Incubating social ventures in Cambridge
Cambridge Social Ventures was launched in spring 2014 and ran two Social Venture Weekends at the Cambridge Judge Business School which attracted 120 delegates and 25 ventures were selected to receive up to a further 12 months support. Solving social … Continued
Curing supply chain pains with certified gains
A changed agenda Concern for the environment, equitable pay for suppliers and welfare of employees are no longer afterthoughts to doing business; they are becoming integral to doing business across the public, not for profit and corporate worlds. Surprisingly, recent … Continued
Welcome to the ‘Values Revolution’
People increasingly expect all aspects of their lives – from their careers to their purchasing decisions and the way they spend their spare time – to have a positive impact on the world. This is not a trend. It’s a … Continued
Embracing dissenters: why you need people who ask difficult questions
Dissent within organisations is not necessarily a bad thing as Colonel Bill DeMarco (CJBS Fellow of Social Innovation) and Dr Ben Hardy (CJBS Fellow in Management, Finance & Physiology) argue in the blogs below; organisations need to embrace dissenters to … Continued
The power of connections
Time and again I have come across stories and examples that show the importance of working with others, reaching out, collaborating, offering to put people in touch with each other – anything that helps to expand the links to get … Continued
New legal structures for social enterprises
Fitting the misfit or just an empty promise? Social enterprises are a misfit. Neither simply for-profit, nor non-profit, they don’t belong in the existing legal categories of the NGOs or financial hunters of today’s world. Stuck in the middle of … Continued
Making social change
Making a difference to society is a noble aim, and leaders shouldn’t be put off by a few bumps along the way. If my experience in social innovation has taught me anything, it’s that making social change is not for … Continued
Social impact beyond the investment exit period
Since the inception of the impact investing field the focus of practitioners and academics has primarily been on showing the rest of the world that so-called triple bottom line returns are in fact feasible and measurable in the long-term and … Continued
Public sector spin-outs: innovative or chips off the old block?
I am living proof that social entrepreneurship is not always terribly glamorous. Most of my days are spent in featureless buildings owned by councils or the NHS, helping the services based there to set up as new ventures, or ‘spin-out’; … Continued
The land and its discontents
Can social enterprise and empathy help? by Toby Norman & Professor Jaideep Prabhu On 24 April crowds gathered along the dusty roads of a small village outside Rangpur as shouting cut through the air. In the centre of the fray … Continued