Whatever happened to Social Firms England?

When I first started working in the social economy (a time before the likes of Social Enterprise UK, Locality, and Unltd), there were already some well established bodies - including what become known as Social Firms UK.

It emerged in the 1990s, when there were a series of European funded programmes across the country that explored how businesses could create and sustain employment for people with a disability as part of their ongoing business model - at that time, a revolutionary concept.

And it its early years, it undertook pioneering research, lobbying, and policy work that's influenced the rules we see today that mean there's greater recognition and support in the workplace for people with disabilities; quality standards such as the disability confident employer; and also that bodies such as Social Enterprise UK now exist (Social Firms UK was one of its founding members).

Ultimately, it's responsible for the recognition that a legitimate purpose for any social enterprise is to create and sustain employment for people who find themselves disadvantaged and discriminated against in the labour market through no fault of their own or choosing (the 'social firm' model of social enterprise). It also amassed an enviable resource library of case studies, research, and guides, for any 'social firm'; were involved in some of the first national programmes to deliberately create social franchise models to help scale the reach and impact of the sector; and also developed one of the first national sector toolkits for reporting social impact.

But in recent years, its fortunes have waned - it launched its own accreditation standard, the Social Firms Star, which few enterprises adopted; and as part of the devolution agenda, separated itself into Social Firms England, Social Firms Scotland, and Social Firms Wales.

I realised recently that I'd not had anything land in my inbox from Social Firms England for a few months, so looked them up, only to find that it has been dissolved in March 2023 - with no announcement to their email list, social media pages, or any other media outlet. Looking at their last accounts, it seems that it had increasingly struggled financially to be able to maintain itself.

Across the other regions, Social Firms Scotland merged with SenScot (the Social Enterprise Network for Scotland) in 2021, although SenScot itself now seem to be struggling on the basis of their last filed accounts, and that their website domain is no longer is use?;

however Social Firms Wales still seems to be actively continuing to offer support to the social firms model of social enterprises.   

So I'm left wondering, whatever happened to Social Firms England - it was one of the pioneers of the modern landscape of the social enterprise ecosystem today, and also held a lot of valuable research, knowledge and learning that would still be of interest to individual ventures, as well as bodies looking to better support the sector as a whole.

Does anyone know where those resources may now reside, and why, unlike with other social enterprise infrastructure bodies, there was no announcement, reflection, or celebration of the impact it had had on the wider sector over its lifetime? 

How to give over £500m to charity as a freelancer

If we're honest, most of us would say that we'd like to do more to support charities and good causes in giving to them - and if we're being even more honest, then most of us would also admit to this being increasingly difficult to do with rising bills. For those of us who are freelancers/self-employed, this is also compounded by additional 'downward pressures' in what we're able to earn too...

But each year, the second Wednesday of May is marked by "give a days wages to charity day" - an attempt to help us be able to justify the act which we know will make us feel good, and also do good, but often struggle to do for the reasons above.

I started to mark this annual day a few years back, by asking my contacts across social media who they'd nominate to be the recipient of my "days wage" that year - and I've stuck with the Buddy Bag Foundation every year since.

Now - as a freelancer, it's not that straightforward to work out what a typical days' wage is, as our earnings fluctuate over the year, and what we 'earn' in income also has to cover our business' costs, so its not directly equivalent to our 'wage'.

But thanks to Creator Rights Alliance, we can easily work out what our equivalent salary is, based on our typical day rate charge to clients:   https://www.creatorsrightsalliance.org/freelance-day-rate-guide-2023

However, I've gone with taking my gross earnings from last year's tax return as my baseline to work out a days' equivalent.

Now, if you're doing this exercise yourself, you're probably thinking that while it may momentarily spark a warm glow in you, you quickly realise that a gift of that amount isn't going to make that much difference... 

But it can!

I've done more sums using the average freelancer day rate (thanks YunoJuno!), worked out what this would be as an annualised salary, then divided that by the number of working days in a year to work out the average day's salary that a freelancer earns; and multiplied this up by the number of freelancers in the UK (thanks ipse!).

This comes out to £410,032,540.

And if we remember to tick the gift aid box when we gift it, that means the charities can claim an additional 25% of our donation (£102,508,135) - which brings the total that freelancers could be giving to charity to a whopping £512,540,675*.

But it only works if we all do it.

Which is why I'm being very un-British in this post, and sharing with you all how much I'm giving to charity (today, at least).

One day's equivalent salary isn't that much when you work it out - but it can be transformative in the life of someone who can be supported because we've given it. And if we all do it...  

* for comparison, the last Children In Need fundraiser in 2023 raised £33.5 million, and so far this year, Comic Relief has raised about £40 million.

is it too big?

Each year I publish an annual impact report on myself - and currently hold the world record for the most number of such, that have been created and shared consecutively (this years' marks the 18th year in a row that I've done it!).

And each year, I always share it with the invitation for people to tell me what it might leave them still wondering about, or what they might like to see added to it. This has led to it now containing case studies and more images.

But after 18 years, I'm finding myself starting to wonder - when is it 'enough'?

The first reporting I did on myself back in 2007 had only 3 numbers:

1. what proportion of my travel was by non-car (public transport or bicycle);
2. what proportion of my turnover had I re-invested into my ongoing CPD;
3. what proportion of my supply chain purchases had been with the wider 'social economy' (co-ops, social enterprises, and charities).

These appeared on my website at the time, and each year I've sought to expand the scope of what and how I report. 

In 2014, I started to publish the report as a stand-alone document as part of my marketing materials for my business. It was 2 pages long.

In 2018, I expanded the framework to consider my impact against the UN's Global Sustainable Development Goals (something that didn't exist when I started doing this in 2007) - and it took the report to 6 pages.

This years report is now 25 pages! And if you look at any of them, you'll see that in most instances there's only 1 page that isn't crammed with information (the title page - and even then it's sometimes shared with starting to tell the stories of that year...). So it's not getting bigger because I'm getting fancier with graphics and page design. The framework, what's reported, etc really are getting that expansive from those first 3 numbers nearly 20 years ago (and it doesn't yet consider the 'cascade' impacts that are created by clients I support because of the work I do with them...). 

So my question now is - when is it 'enough'? As a sole trader. I don't have the dedicated resources that larger organisations do (salaried employees, department budgets, etc) to track and report on my impact, like they do - but at 25 pages, am I peaking? Or can/ should I take it further still?

At what point do we start to over report on our impact?

it's getting harder for me to be patient with (some of) you

I've always tried to manage my business in ways that reflect my values - and as some may know, this includes a practice of 'grace'. This is manifest through my automatically offering to reschedule a call/meeting/session with a client or collaborator if it transpires that they fail to 'turn up', without additional charge* (even though it represents lost time and earnings for me - I'm not salaried, which means I have to make every hour I spend count, in helping to generate enough income to pay the rent, etc).

This grace is based on my idea that we're all human beings - sometimes, we simply 'forget', or the universe has other plans for us at that time, despite our best intentions to the contrary (a child is sick, we're suddenly faced with an employee in crisis, etc). And I know that if it were me in such a position, I'd hope that there'd be some similar understanding and compassion - so I try and act in this way in turn**.

Over the last few years, I've started to track just how much my practice of grace represents/costs me, as part of my annual impact reports.

Since I started to record it 5 years ago, its averaged nearly £7,000 a year! And although it seemed to 'peak' in 2021/2 (which I attributed to the 'fall out' from the pandemic), and has been steadily slowly dropping each year since then (last years' figure was £6,675) - my experiences at the start of this year are not encouraging... 

In the first month of this new financial year alone, I've already 'lost' nearly £900 - which may not sound like much to some, but if this is a pattern which continues for the rest of the year (and I've generally seen a need to exercise my grace consistently over the year, since I started to record it), then you can hopefully see how it will quickly accumulate to exceed what the average has been for the last 5 years. 

I know I'm not the only freelancer / self-employed who this happens to - but bear in mind that I'm also a registered unpaid carer, which, according to research published by JRF last year, means I'm already foregoing at least £10,000 each year in earnings because of this circumstance.

So hopefully you can understand and appreciate how, if I seem a little cool with you in reconvening after you've needed to rebook time with me, it's not because I don't like you - it's because I find the behaviours and/or circumstances that have led to it not only showing a potential lack of respect for my time (and therefore me), but are also causing me tangible pain.

And yes, I could introduce a policy of 'pay or play' (i.e. - if you don't turn up, I still charge you), but that would feel like it would be cutting against my values of trying to encourage others by recognising that sometimes despite our best efforts, we simply can't honour an arrangement...  But it is something that I'm looking to have to start to factor into working agreements where this happens in the course of my working with a client from now on.

*for clarification, 'without notice' includes messaging me less than 24 hours before the arranged time - as this means I'm similarly unable to find other meaningful client work or activity: representing lost earnings for me.

**if you're wondering - yes, I also track the extent to which I may have also 'forgotten' or not been able to offer the other person more than 24 hours notice myself.

something strange is happening to my blog

15 years ago, this blog emerged into the world.

And it wasn't because I wanted to start to share and broadcast all the various and ongoing stories, ideas, and researches I have and do with you all - but because Jason Elliot, who I knew at the time, thought I had a lot of important things that needed to be said and heard, and unbeknownst to me, he created it, forcing me to start a habit that's seen me post a new provocation or reflection roughly every 2 weeks since then.

Over that time, I've thought a lot about what the purpose and value of this blog is/should be, and noticed that the analytics have always remained pretty constant (and relatively 'modest' at 500-1000 views a month).

But in June of last year, that's suddenly changed.

I'm now starting to see up to 30,000 views a month! 

And despite what I hear from a lot of the 'gurus' out there about how you should do your social media, my approach to my blog hasn't changed over the last 15 years - I'm still posting about once every 2 weeks, and on the same sorts of themes I always have (see my labels list for a flavour).

Perhaps this is a sign that the age-old adage of the value and importance of persistence, perseverance, and patience are actually at play here - if you want to achieve success (however you might define it) you have to keep putting the effort in consistently over time. There are no easy quick win solutions, and perhaps what's happening with how my blog is now 'performing' is a sign of this?

CIC 2.0?

Nearly 20 years ago, the Community Interest Company (CIC) form was introduced to high acclaim and interest for the social economy sector.

Since then, it seems to have struggled to fulfil its potential, based on various datasets which has shown it to: 

• not actually offer any of the unique features it promises; 
• be more reliant on being able to access grants than charities are (despite the fact that nearly all find it highly challenging to be able to apply for/be awarded such funding in the amounts they're seeking); 
• be no more sustainable than private companies;
• and be the most secretive (and therefore least trustworthy) of all the legal form options (with an additional previous post about this here).

And my poking around different data sets in these ways as shared in my blog here, has led me to be invited to write features for both Pioneers Post, and Stir to Action in recent years.

But I've spotted something recently about CICs in the data about them that makes me wonder if we're about to see a change in how this part of the social economy acts.

One of the data sets I regularly look up are those published by the CIC Regulator (along with those published by the regulators of the other legal forms: Companies House, the Charity Commission, and the FCA). And recently, the CIC Regulator has started reporting on how many of the new CICs that are appearing each year aren't 'new', but are actually existing limited companies who have decided to convert to a CIC.

Over the last 2 years, 50% (yes, half!) of all CICs added to the register have come through this route of an existing private company converting to a CIC.

Frustratingly, it's not clear what the motivations are behind these companies wanting to make the shift to gain a legal status that doesn't offer them anything that they couldn't already have otherwise incorporated within their legal form more easily, and which isn't automatically helping them access any new grant funding opportunities.

But these new data points suggest something seismic may be starting to take place amongst the CIC community - without this rise in interest from already established private companies, the growth in CICs would be in single % figures each year (lower than private companies), rather than the current roughly 20% growth. This means that CICs as a whole are likely to be starting to be increasingly influenced by the practices and thinking of previously private companies - rather than the historic basis of wider local communities applying for this form. 

What this means for how CICs will start to be viewed by the wider sector and others remains to be seen, but with a growing number of CICs being registered that don't have their origin story in how this part of the social enterprise sector has worked for the last 20 years, must surely mean that if this trend continues, we may be seeing the start of CIC 2.0?

an A-Z of facilitators (sort of)

A while ago, I was encouraged to create an alternative (social) entrepreneurs A-Z - and it seems to have been generally well received and appreciated by most people who've read it.

It came out of my work supporting entrepreneurs of all types over the years, and I've recently wondered if I should do the same with other parts of my 'professional' working life...

Some may know that amongst the things I 'do', is facilitate: getting a bunch of people to create, agree, or resolve something together - although it's actually usually more interesting and exciting than that sounds. 

And that's the rub with being a facilitator - most fellow facilitators I know all agree that until you know what facilitation can do, and how it can benefit your team and organisation, it's hard to be able to convey the full magic of it (a bit like the first Matrix movie back in 1999: you couldn't be told what the Matrix was back then, you had to experience it for yourself, and then you'd understand it completely...)

So I've had a go at an A-Z of what it means to be a facilitator, and what you can expect of us. But as this is also about helping to explain what one is, I've tried to approach it as an acronym:

F - friendly: open and non-judgemental, on your side

A - accessible: finding ways to make things best work for you

C - childish: after all, who doesn't want to play out and have fun whenever we can?

I - idealistic: trying to keep focus on the bigger picture 

L - Lego: there are lots of different styles, tools, and approaches to how facilitation can be 'done' (including playing with these magic bricks!) 

I - insightful: helping probe and prod ideas and assumptions to best make sure they're 'right' 

T - talkative: helping keep conversations and discussions flowing

A - accountable: if we can't make it work, then that's on us for not doing our job properly 

T - tree-top views: in not being part of your team, we can bring a new perspective to help you make sure that you're seeing the 'wood for the trees'

O - open: you know your organisation and people better than we do, so we want to hear your ideas about how to make things work

R - robust: people throw a lot at us, and we can take it. Tough conversations, sensitivities, and taboos. We'll hold your confidences, but also won't take it personally or expect you to hold back if things start to bubble up

But as with all definitions, the above may be missing or mis-leading in places - so by putting this out there, I'm hoping other facilitators will be promoted to counter-suggest better words for each of the letters, and people who haven't experienced the magic that a good facilitator can bring (other than copious amounts of post-it notes, fancy pens, and sheets of flip chart paper) can start to glimpse what you might be missing out on...