Social enterprises: 'seeing is believing'

Peter Holbrook, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition, has a clear view of what success will look like for him. At the beginning of this year he told the Guardian : "I will know I have succeeded if you can go out and say to someone, 'Do you know what a social enterprise is?', and they say, 'Divine Chocolate or Hackney Community Transport, the Eden Project or Cafédirect.' Then I have had an impact." This week, Holbrook should be riding high. Since the election of the coalition government in May, social enterprises have had a higher profile than ever before. Holbrook will be outlining where the movement has got to at today's Guardian social enterprise summit and Social Enterprise Day on 18 November will be another opportunity to highlight the work of these unique organisations, while Friday 19 November will see a private member's bill debated in parliament to propose all public bodies should incorporate social value into procurement decisions - a move that could increase the contribution of social enterprises to the economy. Holbrook became chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition in January 2010, following the departure of Jonathan Bland, who founded the organisation in 2003. Before joining the coalition, Holbrook ran the Kent-based Sunlight Development Trust, one of the UK's most dynamic and successful social enterprises. He has previously worked for various charities, including Oxfam and Greenpeace, as well as private companies such as Marks and Spencer and Body Shop. The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) is the UK national membership body for social enterprises. It's a campaigning organisation that aims to create an environment in which social enterprises can flourish, to influence public policy at a national level and to promote the work of social enterprises to commissioners of public services, as well as to the public at large. Multiple outcomes "We want to ensure that services are commissioned in a smart way, by choosing the best outcome," comments Holbrook. "Lots of social enterprises achieve multiple outcomes, rather than the very narrowly defined outcomes that the public sector has tended to focus on." The most effective way to get the social enterprise message across, he adds, is to take people out to "live and breathe" social enterprises and understand how they change lives. "Seeing is believing." Holbrook manages some 20 staff at the SEC. "I hope my staff would describe my style as open and informal," he says. "Obviously, I hope I bring some entrepreneurial characteristics to the organisation. Having worked both in the private sector and in more traditional charities, Holbrook says his aim at the SEC is to bring together characteristics from both those sectors. "I want to demonstrate that the way to create long-lasting change is through what we now call social enterprise," he says. While it's difficult to pick just one outstanding social enterprise from the many that are now doing a fantastic job, asked to do just that, Holbrook points to the Brighter Future Workshop in Skelmersdale. "They are just incredible," he comments. "They have taken wheelchairs and motability scooters at the end of their life, which would otherwise have gone to landfill, employ disabled people to recondition them - and then sell them to people who otherwise couldn't afford these aids. So as well as making disability aids, there is an environmental outcome and meaningful work for people." Tipping point In two years' time, predicts Holbrook, social enterprise will be "the only horse in town". The traditional, centralised public sector model has well-documented inefficiencies, he says. "The time for social enterprise has come - and not just in the UK. The rest of the world is looking at what we are doing. We are at a tipping point and it is very exciting." Holbrook acknowledges that social enterprises face many challenges, particularly when working with the public sector. The need to do more with less public sector money than ever will require those running social enterprises to be more entrepreneurial than ever, he says. "But I know the people in my movement - if anyone is up for it, it's them. Finding your entrepreneurial inner self is incredibly exciting and liberating. It's about doing with, not doing to - and that's the wonderful thing about the sector I now represent. It's truly empowering to being giving people a hand up, not a handout." • For advice, best practice and intelligence from the social enterprise community, visit the Guardian's social network