Big Society's Big Mouth Powered by v

I caused a little stir with my last post 'Dear David', an open letter to the PM. Although I as yet haven't had a response from the man at number 10 [even though I posted it on his site too], I'm sure he'll be in touch soon!

Anyway I have been contacted by the Big Society's Big Mouth and asked to write a guest post, to discuss young people in social enterprise and perhaps give some hints about how young people can make the Big Society Happen, so here it is.

I'm quite often asked what does a social entrepreneur look like? The answer is simple, just like you and me, but that's a bit of a cop-out so I thought I'd highlight a few young people who are driven by a social mission to give you some examples of what they are doing.

Young Social Entrepreneurs

Firstly I'm flying off to the USA [don't worry I'm being as carbon neutral as possible and flying virtually] where there is a young person making quite a name for herself, Rebecca Kantar. Rebecca is a founding member of an organisation called Minga and is passionate about stopping the child sex trade. Rebecca has been awarded the Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur award 2010 and is now a sought after speaker at conferences for example TEDxYSE. If you Google those you'll also find information on two other inspirational young social entrepreneurs Mohammed Lamarana Barry, tackling the taboo of Aids, Ben Lyon who's using technology to connect micro financiers with borrowers and Shiv Baskar who founded a youth journalism paper in India.

Closer to Home

Working as I do to support social entrepreneurs I meet the odd entrepreneur from time to time so I thought I'd mention a few that I've worked with here in Birmingham over the last few years. Mark Peters, runs a social enterprise called Start Again. Mark started his enterprise from his own personal experiences trying to support his brother whilst he suffered from a mental health illness. Mark became so frustrated with the health system after supporting his brother he knew he could make life better for others too, and so set up Start Again which uses sport to engage young people.
Justice Williams MBE, Justice is the youngest person I personally know to have achieved an MBE for her work for the local community, if you check out her story [published in the Birmingham Post] you'll see she didn't have an easy start, truly inspiring!

So, as you can see a social entrepreneur looks like You, Me, Rebecca, Mohammed, Ben, Mark or Justice. They have an issue that they're passionate about and work hard to change it for the better.

Some tips for would be social entrepreneurs:

Be prepared to work hard

Be prepared to hear others tell you your idea isn't going to work or you're wasting your time, I bet every one of the people I've mentioned here has a story to tell about when they thought they wouldn't get there!

Get friends, family and others to support your cause

Don't stray from your cause [mission] this should be at the centre of everything you do.

Get advice when you need to from other social entrepreneurs, most will want to help and tell you what they did wrong this can save you time and money.

Getting funds

Remember that social enterprises need to earn [sales] their income as soon as possible, but most will need support to get started so here's a few useful sources:

Unltd provide social entrepreneurs with start-up funding to get the idea going up to £5000, but usually £2500.

The Princes Trust run an enterprise programme for young people and sometimes give grants.

Changemakers leadership support for young people

Community Development Finance Institution [CDFI's]

Local Trust's quite often want to provide 'seed' funds

Search Funding central

And of course if you're unemployed you may now be entitled to the enterprise allowance.

So a final word or two

If you have a passion and want to make a change then do it! Let's make the government [national and local] turn Big Society into something real while we have the chance. Local decisions, local money and local services, it's in your hands!

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