and 2/3 have never engaged in this type of activity. 

But for those that do, 1/3 report struggling to engage with procurement processes and systems - suggesting still more needs to be done to level the playing field, despite 20 years of national campaigns, programmes, initiatives, and lobbying by different sector bodies.

social investment offers are increasingly out of touch with the sector?

There's a growing trend of social enterprises saying that social investment offers are too expensive and/or not designed to offer them what they need, with a growth in high street banks being turned to for finance instead.

But there's also a weaking of the wider sectors' ability to raise investment in general: the typical amounts being sought to be raised, and the likelihood of success in doing so, both continue to fall...

a determined sector, nonetheless

But in the face of the above, the social enterprise sector appears to be doggedly resilient and sheer bloody minded about finding ways to keep going:

- where investment is being sought, it's for stuff like buildings and equipment, showing a long-term strategic planning focus, rather than looking for 'quick fixes';

- similarly, the topics that make up the top 1/3 of all requests for support relate to strengthening systems for the long-term, rather than 'quick wins': governance, leadership, impact, and accessing training opportunities;

- and while the development of new offers and services continues to be the main way in which most social enterprises are seeking growth, that they're doing it with less investment shows 'frugal innovation' at work (pointing to a high degree of resilience and adaptability; although 1 in 5 also say that their ability to grow and adapt in these ways in being hampered by a lack of suitable, accessible, or appropriate support for them).

So overall, it initially looks concerning (although with some signs for hope) - but we should never read research in isolation: looking at comparable trends for both traditional charities, and private businesses, shows these themes are being similarly felt there (and usually to a more painful extent!).

And if this reflection seems overly critical, then maybe it is - but as a sector, social enterprise has huge potential if it can only plug into the right things. And from this latest mapping, it might seem that some of the things which were created to do just this for the sector may be starting to struggle to keep up with what's needed from them?

now I'm no longer twenty

You may have noticed that my blog posts this year have been a little different.

That's because 2025 has been the 20th anniversary of my business, and as part of 'celebrating' this milestone (over 90% of all start-ups don't make it this far), I wanted to commit to doing a few things:

1. 
   get more people to talk about toilets;
   
2. write and publish a 20-year retrospective of perspectives on how this journey to date has been so far;
3. and being more open and honest about things that we might usually shy away from, or consider 'too unprofessional' to share openly.

What happened this year

As this is the last scheduled of post of the year, it's usually the one were people look back over what they've done this year that they think has been most important - and this one is no exception to that custom, except I'm focussing more on what I think I've learnt and experienced by my attempts to mark 2025 as my porcelain anniversary:

- admitting to, and drawing the curtain back (a little more than I have done in the past) on the crises I've endured doesn't seem to have lost me any work (and actually made people more interested in me). It's also meant that others who are navigating their way in self-employment / small business ownership have been more encouraged by hearing that it's not just them that 'certain types of stuff' happens to.

- a year goes by more quickly than you think it does. I started in January by twinning my office toilet, but then it was the start of summer and the book I'd originally intended to have out in the world for the spring was still having pages added to it... but I managed to get it out in the end, and was rewarded by Amazon declaring it one of their top100 bestsellers of the year!

- in trying to make sure I also did the other things I meant to (like completely refresh my website), I messaged and tagged others as part of trying to ensure some accountability for myself in making sure everything I wanted to achieve actually happened. But none of them were able to help me keep in track with those things - and I don't think it was because they were rude or insensitive, they're just caught up in life and all the unexpected things that the universe throws at us each day that we have to prioritise and juggle. (And there's always next year to try and catch up with this 'still to do' list?).

What didn't happen this year

Which brings me to a key reflection about life overtaking me more times during the year than I hoped it would (usually for dramatic reasons connected to my being a sole unpaid sandwich carer) - and that's ok, as the other things I'd hoped to do to tie-in with this milestone anniversary year (refreshing my website, getting the 2nd edition of my first book done), can still be done next year (or maybe the year after that...)

How well did I celebrate 20 years compared to how others do it?

I also paused during the year to reflect on how others celebrate milestones in their own respective organisations. Most involved cake (which is always a good thing), but these also seemed to be fleeting moments - surely if we're serious about creating impact through what we do, then the way we celebrate our achievements should similarly leave some form of legacy or lasting benefit?

The moral of this festive story?

And maybe that's the key message of this end of (calendar) year reminisce - enjoy your anniversaries, because life is hard, and we need all the encouragement we can get. 

But don't blow it all on a single cake (maybe take out a monthly cake subscription?) - try and find ways that you can create artefacts and reminders of how you've managed to keep these plates spinning that you never thought you'd be handed. They'll then act as future encouragements not just to you, but to others too...

What makes your business 'good'?

In a recent group conversation with fellow freelancers, who are all part of the Freelancing For Good community, someone asked me:

"Are there any types of clients or work you would turn down on ethical grounds?"

In the moment, I said "no" - partly because my circumstances as the sole unpaid sandwich carer to several immediate family members means I have no recourse to support for myself, and so less capacity to take on work than my counterparts, so I need to try and take anything  I may be offered. But also because as I answered, I realised that I've never been in a position where I've been offered work that I'd had to seriously consider taking on ethical grounds.

This then prompted me to briefly widen the conversation as to what constitutes our respective businesses being 'good' or 'ethical', in order to work out just where the line was where I might start to say 'no' to types of work I'm asked to support:

- is it the type of work you do?

- is it the clients and customers you work with?

- is it your business model?

Your business model and form doesn't automatically make you 'good'

And this last prompt in particular may be more contentions than you think; for example, we generally hold co-ops and mutuals to be intrinsically 'good', but what if the product they offer may be seen as dubious to some (i.e. alcohol production, or support to sex workers)?

Perhaps we should look to 'badges' and accreditations? - but this too can throw up more complications. For example, Belu Water has won various public accolades from Social Enterprise UK, and yet it's market offer (botted water) is recognised as being one of the most environmentally damaging products in the marketplace.

What counts as being 'good'?

But I think there's also a wider challenge to setting the criteria for what counts as 'good'. Namely, to be 'ethical' means being socially acceptable, but what's socially acceptable changes over time (I'm of the generation which initially never knew or thought about the importance of recycling, or had any awareness that tuna was being fished in a way that killed dolphins - and yet within less than my lifetime I've seen significant changes on these, and other ethical/social issues).

And there's also the lesson that the brilliant TV show The Good Place highlighted: it suggested that in order to get into 'the good place' after you die, you needed to amass enough 'good points' during your time here on planet earth. But as our heroes came to learn, it had been centuries since anyone had been able to amass enough such points (and so 'the bad place' was creaking at the seams) - not because people were becoming more 'evil' but because of the curse of unintended consequences and the ever more complex supply chains that permeate our daily lives. For example, 200 years ago you could walk to visit your mother (plus points for family visit), and pick flowers as a gift on the way (more plus points). But today you'd drive (which involves mining of metals and fuels to create and power the car, often by people in precarious and dangerous working conditions = minus points), and buying flowers from a shop (again, grown and picked by people in other countries, necessitating CO2 production to fly them to said shop = even more negative points).

Even if it seems impossible, it's still important to try 

So if trying to live a good life is now so complex, and we can't help but compromise our ideals in trying to do good in how we run our businesses, should we even bother?

I think so, yes. Because for me it's the effort that's important - not what we do, but how we try and do it that defines us*; and this hopefully inspires and encourages others that although something may be hard, we should still try.

And we should also try and be kind to ourselves, on the occasions where we realise and have to accept that there is no 'ethical' choice to be had - we live in an imperfect world; but through our intentions and efforts we can try and shift this, even if only an infinitesimal amount. Because ultimately, it's when lots and lots of very small things get together to work in harmony, that the big things start to change and happen.

Does AI think my business is 'good'?

Finally, as this is my 20th year in business, you may have seen that I've been trying to look at things through this porcelain lens. Part of this has been writing 'Flushed!' as a retrospective of these first 2 decades from my own perspective, but I've also been asking AI what it thinks the main footprints of my business' activities to date have also been.

In keeping with the idea and questions of this post, I read what it thought through the question of "how good" has everything I've done so far actually been (after all, good intentions and commitments are important, but if you don't actually follow through on them...). What it returned was surprising and encouraging in equal measure - as I outline above, my core focus to 'doing good' has been about how I manage my business, not what I do, but AI highlighted:

"His portfolio includes socially challenging and “mission-driven” assignments — in-prison rehabilitation enterprise, incubation for homeless entrepreneurs, community-facing incubation or workspace models, etc. That shows not just business savvy, but a commitment to social justice and inclusion."

All of which leads me to conclude that your business is actually already doing more good that you might realise...!

* see my annual impact reports for examples of my efforts in this regard: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1o7M70ttK7My-ieTuBRi-gGeR9VOUfYxl?usp=sharing 

What Sherlock Holmes thought about my book

I've always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember - and while Jeremy Brett's portrayal in the 1980s Granada TV show will always be my personal favourite, I've also enjoyed all the other actors' portrays and re-imaginings of the role too.

As I've also shared in the past about having 'fan boy' moments in the sector, I recently found myself wondering what a (fictional) hero of mine might make of my first book, about imposter syndrome...

Sadly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is no longer with us to be able to take up his pen to craft the tale of how a conversation between Holmes and Watson might play out, where they to be musing over my monograph while residing at 221b Baker Street - so I did the next best thing, and asked AI.

Reassuringly, it seems to suggest that Holmes would have approved...

Scene: Baker Street. Holmes stands by the fireplace, the book in hand. Watson enters with tea.

Watson: You’ve been absorbed in that book for hours, Holmes. Another monograph on poisons?

Holmes: Hardly. It is Adrian Ashton’s Loving Your Doubt. A curious title, yet one containing a commendable premise.

Watson: Doubt? Most people try their best to avoid it.

Holmes: Precisely why most people think poorly. Doubt, Watson, is the beginning of all sound reasoning. This author argues much the same.

Watson: Does he now? And is he correct?

Holmes: On the whole, yes. He insists that the insecurities which plague so many—what you medical men call “imposter syndrome”—are not signs of weakness but opportunities for inquiry.

Watson: A rather optimistic view of self-criticism.

Holmes: Rational, not optimistic. When a man doubts himself, he has a chance to examine the origin of that doubt. If he pursues it logically, he may discover either a flaw to correct or an illusion to discard. Both outcomes are useful.

Watson: So you approve of the book?

Holmes: I do. It teaches readers to do consciously what I often do instinctively. Were Scotland Yard to adopt its lessons, we should see far fewer bungled investigations.

Watson: Holmes, I suspect that were Scotland Yard to follow any book you approved of, the prisons would be overflowing.

Holmes: One can but hope, Watson. One can but hope.

how I decide what to charge you

In the spirit of my commitment to try and be more open and transparent in this, my 20th year of business, I've decided to do something very un-British: talk openly about money.

Specifically, how it is I decide what my rate should be when I'm quoting my fee as part of how I would like to work with you.

I've thought about 'pulling back the curtain' like this this for a while, because:

1. there can often seem to be a lot of mystique and mystery around how consultants/freelancers types like me set our charges (and keeping things hidden usually only makes them worse for everyone in the long run);
2. as a trainer/facilitator, there's lots of encouragements and exhortations for people like me to charge by our value (what the job is worth to you, the client), not the time it takes us to do it (so I wanted to offer another perspective on this).

Ultimately, I try and keep my pricing easy and transparent for all of us - I have a set day/hourly rate that's same for everyone. This means I'm less likely to confuse myself, or cause others to get confused if they talk with each other about what I charged them for their respective projects. There are, of course, exceptions to this:

1. a client who states that there's already a fixed budget or rate that they pay all consultants and associates, which means I'll bill them on that basis (assuming I'm happy with the rate that they offer, and that this may mean a reduction in the scope and depth of work that I might have otherwise delivered);
2. subject to circumstances, I'm not completely averse to offering a goodwill discount to a client (but I can't give all my pricing secrets away in a single post here, so you'll have to come back to learn what those circumstances might be another time);
3. or when I offer to work on a purely pro bono basis (for more clarification on what it takes you to get into that bucket of my pricing, see this previous blog I wrote)

To the point about the basis of my choosing to charge in this way: I've personally always preferred to set a rate on the time I'll spend on a job. This is because:

1. it means I can offer more transparency and openness in my relationship with a client in how I'm working with them (which hopefully helps engender more trust and 'human-ness');
2. many of the types of organisations I work with have to report back to a funder or commissioner on how/why they've spent money on me; and that usually involves showing a rate based on days/hours. If I take a pricing approach that helps match this, it makes life slightly easier for them, which hopefully helps us all get along better?
3. the same work or outcome will be worth different amounts to different groups, depending on their relative circumstances - which means that a fixed value price would represent a bargain to some, but 'paying-over-the-odds' for others; 
4. my primary motivation for why and how I'm running my business is to 'earn enough' to support my family. I'm afraid I don't have any aspirations to scale my enterprise to the point where I can start to buy castles, etc. So although I recognise this 'pay as you use me model' potentially limits my earning potential, I'm OK with that. (Or at least, I am for now - ask me again in a few years time: the world and our personal circumstances are always changing, and having a castle to ride out the end of the world in might not be the worst place to be..?).   

But just because this is my preference, doesn't mean that I always adopt it. There are occasions where I'll agree a fixed fee for a project with a client in certain circumstances (see earlier references to this).

And to the 'money shot' piece in this blog about how I decide what my day/hourly rate is...

I'm afraid it's rather boring - I have a spreadsheet that tracks typical charges across different sectors, and for different types of services. Into this I add various national sector bodies' own regular benchmarking studies (such as ipse's); and charges I'm offered by agencies and other bodies where I'm working as their associate - and then average them all out.

This may seem convoluted, but for me, its the most equitable basis I can currently think of to come up with the number I put on your quotation which isn't accidentally feeding into a 'race to be the cheapest'. As to do so would ultimately only mean that the work is of a lesser standard, and also my fellow freelancers and consultants would also suffer from having more pressure on them to charge less than they might be able to afford to, at the cost of their (and their family's) own quality of life.

My hope in sharing this all openly here is:

1. it will be of some encouragement or help to others who are starting out on their own respective journeys as freelancer/facilitator;
2. it will help my (and others') clients better appreciate the thinking that some of us consultants/trainers do in how we come up with our bill to you;
3. it will also feed into a wider conversation that will help the wider pool of us in our collective sectors.

I should also namecheck Jodie Newman of the Content Shed as part of this post, because it was her prompts at a recent call I was part of with her that led me to decide to create this post. So if you think this was brilliant, go check out her Shed; if you think it wasn't, then blame me for the poor execution of the idea...

The Global Sustainable Development Goals aren't just for saving the planet - they also help with quality management and professional standards

10 years ago the United Nations launched the global Sustainable Development Goals - a basket of 17 thematic aspirations that, if pursed well, will help see our common world a generally better place to live, work, and play for all of us (as well as those animals and vegetations that we also share the planet with too).

And in the year that followed, I redesigned the impact reporting framework I'd started to create for my own enterprise around it.

The goals, and my engagement with them in this way, have subsequently drawn ongoing interest and recognition - most recently from a new global special interest group who asked me to be their inaugural guest speaker. Specifically, the group is made up of facilitators who are all part of the global International Association of Facilitators, and who were keen to explore and understand different perspectives in how facilitators (one of the capes I sometimes don) have thought about how the Goals relate to their practice and profession.

As always, when I have opportunity to share some of my own story in this way, I try to deliberately pause to reflect on it afterwards. This post is therefore what struck me as being of most interest and encouragement from my side of the screen (but if you manage to join this interest group - links below, you'll also get to read other's take-ways to add to these):

Good ideas take time 

Most people who have a passing awareness with the Goals might know that they were launched in 2015. 

But they weren't officially adopted until 2016, the first guidance about reporting against them wasn't published until the year after that - and it took 3 years to even get to their launch point after the concept for them was first agreed and started to be explored in 2012.

So whatever your aspirations might be to create change; design new systems; and see people adopt new ways of working - take some consolation that it took the UN 3 years to get to the point of being able to start to get some early adopters to commit to adopt these Goals after they first started to talk about the idea of them.

You don't (and shouldn't try to) do it all

One of the few regrets I have in this life, is that I didn't buy all of the mugs I once saw in a shop window, with the message "you can't save everyone" printed on them.

The Goals are no different - they were never designed or intended to be adopted in their entirety by any single organisation. That's why I've focussed on working to 5 of the 17 Goals: it means I can hopefully be more credible in how I'm presenting myself in how I'm contributing to them (i.e. I'm not making what many would see as incredulous claims about how my different business offers are helping to improve the biosphere for life under the sea).

Altruism isn't (and shouldn't be) the only motivation for all of us that adopt the Goals 

As part of my reflections with the group, I'd mapped the Goals against the IAF's professional standards for facilitators. In doing so, it highlighted how taking a Goals-based approach to how you design and deliver your work very easily demonstrates how you're meeting and working to occupational and quality assurance standards - so there's also a clear direct business case for the Goals to be picked up, as well as an ethical/moral one.

My using the Goals helps others to contribute to their delivery

As my business model and ways of working are wrapped around the Goals, then the more I work, the more I'm delivering against them. Which means that whenever a client commissions me, I'll do more work = more delivery against the Goals.

I'm not aware that any client has ever engaged me solely on the basis of this, but it's an additional assurance I can offer them as to the wider benefits they get from using me as their consultant?

We don't usually think about how the Goals help us have better conversations about our role in local communities and the wider economy 

I was struck by how most people hadn't fully appreciated the wider importance of small and micro businesses, and how we can encourage and support these by trying to prioritise them in our own respective supply chains - despite us all bemoaning when a large employer closes their site, and the wave of unemployment this causes with the knock on effects to other businesses, families being able to remain in the area to find new work, etc.

The Goals prompt us to think about who we're doing business with, and how this in turn helps build more resilient local communities in the context of seemingly increasingly unpredictable economies and extreme weather events.

We're all already doing more than we realise

Through breakout room reflections, people shared a range of practices that they already used that were aligned with the Goals, but who hadn't realised the importance or impact of, before correlating them in this way. This meant people were more encouraged to continue and build on these models of working. And, within the framework of the Goals, they'll now be able to more easily share with others, as encouragement and challenge for them to consider doing similar.

If you'd like to know more about the conversations which are exploring how the Global Goals are being supported through the work of facilitators, please check out the IAF's Special Interest Group at: https://www.iaf-members.org/site/chapters/sustainable-development-goals

And a recording of the story sharing of my history with, thinking about, and approach to the Goals can be watched again via my YouTube channel:

Why social entrepreneurs (can) never retire

In my decades of walking around different parts of the social economy, there's something that's always personally bugged me - far too few people encourage us to openly talk, and think about, how we get paid (and how much we should be paid).

The focus always seems to be on supporting a person or groups' shiny social enterprise idea, and how to help it create as much impact in the world as possible. There's an implicit assumption that the social entrepreneur leading it will not only be able to give the emerging and growing venture whatever it needs from themselves personally (time, energy, own money, etc), but that they'll be able to do so indefinitely without needing to take anything from it to balance/in recognition of this.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any talk of 'succession' or 'exit' (such as we see in 'mainstream' business support programmes). There's little or no option for social entrepreneurs to take any form of future 'sweat equity' in lieu of foregone wages, the lost time they've incurred in otherwise having been able to build up savings for their own retirement, etc; (does this mean we may see future generations of social entrepreneurs retire into poverty?).

This also creates problems beyond those for the individual person as outlined above - most people who pick up, or are offered the badge of 'social entrepreneur' aren't in privileged or independently wealthy positions. They (we) need to continue to earn money to pay our rent and bills with. And as social enterprises are usually relatively slow to start to be able to generate enough cash to offer and sustain wages, this usually means many start life as 'side hustles' alongside other paid work that the person needs to maintain so they can still afford to live. This in turn, creates more tensions and potential issues for these new social enterprises, as they're being managed with a part-time/split-focus founder.

But despite the potential gloom in the above, I'm starting to see/take some encouragement from a small but growing trend of people who seem to be similarly feeling able to start to talk more openly about the social enterprises they're developing, and who need to recognise and reconcile these tensions and possible contradictions - this has led to my being asked to explore more 'group structure models' (using combinations of linked legal forms to help best manage the tension between a founders' personal, and their respective communities' needs, both now and into the future). It's also involved my starting to be approached by the leaders of more established social enterprises and charities, asking for support with salary benchmarking (although to date, this has highlighted how in general and as a whole sector, we usually pay our people and selves less than in other sectors for broadly similar roles, and this includes with making less provision for future pension and retirement).

I also recognise the tension that underpins all of this - if what we're doing is to ultimately create social good, then to pay better wages etc, we need to charge more. But how can we feel comfortable doing this when we see that the communities we support are in poverty, etc? 

But if we don't find ways to start to address these elephants, then we risk losing talent and skills as people may begin to feel that they can't continue to trade off their personal futures for the sake of helping others today - and actually, research from Social Enterprise UK shows that social enterprises are generally more likely to be profitable if they're trading in areas of deprivation; so it seems that there are ways to reconcile this apparent contradiction.

 

I have an idea that the only way we can start to break this taboo of social entrepreneurs being able (encouraged, and allowed) to pay themselves both today, and with regard for their future retirement chapters without feeling guilty for doing so, and the limitations it's placing on the sector as a whole, is by trying to talk about this more openly and in grown-up ways.

To this end, I'd encourage anyone reading this to share, reply, and engage in these conversations where and how you're able to (although I recognise that talking about money isn't something we Brits do very well). But if no-one talks about it, then nothing can ever change...

why unpaid carers struggle so much to be heard...

I think I've figured out why it's so difficult for the views and experiences of unpaid carers to be accepted by policy makers and government.

Along with a few million other people in the UK, I'm an unpaid carer - and I'm also self-employed; juggling earning a living alongside meeting the support needs of several immediate family members.

Over the last few years, I've been trying to wave a flag for those of us like me - because we're the only type of unpaid carer not currently recognised in law or policy (which means there's no support for us). This lack of support is also a problem for everyone else, because it means that our respective businesses are all under-performing: in the wider economy there's over £10Billion of lost/deferred job creation, investment, exporting, etc that isn't happening every year, because we're trying to figure how to support ourselves in reconciling these competing roles on our own.

A key way in which I've been able to have some small initial successes in attracting interest to the approaching 1million people / unpaid carers / small business owners who are in this circumstance is through research and data - without which, policy makers and membership bodies can't justify investing the time to investigate these issues more.

But recently, a comment by one of Directors at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) gave me reason to go back to basics with this - I'd referenced in conversation that most unpaid carers are just as likely to be men as they are women (in contrast to the typical general perception that it's usually women who take on caring roles). They challenged this by referencing the latest national census return, which CLES use as a baseline for all their policy work, as showing that it's actually predominately women who are unpaid carers. 

So I went back to the original source materials and realised that all the national government, health, policy, and support bodies are all working to a different understanding of who we are as unpaid carers.

It's shocking and depressing in equal measure - they all have different data about who unpaid carers are, and are using to base their support to us on. Is it any wonder then, that there's so much confusion about us, and why it's so hard for our voices to be heard? Because without a common agreement on how many of us are men, women, or other, each public body or agency can easily dismiss the research of others', on the basis that the starting point of identifying and understanding who carers are at such a fundamental level is so different to their own.

Can you see the confusion in the above chart?

• The government census shows a roughly 60/40 split in gender - but this survey was done in a global pandemic, and there's been questions subsequently raised by others about the validity of this finding, because of how the question on the census from was worded which likely led to many people not identifying themselves as carers when actually they are;
• Another government source (the DWP's family resources survey) has a different split at 66/33;
• x2 national public health sources (the national GP patients survey, and a national NHS survey) both have a big difference between them in how they've identified the gender split of unpaid carers;
• and the research by national bodies are who specifically created to understand and support carers have a notably different split again, at 50/50.

And this initial basic question of gender is also excluding people who don't identify along such binary f/m lines. 

So - if all the government bodies and statutory health services can't agree on such a simple basic starting point of 'what's the gender of unpaid carers?', then is it any wonder why carers are so mis-understood when it comes to us trying to share our experiences, or lobby for changes that would see us getting closer to being afforded the same recognitions as everyone who doesn't have caring responsibilities?

As for me - I've always generally aligned with the maxim "nothing about us without us". In this instance, that means I'm currently more trusting of data from carer support bodies, rather than distant civil servants whose own internal governmental departments and bodies can't agree on how far we may be made up of more than one gender than the other.

Why the 'endings' chapter doesn't come at the end my book

'the end' is never 'The end'...

We often think of "the end" as being the final point in something, after which there is nothing more - the end of the movie, the end of a book, the end of a relationship, the end of a business...

But endings don't actually signify a finality of things stopping and not continuing. They're just a transitional stage (albeit sometimes a bumpy on) that leads us into the next thing. After all, if nothing ended, nothing new could begin (because there wouldn't be enough space).

Endings are also not an automatic sign of failure - I've referenced elsewhere how my business has outlasted 90% of all others who started out at the same time as me 20 years ago. But just because they're not still trading like I am, doesn't mean that we should see them as having failed: some may have been designed with an intentionally limited life as part of a stop-gap for people; while for others the world may have changed too much for them, and they decided that they didn't want to twist and subvert themselves for the sake of carrying on being a part of it.

And that's why when I was putting 'Flushed!' together, as part of marking the 20th anniversary of my business, I deliberately didn't make the chapter titled 'endings' the last part of it - to highlight that things can, do, and should, still happen after 'the end' has been announced by someone.

If you want to dig more into this idea about endings not being what most people think they are, and how to approach them better, you should check out the decelerator -https://decelerator.org.uk/ 

20 years of making hard things possible, amplifying voices, and enabling action

I recently openly asked people who've had had type of interactions or contact with me over the last 20 years, what they thought my most important impact has been over these 2 decades.

This isn't (just) for the sake of gratifying my ego, but as part of a genuine intention I have, that's been sparked by my business' porcelain anniversary, to start to try and take my enterprise more seriously.

As in previous cycles of this 'game', I've tried to anonymise all the responses I received at the end of this post, so you can check my workings out - but this time, I tried 2 different ways to try and make sense of what people kindly took time to share back with me: my own reading of the comments, and AI's analysis of them.

Firstly - to my own interpretation:

It strikes me that there are some common threads emerging:

1) championing less sexy and overlooked causes and injustices that people agree are important, but no-one seems to know what to do about them;

2) building other people up so that they can go further, and with more confidence, than they believed they ever could;

3) helping people make sense of things that most others see as in-sensicle (is that a real word?) - supporting them to understand and navigate systems and processes that otherwise appeared too technical and complex for them to cope with.

And the above seem to speak to not only impacts, but also the approaches I use it doing it (which nicely echoes an argument in my latest book, that the important thing about impact isn't what we do, but how we do it).

But nothing pointed to a single event, change, or new thing (which I find interesting, as there are workspace buildings that now exist because of me; and specific pieces of legislation that are different to what they were before I 'targeted' them). However, on reflection this is a good thing - as it echoes some of my core sentiments about the importance of relationships we have with each other (after all, in the ultimate end, that's all we ever have).

Secondly - to AI.

I fed it all the quotes and testimonials I'd received, and asked it: "Analyse the attached document of things people have said about me (from what they've seen and known that I've done and been involved in), to find what my biggest impact has been. And I'm defining 'impact' as "a marked effect or influence"."

For the sake of not wanting this post to turn into something that will take another 20 years to read, I'm going to extract some of the core points it generated from the swathes of ideas, suggestions, and follow-up prompts it created:

Across all the testimonials, your biggest impact seems to be: You enable others to do    more than they thought possible—by simplifying complexity, advocating for justice, and generously opening up new perspectives. In other words, your influence is both practical (making systems/processes work better) and transformative (changing how people think, act, and feel capable).

I asked it to reframe this into an 'impact statement', to try and make it flow a little better:

Adrian makes complexity accessible and give people the confidence to act. Through generous support, principled advocacy, and creative facilitation, he helps others see new possibilities, overcome barriers, and shape fairer, more effective systems. His influence lies in enabling people and organisations to do more than they thought possible—while amplifying voices and issues that might otherwise go unheard.

But this still feels a bit wordy and corporate jargon-y, so I asked to get a final version as a single sentence statement:

Adrian makes the complex simple and the possible achievable—equipping people and organisations with confidence, clarity, and courage to create fairer systems and lasting change.

Which somehow lost the opening core essence of what it originally found in its analysis. So I made a final attempt, by asking for 3-5 work taglines. These felt better:

* Making the hard things possible

* Amplifying voices, enabling action

It seems to me that AI didn't find anything substantially different to what I read and identified (so a useful sense check), but boy was it wordy in how it got this to a point that I think makes it easier to share with other people in ways that will be easy to understand and not sound like the usual patter of most consultants?

And as another sense-check on this, I also went back to the tag-line I created for my business nearly 20 years ago when I was first setting out - Insight, Development, Encouragement.

And it I think that based on what people have shared about their experiences of me and my work since then, I've done pretty well at sticking to those core 3 words?

(and the outcomes of this exercise also echoes my favourite testimonial which someone I once worked wrote about me, but which I've also struggled to be able to actually use in anything until now: "Adrian made us feel less stupid".)

The full schedule of all comments received from different people:

“What I’ve valued most is the generous, thoughtful, timely feedback at critical stages in promoting cooperative education in voluntary, and policy work undertaken.  Thanks Adrian you are a gem.”

“Every time I hit a brick wall and ask for help, yours in the name that keeps coming up”

“Well, I think the biggest thing that you’ve helped me with has been the change to our governance model and making sure we were doing it right for people living with HIV. You guided us through what was potentially an incredibly challenging process, identifying some of the landmines and encouraging us to prepare for and pre-empt them, which was incredibly useful in supporting people to feel able to vote for the change at an EGM.”

“From what I see, you have made the often complicated world of social enterprise governance, finance and development much more accessible to both entrepreneurs and those of us that support them.  You use your experience and knowledge – of both the sector and humans – to meet people where they are and offer them the input they need (even when they might not yet know they need it).  I think the impact of this is an increased number of social entrepreneurs, and their supporters, who are equipped with the right critical questions to navigate the world of social business (and social business support!).  I know I have certainly grown in confidence in the decisions I make, questions I ask and support I offer, as a result of learning from and observing your work.”

“For me, you've helped me reframe what a sponsor or donor could look like.  Because I think I had this fixed idea in my head that I had to approach larger organisations (often with dodgy values) if I wanted to get some sort of investment in my business.  And actually since your generous support of my Write the Book programme began, I've also had support for my podcast from a couple of other freelance businesses who've signed up to sponsor it.  I'm not sure I would have had the idea to contact them if we'd not worked together.  Or at least I might have contacted them without much hope of a positive response, but I think I'm more optimistic and open to the idea of freelance businesses being potential supporters now, and that's very exciting.”

 “I’m not sure that there is any one specific thing in terms of biggest impact, because I have seen various things and then there’s the next thing.  But overall, I would say the biggest impact you have had outside the direct services you provide is your commitment to putting your head above the parapet and shouting out for justice, whether that is for self-employed directors who are also carers, #Payin30Days, Excluded UK etc.  Quite hard to put a measurable impact on that!”

“I can only comment from the perspective of your support for Co-operative Climate Action.  You are one of a tiny band of co-operators who support our co-operative option rather than conventional (and often discredited) offsets.  As such you are helping vulnerable communities I Malawi adapt to climate change, protecting biodiversity, and supporting the development of new co-operative businesses that will reduce poverty, give them hope, and a financial incentive to care for the trees in the long term. Thanks to your interest and encouragement we are gradually gaining momentum and giving hope to people."

“Adrian has been a dedicated and powerful voice for carers, sharing his experiences to illuminate the challenges of caring when you’re self-employed.  The searing honesty in both meetings and in the Carers Aloud blog series has not just been moving but has helped instigate change within the organisation, making carers a priority area for future campaigning and lending strength and insight to existing campaigns, particularly on the fatherhood experience.  His insights on our research have been valuable and will be taken forward in developing future research.  He was also able to stand up for the self-employed when talking to the Department of Business and Trade at a focus group on carer’s employment experiences, which will hopefully feed into shaping future policy.”

“Challenging preconceptions and barriers to understanding and engagement. Innovative, creative and engaging learning." 

“Inspiring communications and stimulating conversations.”

“Finding the fun in the fundamentals of business processes and sound practices. Fixing the fundations!”

"I see someone who, despite having SO much on his plate, just Gets On With It. Never a hardy outward whinge or woe-is-me moan about how much of a challenge everything is. Sure, you acknowledge it and know that the setup is anything but 'normal' but you still Get On With It. You find a way to move through the challenges, conduct your work, look after your wards, and make the world consistent and consistently better for those around you."

"Your facilitation generates immediate thinking from different perspective.  The legacy of these 'penny drop' moments have guided the team through difficult conversations.   Your questions have empowered the inner voice to be louder."

I'm part of the 3%

Some people may have heard me refer to how life was, when I started my business 20 years ago - and they gaze in wonder and how I managed to find and deliver any work at all, in an age before iPhones, Dropbox, and LinkedIn (we used sharpened stones to carve messages on stones, which we then threw in people's general direction).

But as I've been reflecting on my porcelain anniversary, I've realised that a lot of the social media that's embedded in our daily lives today was still 'growing up' when I first started to play with them.

Looking at the histories of platforms like LinkedIn, I've realised that I was in the first 3% of people who now use it to Link; and in the first 2.5% of people who started to regularly tweet.

Being part of this very early crowd of users meant that I experimented a lot with social media, because it felt safe to do so - they weren't that many other people in the spaces to laugh at me if I accidentally created what turned out to be a nsfw hashtag. And doing so got recognised as one of the top 500 most influential tweeters globally for a time in 2012; and LinkedIn celebrating me as having an 'all star'/can't possibly be any better, profile.

Social media also felt a lot more accepting in those days - the pace of posting was slower, and it felt that people were generally more accepting and understanding of each other's content. But I'm mainly taking my realising that I was amongst the early adopters of these now mainstream platforms as another sign of why it might be that my business has been able to last longer than 90% of all other startups: I'm curious to try out new things, and experiment/play with them. And other people were too - which led to some of them creating their own hashtags about me: #TwitterKingAdrian, #ChatToAdrian, and #SocEntSexGod.  

Social media has never helped me land any big client projects, or seen me go viral - but I didn't get into those spaces to do that. I'm in these spaces because this is where other people hang out, and ultimately I'm interested in other people. After all, it's the relationships we have that help determine our future successes, so why wouldn't I want to be showing interest and willingness to try out new things, if other people think they may be interesting too?

 

The sums behind my % claims =  

I was in first 33 million people to join LinkedIn (in 2008) - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-did-you-first-join-linkedin-heres-how-find-out-andy-brown-k9fpe/. In 2025, 1.1bn people have profiles on Linked In, which means I was in the first 3%.

I joined Twitter/X in 2009, when there were 15m active users (out of the 75m who created a profile but then never did anything). In 2025, there are 611m active X users, which means I was in the first 2.5%.

How I've become a daily 1 minute habit for people in 20 countries around the world

As part of reflecting on 2025 being the 20th anniversary of my business, I started to wonder what else was similarly 'birthed' in the same year.

It transpires that YouTube and I both share the same anniversary!

So unless you've been auto-playing the contents of my channel there, I wanted to take this opportunity to do a mini-audit of how my life on YouTube has played out over our lives together so far.

What I've found is that since launching my channel, and generating content for it, most people who find me there do so through my shorts (the videos, not the apparel) or from a direct link from someone else's website.

They've come from over 20 different countries, and over the lifetime of my channel have watched an average of at least 1 minute of my content every single day of every single year.

That doesn't seem too shabby?

The specifics (if you want to get grainy about it) = 

Firsts

1) The first video I uploaded was in 2010, being interviewed for a national project about empowering adults experiencing mental ill health to create their own social enterprises:

https://youtu.be/8AduAsnWMjE 

2) The first content I purposefully created wasn't until February 2020, and was about why should never trust your business adviser (which includes me!):

https://youtu.be/ZpPYqBlt1Ek

3) and my first short was in November of the same year (2020), celebrating the special relationship that social enterprises share with toilets (the first, but not last, time I sat on the porcelain throne to record content!):

https://youtube.com/shorts/EFLDDvLwOrU?feature=share

Biggies

1) My most viewed short on YouTube was about how I'd made a low-tech Meeting Owl Pro:

https://youtube.com/shorts/flf0GExdbsc?feature=share

2) My most viewed video was a rallying cry to stop people using the word 'pivot' during a pandemic: 

https://youtu.be/4G-iHsWIszQ

Guesting

1) The first video I appeared in anywhere on YouTube that someone else had created and uploaded (to my knowledge) was in May 2013 - effusing about the Responsible Business Standard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBx1qWHWt_U

2) The most viewed video of someone else's that I guested in, was recorded in Sept 2023, about redefining the concept of social entrepreneurship with Anne Scottlin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxm8p7w59uQ

Playlists

I curate several playlists in my channel, the most popular of which is my collection of shorts and being interviewed by other people on their podcasts on the topic of imposter syndrome:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbjwTqLUXg99vP8ZLwQhn_vPYY1xlF0ON

So, if you're a Youtuber too, how does your content and audience compare?