Poor social entrepreneurs

Tonight it's the launch of the RSA Social Entrepreneurs Network, and I'm actually rather looking forward to it. There's been a very interesting discussion on the group forum already about how social enterprise can reward the entrepreneurs behind it. Social enterprise is one of the fastest-growing sectors in our society, and I think it has a lot to teach the policy world, traditional charities and the commercial sector. The problem, as I see it, is this though: social enterprise is good at generating revenue through doing good, by selling products and services, delivering contracts for the public sector and so on. What it isn't so good at though, is looking after the people who make it happen. The sector suffers a lot of burn-outs, and many people who are starting successful social enterprises can only do so because they have made money in the commercial world, or because they are able to live cheaply without overheads like children or sick relatives. The sector is thriving, but at the expense of the people at the heart of it - and without the money from the lucrative public and private sectors, much of it wouldn't exist at all.

I think what's needed is greater liquidity in the social enterprise sector, which starts with making it easier for successful entrepreneurs to set up their next venture. Social capital is great, but it doesn't pay the bills while we work for free for a year raising funds and building brands. We need to make sure the people who have set up organisations with strong social impact get a return on their "sweat equity", or the sector will always be parasitic on the commercial world and dogged by burn-outs and drop-outs.

I think there are two obstacles to allowing this "liquidity" to happen. The first is the psychology around "non-profit": how can I as a social entrepreneur claim my financial reward when my project is based on goodwill and channelling profits back into the community? The second is structural: how can non-profits pay dividends on in-kind investment, in the way they pay a return on cash investments? Time invested for free in building an organisation should always be regarded as a loan, to be recouped with a reasonable return when the venture is successful. I don't want to be a millionnaire, I just don't want all my hard work to go unrewarded. And I think we need new corporate vehicles, and a new culture around money for good causes, to make this possible.

With Mindapples, my second social venture after School of Everything, I'm looking at ways to write in profit-shares and bonuses for founders and volunteers if we build a successful revenue model for our non-profit community organisation. Does anyone know any good examples out there of when this is done well that I could base our model on?

Change world have fun

One of the best things about my job at the moment has been spending lots of time with people who work in consumer branding and marketing. No, wait, really... hear me out. Yes, I work in the internet, and specifically how to use it to achieve social change through grassroots campaigning and providing better services. I've also been part of the social enterprise sector for a few years, and written a few bits of policy advice, and between all these worlds I've met a lot of amazing people who want to use the power of business and media to change the world.

What's striking though is how little awareness there is in the social sector of the tools and techniques that are used every day to launch and grow international brands. It's almost as if, just because it's good for you, it has to be boring. Or, if it's commercial, it can't be changing the world.

But why can't a better world be fashionable, or aspirational, just like a new bar or a great pair of trainers? Why can't social enterprise be as fun as www.springwise.com? And more to the point, why can't we harness the awesome skills and powers of big brand marketeers to sell things that heal the sick, help the poor, or make our society work better for all of us?

I used to look down from my worthy pedestal on my friends in advertising, lifestyle magazines and brand management. Now I'm asking for their help. With Mindapples, we're asking everyone to choose a 5-a-day for their minds, with the ultimate aim of making looking after our minds as natural as brushing our teeth. It isn't a social project, it's cultural: we're building a new social trend, starting conversations, influencing culture and habits to change the way people live. Looked at from the right angle, Mindapples is actually a rebranding project: we're taking the concept of "mental health" and turning it from something frightening and depressing into something everyone wants to buy.

As we get closer to another election, someone said to me recently that the Government like to think they run the country, but really they're just the janitors. They make sure the heating's turned on, and the bins are emptied. If you want to influence the hearts and minds of people, speak to Nike, Ikea, or Pepsico. Just imagine what might happen if all those channels for influence were being used to build the world we all want to live in?

Getting real

Sociability Associate and The People Speak co-founder Saul Albert recently pointed me in the direction of this post by Dan McQuillan about the relationship between social networks and social action. Saul and I are currently developing the second phase of the RSA's new networks platform to help their fellowship collaborate on action-based social and civic innovation projects. It's a fascinating project and I'd agree with Dan that this kind of system seems like the next step for social networking. Someone from Yahoo asked me earlier in the year what exactly I do with LinkedIn. Once you've collected all your contacts together, met a few extra people and got to 100% in the "profile complete" stakes, well... it all just sits there, doesn't it? I'm more connected than I've ever been, but so what?

Of course, online knowledge-sharing and relationship building is important for all kinds of activities; the point is, at some point it needs to leave the virtual world and "get real". There are good examples of social technology being harnessed to stimulate action, such as My Society's nifty (and Facebook-enabled) application, Pledgebank, but aside from a few notable exceptions the majority of online tools for social enterprise currently seem to fall into two main camps: raising awareness by joining "campaigns" or supporting "causes"; and donating money so that other people can make things happen with it. Of course, this fits with the two main uses of the internet since day one: exchanging information and exchanging money. But with so many new collaboration tools emerging, how can the internet be harnessed to actually get things done?

One excellent example of networks being harnessed for collaborative action is open source software. A distributed group of people get together using online tools to collaborate in the creation of something tangible the benefits of which are then shared openly with the community. It works, it's more powerful than anything commercial business can come up with, and surely provides some useful models for the third sector. The other, of course, are the activist networks, distributing responsibility for action among a community and sharing information about what's planned and what's happening. The latter are the most interesting to me, because they move between online and offline - between the virtual and "real" worlds.

So what lessons can we learn from these about how social networks can be used to stimulate action? The RSA has built up a big head of steam around a huge range of projects, and the next step is to turn some of them "real". If we can crack this one, we'll really be going places.