A Different Experience

A plenary session with a global perspective provided insight for Kylie and other delegates wanting to identify the commonalities.


What would it take for government to take on social enterprise? That’s the question Jim Schorr posed to the panel of Anne Jamieson, Toronto Enterprise Fund, Kathleen Martinez, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy and Peter Holbrook, CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition, UK at the plenary session yesterday.A glimpse into the international situation, gave delegates three experiences, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom and it became clear that while the issues are similar the approach to the run way has been varied.

Anne painted Canada as a community that is dabbling in Social Enterprise, with little comprehensive governmental support. While there are a small number of social enterprises, the industry appears fragmented with no formal framework to support emerging enterprises or advocate for existing ventures.


Building from the ground up individual provinces have developed projects, some policies and adopted effective models. But the sense is that this is just the first step and that more needs to be done. In a similar situation to the States, there are pockets of strong SE support within different sectors of the government, but a need to encourage more comprehensive understanding and support for the sector.

Very fragmented but lots of interest in the idea. We need to build on that and offer policies that government can say yes to, Anne Jamieson.

In a similar story, Social Enterprise in the US has been built from the ground up, with little support or commitment from the government to date.


Kathleen Martinez believes that while we are further along than we were a year ago there needs to be greater information sharing and learning to inform government.


Whilst President Obama initiated the Office of Social innovation and Civic Participation a year ago , positioned low on the Government website, the sense from the local practitioners represented at the Conference was that there needed to be greater involvement in discussions around policy making to support the sector.


The UK situation appears much more optimistic. Peter Holbrook described it like being on a high speed train.


However, while funds are currently allocated to awareness raising, evaluation and social entrepreneur development, he warned of the changing priorities of government and stressed the need to be realistic.

There has been a huge take up of the principles. Much has happened in the last 7 years to drive the concepts of SE into the policies of government. All parties agree on SE and agree that it has the capacity to tackle some of those issues that government has struggled to deal with.

We are an industry that can over commit and under deliver.

Along with development, they are investing in tools for entrepreneurs with a range of curriculum's offered in schools and universities, along with opportunities for students to individually establish social enterprises.


The experiences conveyed at the plenary supported the notion that distance has no relevance in the discussion of Social Enterprise. Many of the challenges and issues are the same, particularly the need for meaningful and strategic engagement with government to develop realistic and sensible policies to support the industry.


But delegates have also discussed the need for a common language, better communication & networking to inform, involve and develop long term committed partnerships between Government, business and community.