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Leading or driven? Transforming the third sector…from the top

July 28, 2009
by Alun Severn
0 Comment
The signs are increasingly clear. Key (and especially national) players are positioning themselves to secure a transformative role in the third sector, focusing on the large structural changes that are needed in order to ‘marketise’ the sector. Third Sector, for example, h
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A good read…

July 28, 2009
by Alun Severn
1 Comment
I’ve just finished reading Andrew Mawson’s 2008 book “The Social Entrepreneur: making communities work” which is based on his experiences in and around Bromley-by-Bow in London. A very interesting read, and he sets down a number of challenges on the interaction
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The bitter wine of apartheid

July 25, 2009
by Alun Severn
0 Comment
Wine, fruit and other products were at the epicentre of  the 1980s boycott and disinvestment campaigns that helped bring down South Africa’s apartheid regime. But the SA wine industry — which had an appalling labour record under apartheid, not just for the near-slave labou
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Health: ‘outsourcing’ or real, new social enterprises?

July 22, 2009
by Alun Severn
0 Comment
Reading Social Enterprise – Making a Difference: a guide to the Right to Request recently, the latest brochure from the Dept of Health Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF), I was struck by the thin line that exists between ‘outsourcing’ of services and genuine, new social enterpri
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Why haven’t we got more flagship social enterprises?

July 21, 2009
by Alun Severn
1 Comment
The Big issue, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, Divine chocolate – and just a handful of others. For many, these are the national social enterprise brands that come to mind when social enterprise is mentioned. And even then, if we’re honest, it is probably quite unlikely that the a
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Lessons from the Adventure Capital Fund

July 20, 2009
by Alun Severn
Demand for loan finance amongst SEs
0 Comment
The Adventure Capital Fund has recently published the fifth and final external evaluation report on its third sector investment activities, Investing in Thriving Communities. The evaluation has been carried out by London Metropolitan University. Even for those not interested primarily
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What’s driving the new marketplace in health & social care?

July 20, 2009
by Alun Severn
0 Comment
The presentations from ISE’s recent — and excellent — Healthy Social Enterprise Conference are now available to download on the ISE website. The conference was technically a project dissemination event but the speakers and presentations went significantly beyond that and anyone lookin
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Soapbox, signpost & commentary!

July 20, 2009
by Alun Severn
Welcome
0 Comment
Welcome to BSSEC’s new blog. It has taken us a while to get round to doing this but finally it’s here — a new soapbox, an additional source of information, and a place for comment and commentary on all things social enterprise. We hope you enjoy it — and that y
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