In autumn 2013, the UK-based School for Social Entrepreneurs presented a piece of research on social enterprise training across the UK. The research was carried out by Mark Richardson of Social Impact Consulting UK, a network of researchers and consultants experienced in understanding social problems and delivering social impact in the public, private and third sectors.
The research revealed that the social economy sector invests little time and money in training. However, social entrepreneurs would prefer longer courses: 77% of them would be interested in a course running over several weeks or months. The most wanted topic of all is social impact measurement – almost 50% of the 449 entrepreneurs who took part in the survey would be interested in such a course. In their opinion, the most valuable teachers would be expert practitioners from the sector, followed by policy experts and coaches. The last important conclusion concerned online learning: 26% of respondents had already taken an online course, and 60% rated an “online course in their own time” as their first or second training preference.
Since autumn 2013, the availability of offline and online capacity-building courses for social enterprises has grown significantly. There are now a great number of courses of different types, prices and aims. Some are organised by schools specialising in social entrepreneurship training, others by non-profit organisations, social enterprises or well-known business schools such as Harvard Business School or the Stanford Graduate School of Business. An important supplement to educational programmes is research on social entrepreneurship, social innovation and capacity building – for example, the projects funded by the European Union and listed on the Community Research and Development Information Service website. Valuable data on social entrepreneurship can also be found on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s website.
Schools for social entrepreneurs
The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) was founded in 1997 by Michael Young and offers a number of practical courses. The courses are taught in English for students from the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia. At the moment, SSE offers around 25 courses on various topics. For example, “Understanding your finances”, run by SSE Scotland for those who want to understand their organisation’s finances and reduce its financial risks, costs £400 for social enterprises and third-sector organisations and £500 for the public and private sectors.
The course on measuring social impact, held in March 2015 in London, costs £360 for social enterprises and non-profit organisations and £410 for public-sector bodies. Five key lessons from the course can be read on the SSE blog.
For those who want to learn how to write a social media strategy or how to link social media to their organisation’s goals, a course called “Kickstart Your Social Media Strategy” was available in March – for £130 for social enterprises and non-profits and £155 for the public sector.
For students who speak Spanish, la Fundación Escuela Andaluza de Economía Social offers courses in the social and solidarity economy.
Social economy at universities
Yale University’s School of Management and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business were the pioneers that brought social economy issues into academic life. Stanford launched its Public Management Program in 1971. From its start in 1976, Yale’s School of Management aimed to educate not only business leaders but also leaders for society.
In recent years, many of the most respected universities around the world have launched MBA programmes and graduate courses that are helping to fuel a boom in social entrepreneurship.
These include the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, Columbia Business School, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, New York University’s Stern School of Business, Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and Stanford University, to name just a few.
Since 1993, Harvard Business School has produced over 800 publications, including books, case studies and teaching notes on social enterprise. The Social Enterprise Initiative at HBS works with the non-profit, for-profit and public sectors, sharing resources, tools and knowledge with them. Courses focused on social enterprise are part of the MBA curriculum and the Executive Education programme.
Research forums and conferences sponsored by the Initiative have examined, for example, nonprofit strategy, business leadership in the social sector, consumer-driven healthcare, global poverty and public education. If you would like to know more about academic courses on social economy and business, Poets&Quants is a useful resource.
Teaching yourself social entrepreneurship
For those who want to study on their own, there are online libraries offering teaching materials from established courses all over the world. One example is CasePlace.org, a library of teaching resources for business school faculty, set up in 2001 by the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education (Aspen CBE). To use CasePlace.org, you need to register and create an account. Registration is free.
An interesting example of training is the Economic Evaluation offered by the REconomy project, part of the Transition Network – a global movement of communities that want to become more resilient to problems such as climate change, rising energy prices, economic uncertainty and inequality. The Economic Evaluation process helps a community estimate its potential for change and for building a social economy. As a result, participants can better understand their local economy, get in touch with local leaders and plan local solutions to local problems.
For those who would like a certificate in social entrepreneurship, there is the Social Entrepreneurship Certificate Program for $65, delivered by the Global Health University run by Unite For Sight, a global non-profit organisation that has provided eye care to 1,800,000 people in North America, Africa and Asia. Given the time constraints faced by many people working in social entrepreneurship, it is convenient that there is no deadline for completion: students can work through the course at their own pace.
The online course on social entrepreneurship without certification is available free of charge on the organisation’s website. Some interesting free webinars on capacity building can be found on Unite For Sight‘s YouTube channel. Another organisation offering courses on social entrepreneurship is UnLtd, the leading provider of support for social entrepreneurs in the UK and the largest network of its kind in the world. UnLtd‘s free webinars for social entrepreneurs are also available online. An interesting supplement to the webinars could be the “Diffusion Packs” offered online by Local United.
MOOCs
Many courses on social entrepreneurship and capacity building are offered by Coursera, an online learning platform where most courses are free. For example, you can find “Configuring the World: A Critical Political Economy Approach” from Leiden University, which will help you understand the connection between politics and economics. Lund University uses the same platform to offer “Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia“, on how to combine economic development with a healthy environment. The University of Pennsylvania invites students from all over the world to courses on marketing, accounting, finance, leadership, sustainability and… social entrepreneurship. Stanford University offers “Social and Economic Networks: Models and Analysis“, which teaches how to model social and economic networks and their impact on human behaviour from every possible angle: economics, sociology, mathematics, physics, statistics and computer science. Coursera also offers “Global Sustainable Energy: Past, Present and Future” from the University of Florida, “Learning for Sustainability: Developing a Personal Ethic” from the University of Edinburgh and “Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations” from Vanderbilt University. If you are willing to pay, you can also find courses on Udemy.com. There, for 27 euros, you can take a basic course on social entrepreneurship from the School of Change, and for 62 euros, a course called “How to Become a Social Entrepreneur” from Heroes Economy.
Quick and practical courses from Acumen
Acumen is a non-profit venture fund that supports and invests in companies fighting poverty. In 2012, Acumen launched an educational initiative, +Acumen, which aims to share knowledge with the leaders of the companies and organisations Acumen works with, and with anyone else who can make use of it online. All the courses are available on the website, and the vast majority are free. Each +Acumen course falls under one of the three areas of Acumen’s Leadership Model: moral imagination, operational skills and financial skills.
In January, +Acumen started a new series of courses called “Readings That Matter”. In the first course, participants worked with Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail“. More information about this course is available here.
In March 2015, you could sign up for a course by Dr Erik Simanis called “Financial Sustainability: The Numbers Side of Social Enterprise”, which gives a glimpse of what a social enterprise’s financial strategy could look like. John Byrne listed this course among the best MOOC business courses of February.
Another interesting Acumen course for social entrepreneurs is “Storytelling for Change“. It starts in May and was prepared by Acumen and The Ariel Group. It helps participants develop practical storytelling skills. “Great storytellers are great communicators and effective leaders,” says the course introduction.
Apart from the three courses mentioned above, Acumen offers many more, and the offer changes from week to week.
The list of possible courses on social entrepreneurship is endless, and it would be great if entrepreneurs could find the time to enjoy at least some of them. As Benjamin Franklin said: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
Paulina Wajszczak for socialeconomy.pl