Social Enterprise in the Forest
There are several roots to what is now described as social enterprise. The best known being the cooperative model which has a long and respected history in the UK where it originated. Another is in the Quaker business movement whose foresight in creating organisations which provided good wages and working conditions may be seen as the beginnings of what today is described as Corporate Social Responsibility.
Lesser know is the more recent concept of business with a primary social objective, the profit for purpose model which yeilds the majority of profit to a community.by modifying the company articles to reflect that objective.
People-Centered Economic Development (P-CED) was the description given to a theoretical model for doing business differently, such that capitalism which tends to accumulate weath in the hands of a small minority, could be inclusive.
It was presented in a 1996 white paper to US President Bill Clinton by the steering group of the Committee To Re-elect The President.
The founding paper proposed a trading business model in which at least 50% of profit is re-invested in the community, with the remainder re-invested in business growth and employee profit share. It was proposed as a replacement for the traditional non-profit paradigm, making the case that money donated in charity was spent once and gone, while with the P-CED model it would circulate and create new wealth in impoverished communities.
Proof of concept came in 1999 with a project which introduced a community bank to the Russian city of Tomsk. The result was 10,000 new businesses with more than 80% owned by women.
P-CED was incorporated in the UK in 2004 and in 2006 relocated to the Forest of Dean
The concept spread rapidly and in 2005 UK government introduced a formal interpretation of the model in the Community Interest Company structure. In 2010 the principle of a trading organisation yeilding at least 50% of profit to a social objective became the qualifying criteria for the Social Enterprise Mark.
P-CED's social mission in the Forest began with a strategy paper for digital empowerment at the time BT were still delaying migration of exchanges to ADSL. They continue in Ukraine, where efforts are directed at vulnerable children abandoned to state care.
In 2006 P-CED delivered a national scale strategy paper to the government of Ukraine. Based on the social purpose business concept it included the first published plan for a social enterprise investment fund, a 'Marshall Plan' strategy directed at "hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos"
Within a year of delivery, having made the social and economic case for affordable broadband, it was deployed nationwide via Nortel wireless technology. A similar strategy was offered in Parkend's bid for BBC Village SOS funding which included a Wimax broadband network plan for Parkend, Whitecroft and Pillowell..
3 years later, having created influence on government childcare policy in the increase of adoption allowances, the long tail of impact has been a 40% increase in the number of domestic adoptions.
12 years before the 2008 credit crisis the P-CED manifesto had warned about the risk of an economic model based on debt and abstract numbers. Inclusive capitalism wasn't given much attention until then. Today, there are many new advocates including Conservative leader David Cameron who offered his perception at Davos 2009.
In 2010 Professor Muhammad Yunus offered a definition of social business as "a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated to meeting social needs; such as ensuring affordable healthcare for all, promoting better nutrition for children, creating employment for the unemployed, moving towards a safer environment, enhancing the process of women empowerment and providing safe drinking water."
This is what P-CED has been doing from the Forest of Dean