A Vision for Social Enterprise Durham

The trouble with visions, of course, is that they can turn out to be delusions.

That sobering thought must not stop the visioning - nothing new happens without the vision to kick it off.

And if the vision gets reshaped in the iteration, that's ok too, as long as we have some new ideas to knock around.

The other thing is to make sure the agreed vision gets put into a project fairly sharpish, while the vision is still fresh and relevant. The third leg of the stool is the essential process which underpins it all. When these elements are in balance, with vision giving lift, project forward momentum and process gravity, then you have a viable project.

Endless visioning with no project and process driven services are the bane of progress and all too common. That's why Du set out to fill the gap between strategy and local delivery.

Back to Social Enterprise Durham, which has been mooted as an organisation for over a year, without ever finding the vision or energy to progress into a project.

We saw the opportunity to help create a vibrant organisation, owned by social enterprises in County Durham, to promote the sector, advocate for its members at top tables, provide and broker support and training and roll out social and community enterprise centres in the towns of Durham, so that local folk wanting to do something positive with their lives and/or for their communities, have somewhere friendly and helpful to go.

To make that vision a reality, we are proposing a Community Interest Company, limited by shares, with voting shares available to Durham social enterprises and non-voting equity shares available to investors including those public bodies with an interest in developing the sector.

We reckon that this model is much more business orientated than the alternatives and that it will help keep us focused on trading and away from grant dependency.

And one of the main beneficiaries of the profits will be a social venture capital fund that can invest in social enterprises and be sustainable itself.

These ideas will be presented on Social Enterprise Day, November 15th, when Social Enterprise Durham will be launched.

steve