NESTA - Are you sitting (too) comfortably ?

The debacle over whether Nesta was compelled to fund Big Society Network is in some ways reasurring to those who weren't part of the inner circle. It makes it very clear that Nesta is a club that won't have just anyone for a member.

What might have been, given a level playing field, is difficult to overstate

As we learn this week from Liam Black, Nesta's CEO who claims Nesta wasn't coerced, wasn't actually there at the time.

Geof Mulgan is the man who has a PhD in telecoms, trained as a Buddhist monk and offers Lord Young's wisdom when he talks about what comes after capitalism, as we had done at out own expense for an international conference. 

"He believed if you see a problem, you shouldn't tell someone to act, you should act on it yourself, and he lived long enough and saw enough of his ideas first scorned and then succeed that he said you should always take no as a question and not as an answer. And his life was a systematic experiment to find better social answers, not from a theory, but from experiment, and experiment involving the people with the best intelligence on social needs, which were usually the people living with those needs. And he believed we live with others, we share the world with others and therefore our innovation must be done with others too, not doing things at people, for them, and so on."   

 

 

This affair reminded me of our own experience in social enterprise, when US government had been persuaded of the need for a social enterprise initiative in Crimea. They'd brought 40 million dollars to the table. The fly in this particular ointment was a deputy finance minister who wanted a slice of the action.

I met the translator who described to me how he shook during the conversation in which the minister was confronted 

"It's not your money, so why should you care?"

"Yes it is my money. Mine and every tax paying American's and you think you can help yourself from it, you can go fuck yourself!".

As one may see from the USAID website it comes "From the American People"

As they left, the deputy was seen banging his head against the wall in rage and frustration. The project was blocked pending resolution of corruption issues and the deputy was removed from office 18 months later.

If Liam Black knew that Nesta had been coerced by govermnent to fund BSN, it begs the question - why didn't he speak out at the time. Isn't that what a trustee is supposed to do?

As Tolstoy put it "Everyone thinks of changing the world, nobody thinks of changing themselves". If between them they can't take ownership of their own problems what hope is there for changing the way we do business?    

We introduced our business model for social benefit the the UK in 2004, warning that the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority would lead to global uprisings.

We would speak out again about coruption in the 'Death Camps, For Childen' series of articlies which were the precursor for a development proposal.  All this was funded by the self sustaiining social business, which earned revenue from both public and private sector. One of these clients was the British Council, who I'll come back to..

As Martin Luther King Jr, once said "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter and what mattered to us, were children becoming a profit centgre for mafia. You don't need to take my word for it, here's what the Sunday Times published 5 years later:

“We are all guilty of inaction. The violation of human rights in Ukraine is one of the pressing issues of our day. The suppression of freedom of speech, the control of the right of assembly, the oppressive use of the tax police and the blatant banditry of the road police however all pale into insignificance when compared to the wanton starvation of disabled children by those whom the state has empowered to protect them.   “

In 2007, our 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine was made public around the same time Muhammad Yunus published his book on 'Creating a World Without Poverty'  Both called for a social business model which uses profit for the benefit of society.

Black was quick to realise the potential and formed Wavelength soon after, sparing no expense on a trip to Bangladesh which would result in a social business partnership with Grameen. How they align with the Grameen social business model isn't too clear.

They say  "Our unique programmes and insider access to progressive and inspiring organisations offer a radically different model for learning and tangible return on investment. "

We would speak out again about coruption in the Death Campis, For Childen' series of artides which preceded the 'Marshall Plan' proposal     .  

Another Grameen social business parnter was Erste Bank and in 2010 with their social business tour, were soliciting social business project ideas. I sent them the full transcript for the 'Marshall Plan'  for microeconomic development and  social enterprise in Ukraine   

To our surprise and horror, Erste Bank and the British Council joined USAID in a social enterprise development project in Ukraine. USAID had been our first call for funding support. There is no doubt that they hijacked a project meant to help some of Ukraine;s most vulnerable citizens 

For my colleague the final outcome was his death in 2011 having been hung out to dry by the purseholders for the "American People",

It was a little while after that Black reflected on his last 10 years in social enterprise. My comment descibed our experience and the death of our founder. Social Enterprise Magazine removed my comment - or maybe it was Black himself.     

Didn't Social Enterprise Magazine become Pioneers Post? That would explain a thing or two.

It's a different matter of course when it comes to the inner circle as is illustrated with a tritbute to the man who created a legal form for business which operates for the benefit of the community.    

Yet again I come back to the last paragraph of the postion paper for people-centered business and the last sentence which seems so difficult for social enterprise figureheads to take on board:

Clearly, profits can be used very effectively in ways other than traditional investment and profit outcomes. Moreover, this is not charity, it is business--good business. One P-CED firm could be expected to spin off dozens of new firms and businesses, all of which create new jobs and all of which operate under traditional free-enterprise practices. That is, if a spin-off business were to profit a million dollars a year, the owners can bank the money for themselves and their stockholders as is the normal practice. There is nothing wrong with individuals becoming wealthy. It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around--if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be "Me first, mine first"; rather, "Me, too" is more the order of the day.

"Me and mine first"  clearly epitomises Nesta culture