Why this month as a social entrepreneur has been like dealing….

As a CEO of a social enterprise and registered charity working to help recovering drug and alcohol addicts and other marginalised groups of people, this may seem like a rather insensitive analogy to be drawing. But the parallels are sometimes too uncanny!

 

Having had a hectic month at TSBC making the move to our new HQ- I have had to cut fine deals and negotiate with clients to make sure we get the best out of the resources we have so that we can deliver the best value to our clients and service users.

 

Like the hot drug of choice, social enterprise is bang on trend this season. As with other periods of recession- social enterprise always seems to strike it big when recession time hit and people are forced to become more creative about how they make their money. Statically, 50% of Fortune 500 businesses were built during recessions. We are at a critical turning point in the way that we conceive entrepreneurship and the government has caught on to this in a big way through initiatives like Start-Up Britain, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme and Enterprise Capital Funds (ECFs). And U-turns, yes we need not mention this in light of the “charity tax”.

 

However, unlike dealing cocaine, the hard work and toil that we put into nailing the deals, thinking outside of the box and innovating to survive are all for a totally different high. The rewards are found in knowing that this month alone TSBC touched the lives of 30 and turned around the aspirations of young people across London and Leicestershire.

 

As Chuka Umunna, shadow Business Secretary, recently acknowledged, many of the clients that we work with at TSBC show entrepreneurial zeal- the key is knowing how to unlock the zeal that has kept them driven to beg, squander and steal to sustain a drug habit and harness it into a positive drive for entrepreneurship.

 

It’s a challenge that we face daily with the people we work with- but we are determined that they will go onto deal in ideas and innovations, not cocaine.

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