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For the second November in a row we at Catalyst hosted a conference for Social Business CEOs in London. Held on the 8th at the nearly brand new conference centre of Coin Street Community Builders it was attended by over 50 of the UK’s leading social business CEOs. It’s quite depressing that it had taken me over a month to offer a few reflections on the session, but there were some absolutely fantastic speakers, and I would be doing them a gross disservice if I let the session pass totally unremarked–so better late than never!

There were at least five main points worth sharing with social entrepreneurs who were not in attendance (by the way, next year’s conference will be held on 8 November 2008, please email me at rod@catfund.com if you are interested).

1) There are many different models in what we call the social sector. Without even trying, we assembled a very broad range of companies, from the perspective of their industry sector, their size, social approach, ownership and sources of funding. Following the conference there was some very active debate as to whether or not this was one sector, or many. We insist that the social purpose, however defined, of all of the entities presenting, does more to bind these companies together than to separate them. Some disagreed with this view, but that’s what helps to make operating in this area so enjoyable–it is still so new and the definitions and distinctions have not yet hardened.

2) There is a great deal of noise. On many issues, things which seemed straigtforward have become less so. For example, fair trade products, of the sort represented by Liberation Foods (nuts) and Divine (chocolate) (both CEOs spoke at the conference) are needing to contend with the growing concern of the need for their fair trade goods to travel great distances to arrive in UK stores. Belu Water, which did not present, but was in attendance, is having its ethical water challenged by those who think any bottled water is “evil” in comparison with tap water. And Justgiving.com, whose MD also presented, and facilitates between £100 and £200 million a year in charitable donations is considered by some not even to be a social business, as it is shareholder owned and its revenues are an expense items to charities. Readers will not be surprised to learn we have strong views on each of these issues, but we will defer those for a later date. For today we only wish to note these challenges which reflect a sector “coming of age”.

3) The entry of corporates. Bio-Regional Quintain, the developer of the acclaimed Bedzed eco-development in Surrey offered insights into how to work with a large developer like Quintain–a nd what are the benefits and the challenges. We believe that the entry of coporates into the social business sphere is inevitable and practitioners need to deveop strategies for dealing most effectively with them.

4) The importance of embedding ethicality. There are many challenging aspects of “being social”, or aspiring to create social benefits in operating as a business. While these were discussed, this is hardly a new topic. Where new ground was broken was in how some of the more successful businesses make an advantage of their “ethicality”. Some of the companies mentioned above, Divine, Liberation and Belu, would struggle to find their niche without their unique social dimension. Instead of moaning about the problems the best firms are exploiting their positioning to both social and commercial advantage!

5) Cash is king–but strategies for securing it differ greatly. Here the Ethical Property Company and PointOV Limited offered interesting, but dramatically different stories of how to secure badly needed capital for growth. This remains a challenge for the sector, but one to which many of the executives in the room have developed creative and resourceful responses.

I look forward to seeing you next year for our Third Annual Conference.

Rodney Schwartz

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