A window into the world of the social entrepreneur [INFOGRAPHIC]

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Some interesting finding have resulted from the recent UnLtd survey of 1,000 of its social enterprise award winners. Check out the infographic below.

Social entrepreneur to feature on The Apprentice: Good or bad for social enterprise?

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Love them or hate them it's hard to deny that reality TV shows such as Dragons' Den and The Apprentice have generated a renewed interest in business. That's certainly true in my day job where as editor of BusinessZone.co.uk any content I publish focusing on the shows usually leads to a spike in traffic.

What there is very little of in these TV programmes however is anything focusing on social enterprise. You may well have seen the clip in a recent episode of Dragons' Den when an entrepreneur pitching a social enterprise cookery school was met with confusion from Peter Jones, Theo Paphitis and co who struggled to work how they could get a return from any investment in such a business model.

With that in mind I was interested to spot that among the contestants for the new series of The Apprentice, which were revealed today, is a successful social entrepreneur.

The woman in question is Melody Hossaini, founder of youth training organisation InspirEngage International. Melody set up her social enterprise, which aims to improve the lives of young people through skills development training, aged just 13 and looking at her LinkedIn profile she has an impressive CV having worked for groups including the Youth Parliament and with high profile individuals including Al Gore Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

Having been a viewer of The Apprentice since it started in the UK, Melody is not your usual candidate!

So why is she doing it?

The profile boost which comes from the show can't be ignored and although the entrepreneur already has an impressive CV, she is likely to get a lot more attention from appearing in the show. There's also a change in the format this year as rather than receiving a job with Lord Sugar the winner will be rewarded with up to £250,000 to invest in a joint business venture with the peer. That could be the reason why more entrepreneurs than usual feature in this year's line-up.

But what does it mean for social enterprise specifically?

I think it's a positive step that a social entrepreneur will feature in the show. The social enterprise sector has done lots over recent years to promote itself among the general public but there is a still a long way to go until most people really understand what social entrepreneurs are all about. Melody Hossaini's appearance in The Apprentice could help do that.

Also the fact that the programme results in the winner running a business rather than a job selling one of the Lord's wacky products could result in someone as high profile as the Amstrad founder getting involved in social enterprise.

That of course is looking on the bright side. It's highly possible that Melody's social enterprise background will get lost among the bickering and back stabbing which the BBC often prefers to focus on. We must remember that The Apprentice is entertainment afterall.

However let's not be too cynical at this very early stage. Let's hope that a social entrepreneur's starring role in a prime time BBC TV broadcast watched by millions will teach at least a few more thousand people about just how beneficial the social enterprise sector is.

Social Enterprise Ambassadors programme comes to an end: What did it achieve?

Here's an article I wrote earlier this week for my day job as editor of BusinessZone.co.uk:

The three-year government-funded Social Enterprise Ambassadors programme, set up to promote social enterprise with high profile entrepreneurs, came to an end last week. BusinessZone.co.uk editor Dan Martin spoke to the programme's manager Pauline Milligan to find out what it did for social enterprise in England.

If the recession has done one thing, it has increased the interest in doing business for social or environmental reasons rather than solely to make pots of cash. Although social enterprises, the modern, collective term for businesses which put all or the majority of their profits into a social cause, are nothing new, high profile companies like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and Divine Chocolate and Cafe Direct, two of the UK's biggest Fairtrade companies, have helped drive up interest among the general public and aspiring entrepreneurs.

One way the last government attempted to boost that interest was through its funding of the Social Enterprise Ambassadors programme, an initiative which bought on board 33 social entrepreneurs who toured England trumpeting the benefits of the social enterprise model. Among those who got involved were Tim Campbell, winner of the first series of The Apprentice and John Bird, co-founder of The Big Issue.

The programme, which cost a total of £860,000 and was run by the Social Enterprise Coalition, came to an end last week with a celebration event filled with tears and hugging. But why has it ended, what has it achieved and what's ahead for how social enterprise is promoted in the UK?

The end

Programme manager Pauline Milligan says the programme was always only going to last three years and participants decided not to push the new government into extending the initiative. "We felt it was going to be a risk to watch and see whether the government would continue funding and thought it was better to celebrate the achievements of the programme and the legacy which will continue in many ways."

Achievements

When asked what Milligan considers are the scheme's greatest achievements, a deal with telecoms company O2 is top of the list. "The company has launched new packages and a whole host of other activities to support social enterprise whether that be communications work, promoting social enterprise to business customers or looking at introducing a new award for social enterprise," she says. "O2 is promoting and supporting the social enterprise sector in a way that hasn't been possible before using the power of a huge, powerhouse brand."

Milligan is also proud of the programme's work in public services, particularly with the National Offender Management Service through which ambassadors were matched with senior civil servants at a 'speed dating' event who then spent time within social enterprises learning how former offenders can be helped back into work. "The social enterprise concept can be quite hard to grasp but it is brought to life through individual stories," Milligan explains. "It has been hugely effective in helping civil servants to 'get it'. As a result, there are lots of pilot schemes working with offenders around the country."

Responding to criticism

The programme hasn't been without its critics however. In 2008, some of the ambassadors attacked the programme for lacking direction and earlier this year, social entrepreneur Ben Metz wrote an article for The Guardian in which he said the programme "makes a lot of noise and wastes a lot of taxpayers' money in looking good and talking about themselves while effecting no legislative or policy change whatsoever".

Milligan accepts some of the criticism and said when she joined in early 2009, it was one of the first areas she focused on. Three taskforces, she claimed, tackled the direction problems and bought "real change".

When it comes to altering government policy, Milligan claims the programme wasn't set up with the aim of "changing laws" but says it has "influenced the debate and helped civil servants and ministers understand what social enterprise is all about".

She also claims one major success with the programme’s role in calling for added value to be taken into account when public sector spending decisions are made and contracts are being awarded. Chris White MP is currently tabling a private members bill calling for a greater awareness of social enterprises during the procurement process. "This was not solely down to the ambassadors but we had lots of meetings with key civil servants, ministers and the media in order to influence the outcome", Milligan says.

Enterprise education

Educating young people about business is another area Milligan is keen to stress the programme's success, in particularly through the recent introduction of social enterprise as an area of education taught by Young Enterprise, which works with 30,000 children and students in schools, colleges and universities.

Young Enterprise hit the headlines recently when Dragons' Den judge and National Enterprise Academy founder Peter Jones criticised the organisation for "putting good money after bad". Milligan says that is an argument by which she is "not impressed" adding: "I've met many of the young people who've taken part in Young Enterprise and they're very inspiring. They've set up profitable businesses and are doing some fantastic stuff so it's really dismissive of Peter Jones to disregard the organisation in the way he did."

One of the dragon's arguments is that enterprise education needs to be more coordinated and he has called for his National Enterprise Academy curriculum, currently running in three colleges, to be rolled out nationwide.

But Milligan says having one single scheme in place isn't necessarily a good thing. "There are lots of organisations working in the space and it's important they join up but I also believe there are different ways to do things," she says. "I wouldn't want to see a monopoly of one programme being used against others which have got a proven track record."

Public perception

So how does Milligan believe the public perception of social enterprise has developed during the three years the programme has existed?

"Things are shifting but there's still a long way to go," she says. "When I joined in 2009, we started to look at how to make it more focused and one of the things I quickly realised was that going out and trying to raise awareness among the general public was not the right thing to do.

"What we needed to do was get to key decision makers and organisations. Once we'd converted some of those, we could then move onto the general public. Through schemes like the Social Enterprise Mark and the deal with O2, the concept of social enterprise is starting to be taken out to a bigger audience."

The future

In terms of how the legacy of the programme will continue, Milligan says many initiatives "will continue" although without the coordinated format of a national programme. The Social Enterprise Coalition also plans to stay in touch with the ambassadors and all have committed to open the doors of their social enterprises to the public on Social Enterprise Day 2010 in November during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

But it's not just the programme that has come to an end; so has Pauline Milligan's job. When asked what she plans to do in the future, she reveals initially she is taking a break and spending two weeks in Vietnam "to have a rest and reflect". But whatever happens, social enterprise will likely stay a part of Milligan's life.

"I'm keen to stay within social change and business. I don't know whether that'll be starting my own, going freelance, working for a social enterprise or another business. I'm keeping an open mind but I certainly believe business is the way to do it."

Exclusive video: Barchester boss backs Big Society

Last week I interviewed Mike Parsons, the founder of elderly care homes business Barchester Healthcare, for my day job as editor of BusinessZone.co.uk. He has been hugely successful having grown the business into a £400m turnover operation with assets of £1bn. I asked him about the government's Big Society vision and he is a big fan. The video has not yet been published on BusinessZone.co.uk but I thought I'd give Social Enterprise Focus readers a sneak preview. Parsons also talks about why business owners should get involved with charitable causes, his work with Sir Richard Branson in Africa and his view on social enterprise. Enjoy!

Live blog from the launch of the SE100 Index

The RBS SE100 Index is a new tool that charts the growth and impact of any organisations that deliver social, economic or environmental change including charities, housing associations, co-ops, social firms, community enterprises and ethical businesses. The Index launches in London tonight and I'll be there. As is usual, I'll be providing a live blog below.

Live blog from OxfordJam

Labour election manifesto: Commitments to social enterprise

Included in Labour's general election manifesto, which was launched today, is a small section on social enterprise. These are the party's commitments:

• The Social Investment Bank will make additional capital available to social enterprises with an initial endowment of £75 million funded by dormant accounts alongside existing funding streams.
• Promote the creation of more social enterprise hubs in every community – helping more to get off the ground.
• Extend the right of public-sector workers to request that they deliver frontline services through a social enterprise. Public-sector workers in the NHS currently enjoy this right.
• More local organisations run on cooperative principles with an expansion of Community Interest Companies and third sector mutual organisations that reinvest profits for the public good. 
• British Waterways will be turned into a mutually owned co-operative
• Promote the use of community shares that support investment in football clubs, pubs, renewable energy and shops.
• A National Youth Community Service, with the goal that all young people contribute at least 50 hours to their communities by the age of 19

It's good to see the sector now has a place in election manifestos and the commitment is welcome. However, I would also have liked to have seen something which addresses how CICs are structured with efforts put in place to make them more attractive to investors.

What do you think of the plans?