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Beyond CSR: How to inspire your staff through working with social entrepreneurs
Beyond CSR: How to inspire your staff through working with social entrepreneurs
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UnLtd employee
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This is the first in a series of blogs from UnLtd's Corporate Engagement Manager Julie Nicholson, exploring how corporate citizens are working with social entrepreneurs to go beyond traditional CSR approaches to add value, innovate and create dramatic social impact on communities.
In the UK, an increasing number of talented individuals are finding entrepreneurial solutions to social problems. We call these people social entrepreneurs. These passionate, driven and tenacious individuals are a growing breed, outperforming their mainstream SME counterparts in nearly every area of business: turnover growth, workforce growth, job creation, innovation, business optimism, and start-up rates.*
UnLtd fund and support these inspiring individuals from start-up to scale and have worked with thousands of them directly and through partners during the last 12 years. We support people like Amanda, who transformed local wasteland into a thriving community farm, father and son duo Chris and Dale who are changing lives through sport, and Rosie, aka Miss Macaroon, a former pastry chef who trains care leavers in catering skills to produce beautiful artisan macaroons.
What do they have in common? They look at the world differently - using their personal experience and passion to solve social problems they see in the world. We find them unbelievably inspiring. What aspiring social entrepreneurs often lack are the business skills, the networks and the know-how to take an idea forward and make it into a viable business.
By working with corporate experts who use their professionals skills and expertise to support early stage social entrepreneurs, UnLtd have bridged the gap between these two worlds for significant mutual benefit. Social entrepreneurs become more rounded in both skills and qualities and get a different outlook and perspective that they may never have considered - helping them to develop their social venture and maximise the social impact they want to create.
Corina Best from 21st Century Female (21CF) explains the importance of her relationship with her corporate mentor, Sophie Leng-Smith, Deutsche Bank
""The support from my mentor has been absolutely invaluable to me. I really don't think I would have got to where I am at this point in time without Sophie's support. It has been much more than I hoped for and I feel extremely lucky to have her as my mentor.""
""She has brought efficiency and focus in to my planning which is something I needed greatly. And she has also helped me to look at things from a commercial and viable perspective, raising very quickly potential-challenges so that I can put in place effective plans before they arise (or at least go forward knowing that these could be problem areas for me).""
""She also brings a sense of urgency (in a gentle manner might I add) and encourages me to make strong decisions and act on them quickly - which again, is something I needed.""
Mentors in turn are introduced to a completely new world, a new outlook, and a new perspective. They are challenged and prompted to use their professional skills in a completely different way to their day job. As a result they get to see social entrepreneurs and their ventures grow and evolve through the support they offer, with the satisfaction in knowing that as a mentor, you have made a real difference and contributed to significant social change.
UnLtd have been working with corporate mentors at a number of large Corporations, including Deutsche Bank for the past 7 years and around 100 employees from different organisations have taken part in our Mentoring programme.
""Working with UnLtd provides Deutsche Bank employees with the opportunity to witness first-hand the enthusiasm and creativity of early stage social entrepreneurs, whilst providing invaluable business discipline and mentoring support. Volunteering on this initiative has provided a unique chance for me to pursue my interests and work with hugely talented people who can do amazing things for social good. It has definitely helped me develop professionally and brings a great deal of satisfaction seeing an entrepreneurs idea develop into a sustainable business."" - Jill Humphrey, Director, Human Resources, Deutsche Bank
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*Research found in the State of Social Enterprise Report 2015, supported by Santander, is the most comprehensive research undertaken into the state of the sector. by Julie Nicholson - UnLtd, Corporate Engagement Manager