Social Enterprise Ambassadors Programme
Outcome of workshop held on Monday 26 March 2007
This workshop was held at Oxo Tower on London's South Bank, with invitees from the social enterprise sector, government and other interested organisations. It was jointly hosted by Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, and Baroness Glenys Thornton, Chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition. A list of those who attended is attached at Annex A.
The Social Enterprise Action Plan[PDF, 1.67MB, 73 pages], launched by Gordon Brown in November 2006, aims to help foster a culture of social enterprise, including raising awareness and attracting new entrants to the sector. Social enterprise ambassadors will be a key part of this.
The Action Plan states:
- The Office of the Third Sector will work with the social enterprise sector to develop a programme to appoint 20 social enterprise ambassadors to raise awareness of social enterprise and work with government on the development of policy.
We want this programme to complement other work going on in Government and within the sector. We want it to involve the many organisations – often publicly funded – that share the overall aim to foster a culture of social enterprise.
The workshop
The workshop outcome has been used to develop the invitation to tender for choosing the ambassadors and running the infrastructure programme to support them.
The key feedback is:
- the programme should be bold – to ensure that more people, and in particular key target groups, have an awareness and understanding of social enterprise as businesses that principally reinvest their profits to pursue social aims, and that it becomes an aspirational career choice
- it should be really high profile from the start and increasingly so, appealing to the media and opinion forming journalists – telling great stories about how social enterprises change people's lives
- different ambassadors should be chosen to appeal to particular audiences whose attitudes and behaviour are material to the growth and development of social enterprise (for example young people, the finance community, people looking for career change, diverse demographic and particular sectors such as health)
- it needs very clear, understandable and accessible language from the outset, with targeted messages to particular audiences
- ambassadors should be authentic, credible social enterprise practitioners, with excellent communication skills, the resources and mandate to speak on behalf of the movement and bringing their own relevant networks to the programme
- the programme could ensure high PR/media attention through celebrities and recognisable figures
- existing networks and campaigns must be engaged to maximise the impact of the programme
- ambassadors should be chosen in an open and transparent way – if possible making PR capital out of the process of choosing them
- people should not be excluded from being a social enterprise ambassador because they could not afford to be one – this applies in particular to young social entrepreneurs operating businesses on a shoestring
- ambassadors should be encouraged to use their own initiative and to create their own opportunities to spread the messages
- the contractor providing infrastructure to the programme should provide appropriate co–ordination and back–up support, to enable the ambassadors themselves to get on with the outreach work with the best intelligence, briefing, case studies and practical help and to ensure that leads and opportunities to promote the social enterprise movement are actioned
- delivery of the programme should be steered by the sector (in partnership with government).
Office of the Third Sector
March 2007
