Do One Better with Alberto Lidji in Philanthropy, Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship

Founder of Girls Not Brides and Vow, and serial entrepreneur for social change, Mabel van Oranje, joins Alberto Lidji in the run-up to International Women’s Day to discuss eliminating child marriage.

Mabel sheds light on the issue of child marriage and the two organisations she has founded: Girls Not Brides and ‘Vow’ – the Vow to End Child Marriage. She provides great insight into the causes and consequences of child marriage, underscores how it is very much a global problem and expresses her dream to see child marriage eliminated from the globe by 2030.

Girls Not Brides is active in 100 countries and has around 1,300 member organisations – all of who aim to eliminate child marriage. It’s an umbrella organisation open to every non-governmental and civil society organisation working to tackle and eliminate this problem.

Girls Not Brides was launched in 2011 with just 50 member organisations. Today, they provide many services to their member organisations, including information sharing, convening, working to raise awareness and change policy and legislation, ensuring governments place child marriage high on their agenda.

More recently, Mabel launched ‘Vow’ – the Vow to End Child Marriage – an initiative to make sure that more money goes to local, grass-roots organisations that are focused on child marriage. Vow aims to mobilise the entire wedding industry (think of everyone who is involved in any capacity, such as the companies that produce wedding dresses, the caterers, photographers etc, and the couples themselves and their families, too.  Getting everyone “to come together, as Vow, and to basically say ‘when a couple in the rich West says I DO, they make it possible for girls elsewhere in the world to say I DON’T.” The wedding industry in the US alone is worth $100 billion. Vow generates income in various ways, such as taking a commission on wedding gift registries, selling ‘Vow’ products and encouraging couples and wedding guests to make gifts to Vow.

Mabel sheds light on the current state of affairs pertaining to child marriage, and highlights that globally there are approximately 12 million girls getting married before the age of 18 every year.  When girls get married, they often have to leave school, are exposed to abusive situations; their physical and mental health suffer.

Mabel provides listeners with a glimpse into her childhood and the surroundings that led her to become a serial entrepreneur for social change.

Mabel grew up in a middle class family; her father used to travel to Latin America for work and would see much poverty there. It created a sense of injustice in her. She wondered why is it that she enjoys great healthcare and education while other less fortunate people in other countries do not; she holds the belief that geography should not determine destiny.

Mabel’s dream today is to see child marriage eliminated by 2030, the target year of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Mabel’s key takeaway: while change needs to happen locally we can all make contributions. Push your lawmakers in your country if 18 isn’t the minimum age of marriage without exceptions, and do go to Vow to End Child Marriage and make sure if you’re getting married you Vow your wedding; if your friends are getting married make sure they Vow their weddings. Everyone can make a difference, but nobody can do it alone. If you want to create big change, and that’s what she’s trying to do, you need to create an enormous wave of change. And, never forget that a big wave is composed of millions and millions of drops of water. Each one of us is an individual drop and, together, we can create that wave of change.

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CEO of Dubai Cares, Dr Tariq Al Gurg, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss the global education agenda, the RewirED global summit on education in Dubai 2021 and much more.

Dubai Cares is playing a key role in helping achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 , which aims to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning by 2030, by supporting programs in early childhood development, access to quality primary and secondary education, technical and vocational education and training for youth as well as a particular focus on education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Dubai Cares is a global force driving forward the education agenda.  It was founded in 2007 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Since its inception, Dubai Cares, part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has been working towards providing children and young people in developing countries with access to quality education through the design and funding of programs that aim to be integrated, impactful, sustainable and scalable.

As a result, the UAE-based global philanthropic organisation has successfully launched education programs reaching over 20 million beneficiaries in 59 developing countries.

We hear how Dubai Cares tackles education in a holistic manner, going beyond schools and looking at health, nutrition, gender equality and education in conflict settings.

Dubai Cares is open to exploring collaboration with everyone. They are aware that risk-taking is part of the conversation and that organisations both old and new deserve a chance.

Shortly after Dubai Cares launched, Bill Gates came to Dubai and signed a 4-year partnership with Dubai Cares, focused on school, health and nutrition.

At the time Dubai Cares was new and didn’t have the global reach or recognition that it has today. But, because of Bill Gates’ signing, Dubai Cares’ standing increased and many doors were opened.

Today, Dubai Cares believes that they, in turn, now need to provide their weight to bring other NGOs to the fore and to help nurture nascent organisations into great partners.

The podcast conversation is wide-ranging. From advice to new philanthropists to insight on preventing frontline programmes from vanishing during periods of political transition.

We hear how on 17-19 March 2021, Dubai Cares will convene stakeholders from across the globe in Dubai for the RewirED Conference – the world’s largest summit on education.  The three focus areas: (1) youths and skills, (2) financing in education and (3) innovation in education.

The key takeaway: more investment is required in education. Many stats are listed but arguably the most poignant one is that only 2.5% of global humanitarian funding goes to education. Without education, nothing is possible – no internet, no healthcare, nothing.

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Twitter’s ex head of EMEA, Bruce Daisley, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss succinct messaging on climate crisis; workplace culture; and insights from the ‘Joy of Work’ & ‘Eat Sleep Work Repeat’.

A spontaneous conversation full of energy and insight.   We start by hearing how Bruce has recently left Twitter to explore a future that is quite the opposite of highly prescriptive.

His passion for the environment shines through early on. We hear how he was involved with Greenpeace at the age of 15 and how tackling the climate crisis is a key focus for him as he explores how best to leverage his skills post-Twitter.

We also gain insight into his 8 years at Twitter, growing operations in Europe from zero to £500m. His three focus areas were: (1) the reputation of Twitter; (2) growing the audience; and (3) ensuring growth in advertising revenue.  If you get the first two right, the third naturally follows.

Messaging is key and Bruce’s skills on this front are well honed.  He notes that there is a need for more clarity in the message being projected by those seeking to tackle the climate crisis. It is important to tell the story in a more succinct way.

Bruce is unequivocal that social media has given a voice to the voiceless and that it is a force for good. On the question of what makes content go 'viral', he notes that on twitter it is generally because someone is highlighting something that isn’t about them but, rather, is more about the wider world.

It was during Bruce’s time at Twitter, that he launched his podcast: Eat Sleep Work Repeat, which subsequently yielded a book by the same name in the US – in the UK market the book is called the Joy of Work.

He explores what is it that makes some companies attractive places to work in and others less so.   There’s an old truism when it comes to management: manage people in the way that you’d like to be managed. However, the sad truth is that a lot of people forget that.

On the topic of excessive use of emails: yes, it can be very frustrating.  Likewise, too many meetings, open plan office settings, 200 daily emails and more can lead to overload.

However, there is much value in face-to-face human interaction between team members; working remotely isn't the panacea many would expect. We hear some interesting research and anecdotes on this.

Bruce’s key takeaway: small acts of kindness matter. He strongly believes that if you can make someone’s life happier and better at school, at work, or wherever you might be, then that transforms one person’s life and it can be incredibly powerful.

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CEO of The Fore and The Bulldog Trust, Mary Rose Gunn, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss seed funding for small non-profits and transforming the funding landscape and processes involved.

The Fore is a collective of individuals and businesses coming together to enhance the philanthropy market. The Fore is a seed funder for small organisations in the charity sector in the UK and, if one were to draw parallels with the private sector, one could say they align themselves with the angel investor and venture capital world.  The Fore is part of The Bulldog Trust. 

Mary Rose notes that at The Fore, they wish to empower people who have come up with great ideas to address a pressing social need and to provide them with funding and expertise to help them create real change.

The Fore only has two criteria to identify those organisations that are eligible to apply for funding:

(1) Applicant organisations need to have an annual turnover of under £500,000

(2) And, they need to be registered in the UK as a non-profit

When asked what the merits are of investing in small organisations – as opposed to larger ones where scale and efficiencies may be more pronounced - Mary Rose replies that nobody would argue in the private sector that there is no merit in having and backing small ventures in the market.  

And, the same applies in the social sector: if you really want to have strong innovation, and if you really want to have efficiencies, then you’ve got to let the markets do some of the work. 

A lot of the inefficiencies in the charitable sector have arisen because there isn’t enough competition.  Mary Rose notes there are criticisms one could direct towards a charitable market that has large players who are constant fixtures for decades or longer.

At The Fore, the grants they make are up to £30,000 for a period of up to 3 years. So she notes these are not huge amounts of money.

These grants are structured in line with the needs of the charity in question. Therefore, a grant might be made entirely up front in year 1, or it might be spread over a number of years; or there might be some other structure that is more appropriate for the circumstances in question. Even though these are grants, Mary Rose does draw parallels to small business loans.

Interestingly, deal flow origination at The Fore is actually not a challenge; quite the opposite.

Mary Rose notes there are 165,000 charities in the UK and of those around 90% have got income of under £500,000. Therefore, the universe of eligible applicants is quite large and it is quite easy for The Fore to spread the word and create awareness of their available funding.  They run three funding rounds per year.

They try to ensure applicants don’t have to be unnecessarily burdened by preparing funding applications.  Mary Rose mentions that many people don’t have the experience nor the expertise to write a solid business plan, but that doesn’t mean they’re not incredibly entrepreneurial.  It’s about plugging these organisations at the right point into a bit of money and into a bit of expertise, and to help them with impact measurement.

At The Fore, they work with diverse partners, such as philanthropists and businesses that wish to improve the world around them by having employee engagement programmes or corporates that simply don’t have the bandwidth to work with numerous, small non-profit organisations.   

The Fore can provide a vetted pipeline to such partners.   They don’t charge a fee to such partners, but such partners need to bring some resources to the table. As part of The Bulldog Trust, The Fore is a non-profit.

Mary Rose would like to see an intrinsic change to the philanthropy space in the years to come.  They want to get funders to think differently about how they fund and to think about the impact of their processes and practices on the organisations they’re looking to support.

In great part, success for The Fore is indicated by whether the philanthropy space is moving in a more positive direction. Mary Rose references a recent study by the University of Bath that found that £1.1bn annually in the UK alone is spent on applying for grant funding and, out of these applications, 63% are unsuccessful.  That’s around £700m per year – and she notes this is a completely wasted, inefficiently spent resource.

Mary Rose’s key takeaway: It is important to trust people.  If we want to change society we have to give people the agency to change their own circumstances.

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Director of LSE’s Marshall Institute, Stephan Chambers, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss research on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship; their Masters in Social Business & Entrepreneurship and more.

The Marshall Institute is a research centre, a place for teaching and a driving force for convening diverse stakeholders.

They tackle hard problems such as how to make our world sustainable and how to cultivate altruism.  Stephan provides context for these challenges: we misallocate resources, we don’t understand the real effect of incentives on human behaviour, we don’t price bad things properly, and we don’t reward good things properly.

During the podcast, we have a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation, ranging from Stephan’s career trajectory and personal drivers, to the Marshall Institute’s Executive Masters in Social Business and Entrepreneurship and their key research focus areas: altruistic capital and the hybrid economy.

Many interesting questions are explored, such as how do we encourage the population to be more philanthropically engaged?

When looking at what would constitute success in the next 10 years, Stephan notes: there’s a slight frustration with the hubris associated with our ‘movement’… he hears all the time that we are going to solve climate change, end poverty, and create sustainable food security.

But, we know these problems are continuous and that we don’t end them. Rather, we address them more or less successfully, but we don’t end them.

So, success is modest and bounded: he cares about accelerating the impact of his own students, and he also measures success on the effect these students and the Marshall Institute have on this system within universities. If what is being done at the LSE is replicated elsewhere, and if in 10 years’ time lots of other universities are producing courses similar to what’s being offered at the Marshall Institute, he would consider this to be success.

Stephan’s key takeaway: we used to think of entrepreneurship and philanthropy as things that were discretionary or elective. You could choose to do them if you were that way inclined.  His argument is that the state of the world is such that neither of these things is elective anymore.  Neither of these is discretionary anymore.  Unless we – all of us, all the time – make common cause with the rest of humanity, we’re in big trouble. Unless all of us, all the time think of our roles in the world as different; as necessarily challenging and innovative; unless we are all prepared to create new rules, we’re finished.

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CEO of LEGO Foundation, John Goodwin, joins Alberto Lidji to talk about $100m grants in support of young children in refugee settings; the value of learning through play; and achieving systemic change.

A fascinating episode taking listeners from the LEGO Foundation’s origins in the 1980s to the present day.  We hear how the LEGO Group supports the Foundation and how the Foundation is focused on redefining play and re-imagining learning.

Learning through play is increasingly gaining traction. It is important that the activity in learning through play is meaningful for the child, that it is iterative, that it actively engages the child, and that it is socially interactive and joyful.  

The LEGO Foundation's grants are impressive. Over the past two years, the LEGO Foundation has made two grants of $100 million, each in support of early childhood in refugee settings.

In late 2018, the LEGO Foundation made a $100 million grant to Sesame Workshop to bring the power of learning through play to children affected by the Rohingya and Syrian refugee crises.

And, in late 2019, it made another grant to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to bring learning through play to children impacted by crises in Ethiopia and Uganda. The CEO of the IRC is David Miliband and close collaboration with the relevant governments is important.

We also hear how much of the thinking at the LEGO Foundation was triggered by an earlier $100 million grant made by the MacArthur Foundation and how insight from this helped shape their approach.

Is this $100 million grant-making which happened in late 2018 and late 2019, due to become an annual tradition?  John provides the answer and interesting context.

Throughout the conversation, John also sheds light on the LEGO Foundation’s work in Bangladesh, collaborating with BRAC, and its engagement with implementation partners such as Plan International, War Child, Ubongo, BIT (Behavioural Insights Group) and IPA (Innovation for Poverty Action), to name a few.

John's personal narrative is equally fascinating. He provides insight into his career trajectory, from engineering and accounting, to two decades at P&G and, subsequently, to the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation. An interesting journey that will inspire others who seek purpose in their lives.

There are two key takeaways John would like to share with listeners:

(1) No individual chooses to be displaced; they don’t choose to be a refugee. Yet, much of the narrative, unfortunately, that surrounds refugees and displaced individuals is one of negativity towards the individuals that are displaced. All of us that work in the aid sector need to ensure that we are – alongside the terrible plight that these individuals often find themselves in – also presenting to the wider society that there is hope and there can be positivity out of this, if society is more receptive to their fellow human beings. So, trying to talk about this situation in a positive light and change the narrative slightly to incorporate the opportunities that are possible if we all look more with a lens of embrace.

(2) There’s a wonderful richness that can come if we are able to break down our silos and embrace the opportunities that present themselves to bring our expertise and knowledge in a collective way, such that we can draw on the strengths of the private sector, we can draw on the strengths of the aid sector, we can draw on the strengths of the philanthropic sector, and we can draw on the strengths of academia. None of us believes that any one silo has the best solution, but that by coming together we can optimise and create something new that will have that systemic impact that ultimately we seek.  John encourages everyone to collaborate in a non-silo way and come at it with the open, curious mind that we advocate and espouse our children to have through learning through play.

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Google's first employee, Craig Silverstein, and Mary Obelnicki, join Alberto Lidji to talk about philanthropy, Echidna Giving (their Foundation) and signing The Giving Pledge.

We hear how Echidna Giving looks at educating girls in the developing world. It’s the main vehicle to do Craig and Mary’s philanthropy. They aim to invest their money over the course of their lifetime and make a real difference in this field. They are not looking to set up a foundation in perpetuity. 

Craig and Mary look at foundations that try to live in perpetuity and they see that many issues arise when those foundations’ Founders are no longer around. Other people then try to interpret what the Founders’ wishes were. 

In the case of Echidna Giving, Craig and Mary believe very much in being focused in girls’ education and they’re sticking with this for the next 40 years. They note that they want to be personally responsible for Echidna Giving’s work during their entire lifetimes.   They hope to be around for another 40 years and they’re committed to funding approximately $700 million over that time frame.

Craig and Mary are relatively young and they’re juggling many things, including a young family, work and many other activities. It has been difficult for them to include philanthropy in a professional manner in their lives and they’ve been very strategic about it.  They treat this as a full-time commitment; not a hobby. So, they’ve also made a strong effort to hire a great team of professionals. They have a lean team that allows them to make decisions quickly and they’re willing to take risks.

They got into philanthropy early on and it was not as a consequence of their peers. Actually, many of their peers had not been involved in philanthropy at the time – in part because it’s difficult to get started and to do philanthropy right.

Craig made a lot of money very early in his life and he had much more money than he needed. He notes that: “I don’t believe philosophically in giving it all to my children. I want them to have enough money that they can do anything they want, but not enough money that they can do nothing”.  So, there’s a narrow band of how much money that is and it’s a lot less than the money that Craig and Mary have and so what do you do with the rest of it?  For them, it was obvious that the best use of their money was to try to make the world a better place.

Craig and Mary talk about their Theory of Change – which ultimately ends with World Peace! – and Craig explains his thought process in the podcast. 

He wanted to focus in an area that would make sustainable change. Girls’ education is one of those areas where you don’t need a pre-requisite to make sustainable change.  Over time, he feels if they focus on girls’ education they can truly transform entire communities, and he explains why that is.

When Craig started out in philanthropy he thought it was really just about the money and he thought he could just do it anonymously.  Therefore, at the point when Craig and Mary signed The Giving Pledge there was a conscious choice to say this is us, this is us doing it intentionally because they were trying to be explicit and maybe trying to create some expectations around what other young people – especially those in Silicon Valley – could be doing.  There is so much money in Silicon Valley and so many start-ups with money.  Mary notes that they “were trying to say ‘hey guys step up, here’s what we’re doing, what can you be doing’?”

Craig mentioned that ‘budget’ is a key area for their strategic thinking.  Initially, Craig wanted to remain anonymous and one of the reasons for this was that he didn’t want to be bombarded with ‘asks’. Now, in reality, that hasn’t happened too much – it was something he was worried about unnecessarily.

But what gave him the comfort to be more open and visible about his philanthropy is to think about a budget and a clear framework for evaluating each ask that came through the door.  Both Craig and Mary explain that the key for a budget in philanthropy is that there’s a goal for spending; not a cap. The aim is to deploy that capital into whatever issue you care about.

They embrace a mechanism to handle social asks versus more strategic asks – they have a pool of money for their strategic initiatives (girls education) and a separate pool of money that is for personal giving. They drill into the details of this during the podcast.

They also have a predetermined ‘minimum’ sum in mind to deal with those emails many of us receive whereby someone asks for support for running a marathon etc. There’s a certain amount they say ‘yes’ to no matter what. So whatever ask it is, there’s a minimum for them that gets the green light pretty much automatically. Craig notes that this ‘minimum’ sum is $250 and they have around 100 slots for such asks whereby the first 100 people who ask for support at this level get a positive reply….  Mary jumps in in a good humoured way at this point and notes: “Craig this is a public podcast!”… a bit of laughter ensues. “We need to know you personally!”

On a separate note, they point out how surprised they were at the value of re-granting organisations that are highly professional and help make their philanthropy more efficient.

When they started in philanthropy they started giving to re-granting organisations. So they were focused in the developing world but knew nothing about these local communities in which they really wanted to see change happen. They were outsiders, they weren’t able to evaluate proposals nor evaluate outcomes so they went to re-granting organisations that are based in the US or the UK or somewhere in the developed world, but they are the ones who evaluate grants and outcomes and have people on the ground in local communities in the developing world.

Initially, they went into it thinking that it was a waste of money to involve a middleman. But they found out that it’s actually a big money saver to involve these middlemen because if they had to go and evaluate these things themselves and fly out to these communities it would take a long time to do and be very inefficient. It’s actually much better to be working with an organisation that can afford to have someone living in these local communities; or ideally someone from that community.

So, spending money in these re-granting organisations was money well spent and they had not expected that going in – they had initially thought it was money they would have to spend but not money they would actually appreciate having spent.

Craig goes on to mention that one thing that was very hard for him when he was getting started in philanthropy was hiring good people. How do you find them, how do you find out if they’re the right fit for you and how do you delegate responsibility to them. This is really hard. The hardest part is the first hire – the first person – and they really have to be aligned with the way you’re thinking about the world.

One reason people don’t get into philanthropy earlier, or why they treat philanthropy as a hobby for so long, is because they don’t know how to go about doing that first hire.   Interestingly, the first person they hired didn’t know about girls’ education or the developing world, but that wasn’t important to them, rather the person they hired needed to have the flexibility and willingness to learn about these areas. They don’t need people to hit the ground running; rather they need them to be committed and to stick with it long enough so they can gain the expertise and to have the necessary skills to learn.

Mary notes that successful business people often think they can solve major social problems on their own. However, are most really willing to spend as much time on their philanthropy as they did in building their companies? If not, then you need to bring in a professional CEO. One of the best skills such people can bring from their business career is the ability to identify talent and to delegate.

Mary continues by expressing that part of the challenge is “if you’re not deliberate, if you don’t have your own staff, you’re not going to execute your own strategy. So, if you have your own strategy you need your own staff and you need to professionalise it.”

For her, one of the biggest takeaways from working in the developing world is to really think about the privilege of ‘access’ that wealthy organisations and wealthy communities have. And, as a philanthropist, who has access to you to make the ask easiest. It’s their friends and their families who can text them, ‘please support my organisation’ – well, if they’re their friends and from the community, they’re probably doing well financially. It’s very reinforcing, this privilege of access. And, the communities that need you the most and can benefit the most from your money are many, many social circles away from you. And, so how do you jump that gap?  Well, you need to go looking for them; you need to put in the effort to find those organisations. You can’t expect them to come to you.

Was it a difficult choice to make when you decided to sign The Giving Pledge?

Craig notes that the public element was the hardest part of their decision to sign The Giving Pledge. Actually deciding to give the money away was easy – it was a decision he had already made. He could have kept more money than he’s planning on keeping and still have been able to sign The Giving Pledge.

However, the ‘going public’ was very difficult. Mary notes that it’s always on their mind, how much does anonymity protect them and protect their kids. So, signing The Giving Pledge really needed to have an upside – what was the benefit of being public, and they talked much about this; about inspiring others in similar situations to theirs.

Success in the next 10 years: they know what needs to be done to ensure girls’ education succeeds and what makes girls successful in school. So, when they look at the next 10 years, they want to see a state of affairs where the programmes and techniques that work are actually being embraced and implemented widely.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL), often referred to as ‘life skills’ can make a big difference in academic success. So, most of their investments right now are in SEL and trying to figure out what are the key components of this and when does it matter. 

So, in secondary school it’s really obvious these gaps between girls and boys; so if it’s obvious at this stage then it must have started earlier. So, right now they’re looking at SEL in adolescence, because it’s an important time when the brain changes, and also in early childhood – another time when the brain architecture is being formed.

Craig and Mary’s key takeaway: Mary notes that they actually have three key takeaways!

(1) Start and be humble and learn as you go.

(2) Be deliberate and have a budget – track it and don’t be reactive.

(3) The people with the greatest need don’t have access to you to ask.  Craig notes: “if your goals is museum construction, that’s fine. If your goal is poverty alleviation or something else where the communities you’re serving are very socially removed from your own social network then you must do the work to go against … the existing privilege of access.”  Mary continues: people will acknowledge that the dollar or the pound can go further in the developing world in terms of impact “and so they should reflect to themselves, well if that’s true why aren’t I investing in those places now?”

What was it like being ‘Employee No.1 at Google’? 

Craig replies by asking whether we know of the film ‘The Social Network’. And, then goes on to say that “it was almost entirely not that!”. He realised things were getting big when people came up to him to let him know they’d ‘heard of this thing called Google’… and then you find out that they did not actually hear about it from your mom.’ He started doing Google because he really believed in the power of making information available and he believed Google was the best at it. He’s delighted it turned out to be so successful but the fact is he did it because he really believed in the mission of the company and he loved working there.

Visit Lidji.org for guest bios, episode notes and useful links. Please subscribe and share if you enjoy this podcast -- thank you!

Chief Executive of UnLtd, Mark Norbury, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss social entrepreneurship and ways of backing social ventures and entrepreneurs.

UnLtd is a UK-based organisation that supports social entrepreneurship. They’ve helped out about 20,000 social entrepreneurs since 2002; they have an endowment of £150 million, a turnover of £8 million and a team of 75 staff.

They support social entrepreneurs in a variety of ways, including advice, networking, coaching, practical support and financing.

It’s important for them to find and back individuals who are very rooted in the issue each one of them is trying to address – this is something Mark calls ‘lived experience’. People who have lived through, discrimination, poverty and other issues.

When asked to define what social entrepreneurship means to UnLtd, Mark notes that they’re very relaxed about the actual type of legal structure one may have and rather, for them, it’s about whether your organisation has social impact, a sustainable business model, and that you have a growth mind-set. 

UnLtd really cares about leadership, mission, impact and sustainability, and they back a wide range of organisations in diverse ways.

UnLtd is always happy to hear from philanthropists and they do accept funding from external sources. Every year, UnLtd is trying to raise approximately £3 million from external sources, such as corporations, foundations and high net worth individuals (HNWIs).

Mark provides insight into Harry Specters luxury chocolates, a successful organisation UnLtd has supported that provides gainful employment to autistic individuals and, in the process, adds  value to people’s lives, the market, and the UK economy.

Success in the next 10 years for UnLtd: they’d like to continue the core of supporting social entrepreneurs and would like to further break down the barriers these individuals face, such as access to capital and access to expertise. They’d like to shift the systems in which these barriers exist, though policy, education and developing a supportive infrastructure.

Mark’s key takeaway: bring together leadership, impact, sustainability and purpose, in whatever realm you’re in, and you’ll give it your best.

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Executive Director of B Lab UK (B Corp), Chris Turner, and Co-Founder of Grantbook and UnWrapit, Peter Deitz, join Alberto Lidji to discuss the B Corp movement and social entrepreneurship.

B Lab UK is the non-profit organisation in the UK behind B Corp. The B Corp movement is a global movement of more than 3,000 businesses that are all acting as a force for good around the world. There are 250 B Corps in the UK, and the movement has been around for 10 years.

At the heart of the movement is the ‘Certification’ process, which involves two commitments:

1) to score highly on a B Impact Assessment (80 points or more are required) – this means a candidate company has taken a deep look at governance, workers, environment, community and customers.  Those companies being assessed accumulate points for the positive impact they’re creating.

2 the second commitment is more symbolic and relates to the governance of the business – it differs depending on the jurisdiction, but in the UK it means that a B Corp amends its articles of association and changes the duties of the directors of the business to essentially give equal weight to people, planet and profit. It puts this triple bottom line principle at the very heart of a business.

Certification lasts for three years once it’s awarded. 

Peter is a social entrepreneur who has already gotten one of his ventures, Grantbook, B Corp Certified and, now, he’s in the process of getting UnWrapit certified as well.  He notes that the certification process itself will help an organisation’s development – looking at things such as governance, employee positions and policies, how you involve yourself in the community and so forth.  

There are many benefits of being a B Corp – whether it’s internal such as attracting great people and retaining them, or external, such as attracting investment, sending the right signals to the market, procurement and more.

Peter’s key takeaway: If your company is a meaningful place to work for your employees and you’re creating opportunities for formative experiences, and potentially for ownership in your company, then you’re on the right path. B Corp and the B Corp assessment will help you create that meaningful environment for your employees.

Chris’ key takeaway: At the end of the day businesses are a collection of people. Chris encourages business leaders to think about what motivates people. The inspiring business leaders are those who have a real point of view in terms of what their business is for, the role it plays in society, the way in which the people in that business can all contribute.

Visit Lidji.org for guest bios, episode notes and useful links.  Please subscribe and share if you enjoy the podcast -- thank you!

New Year's Special with Alberto Lidji - Key Takeaways from 2019. Philanthropy, Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship.

Handpicked takeaways for your reference as you embark on improving the world around you in the New Year and beyond.

Thank you for making The Do One Better! Podcast such a success in 2019. Please subscribe and share with others -- your support, feedback and engagement are invaluable and truly very much appreciated.

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