ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Development Goals (SDGs) for example, are useful reminders of the issues currently facing the world, and bring the opportunities for social enterprises to tackle into focus. Students, meanwhile, have generated interest in looking at both local and global‑scale solutions. Why should we support them? Students worldwide are showing an increased interest in courses and options for learning about social enterprise, reflecting what they are seeing in the world and what they want from their careers, whether in employment or at the helm of their own business. Supporting students’ ventures is a great way for universities and business schools to engage more with the community. Many communities see the downsides of the university, with students not always popular with locals due to noise issues and pressure on housing. However, social enterprises that focus on local issues can strengthen collaborations with the local community. These enterprises can often bring a university or business school’s research to bear on local problems, allowing the community to see what good work is being done. Another incentive is now provided by university rankings for environmental and social impact. This year’s sustainability rankings from QS, for example, rated the University of California, Berkeley first out of 700 worldwide, while the 2021 Impact Rankings from Times Higher Education – which focuses on performance against the UN SDGs – placed the University of Manchester first. Businesses are, of course, measured largely by their profitability, but social enterprises need to be aware of measuring both outputs and outcomes – ensuring that despite good intentions they are not damaging or diluting existing provision, moving the problem elsewhere, making the intended recipients dependent on your offering or any other unintended negative consequences. For example, an output for a business providing courses to rehabilitate prisoners would be numbers of people attending the courses, while an outcome would be any reduction in the rate of reoffending. Measuring a social enterprise’s impact on a problem can be surprisingly difficult, especially as the customer is not necessarily the end user, as would be the case, for example, if the company is providing a service on behalf of a local council. You also need to have a financially sustainable model, and must pay your staff and yourself as a typical entrepreneur would do. There is sometimes an assumption that
Ambition | DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 | 41
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