4. Chapter Four — Stage One: The Mapping Exercise
4.2. Methods
4.2.4. Social enterprise databases
Seven social enterprise databases were identified and searched: (i) Together Works; (ii) the Guardian Social Enterprise Network; (iii) Social Enterprise Greater Manchester (iv) Buy Social; (v) SEUK database; (vi) Social Impact App; and (vii) ClearlySo. For each database the following are provided: (a) some background information; (b) the number of organisations it provides data for; (c) the quality of the data, i.e. how detailed it is; (d) the methods used to compile the database; and (e) the criteria it uses to distinguish social enterprises from other organisations (where available).
4.2.4.1. Together Works
Together Works was the social enterprise membership and support network for GM until it was closed down in mid-2014 (Companies House, 2014). Following recommendations by key informants it was first database searched. The membership directory held data for 12618 social enterprises located in GM. Basic data, comprising contact details (address, telephone, email, website etc.) and annual turnover, were included for all 126 entries; however, for 73 organisations, more detailed information was available. This included the organisations’ stated purpose, e.g. ʻhealthʼ, ʻcommunityʼ, etc.; organisation type, e.g. ʻcommunity enterpriseʼ, ʻcharityʼ, etc.; legal status; annual sales income; number of employees; and more19.
In order to be listed on the Together Works directory, social enterprises had to fill out an application form. As such, the data held by the directory can be considered reliable as it was supplied by the organisation itself. However, it should be pointed out that the data will only reflect the state of a particular social enterprise at the time it was provided. As such, all of the data will not necessarily be accurate as of 2015. Despite this, the data still provide valuable insight into the social enterprise sector in GM.
To be included in the Together Works directory, organisations had to comply with the following criteria: (i) the organisation must be directly involved in the production of goods and provision of services to the market, seeks to be a viable trading concern and where possible makes a surplus from trading; (ii) the organisation must have explicit social aims such as job creation, training or provision of local services; (iii) the organisation must be autonomous with a governance and ownership structure based on participation by stakeholder groups and profits are distributed as profit sharing to stakeholders or used for the benefit of the community (Together Works, 2013). These criteria put the same emphasis on trading, social purpose and profit distribution as those found in dominant definitions of social enterprise, such as the one provided by the DTI (2002) and include the two ‘core characteristics’ of social enterprise (meeting social aims through trading) according to Peattie & Morley (2008). The Together Works definition actually goes further because it requires an element of social ownership, putting emphasis on participatory governance, which, as
18 In 2012, when the directory was first searched, data were available for 118 organisations. A second search in 2014 revealed eight more organisations had been added; thus, before its closure in 2014 the directory held data for 126 social enterprises.
discussed in Chapter Two, is considered, by some, to be a defining feature of social enterprise (e.g. Ridley-Duff et al., 2008).
4.2.4.2. The Guardian Social Enterprise Network
The UK newspaper, the Guardian, hosted a directory of social enterprises located throughout the country. The directory no longer exists. However, when the research was conducted in 2012, it was fully accessible. It held information on 105 social enterprises operating in England and Wales and 31 in GM. To prevent double counting (ECOTEC, 2003), the data were crosschecked with those from the Together Works directory. This provided information for 20 new organisations. Combined, the two databases had information for 146 unique organisations.
For each organisation the directory provided basic contact details (telephone, email, website, Facebook and Twitter page), a short description of the organisation provided by the organisation itself, and information regarding the ‘sector’ it operated in, e.g. ‘community integration and social inclusion’, ‘education’, etc. in addition to the ‘services and products’ it provided, e.g. ‘project management’, ‘mentoring and training’, etc. While the information on ‘sector’ and ‘services and products’ was useful, the Together Works database already had similar information for 73 social enterprises. The Guardian counterpart, however, only had additional data for 26 organisations. As such, the decision was taken to merge the information provided by the Guardian database on ‘sector’ and ‘services and products’ with the data provided by the Together Works database for organisation purpose, as the categories were analogous to each other.
It is not clear exactly how the Guardian Social Enterprise Network compiled the data for its directory. As it was a membership directory, it is most likely that the information was collected from membership applications forms, similar to those used by Together Works. It is, however, not possible to verify the methods and criteria that were used in order to distinguish social enterprises from other organisations as the network is no longer accessible. Despite this, the majority (80%) of the organisations listed identify themselves as ‘social enterprises’, by either (i) listing it as one of their chosen ‘sectors’, (ii) mentioning it in the description of their organisation, or (iii) stating it on their website.
4.2.4.3. Social Enterprise Greater Manchester
Data for the 146 unique organisations identified by using the previous sources were supplemented with information from the Social Enterprise Greater Manchester database. When the research was conducted in 2012, the database was available online at the following Internet address20. It is, however, no longer available. The database held limited information, i.e. email, address, telephone and website, for a total of 34 social enterprises. To avoid double counting, the names of these organisations were checked against those provided by the Together Works and Guardian directories. This resulted in the exclusion of 14 organisations, therefore 20 new, unique organisations were added and data had been collected for a total of 166 organisations. As with the Guardian directory, information regarding compilation of the database was not available.
4.2.4.4. SEUK database
SEUK is the national body for social enterprise. Its purpose is to raise the profile of social enterprise in the UK. Available on its website21, its members directory holds information for hundreds of organisations. The information is limited to contact details (address, telephone, website) and short description of the organisation. The directory had data for 13 social enterprises based in GM. After duplicates were removed this directory contributed 11 new, unique social enterprises to the database, which totalled 177.
To be listed on the directory, organisations must apply using the online application form22, which requires basic information about the organisation (name, contact details, etc.), its social mission, who its target customers are, the trading sector it is active in, etc. All organisations listed on the members directory must comply with SEUK’s (2012) membership criteria:
1. Our business has a clear social or environmental mission that is set out in its governing documents.
2. We are an independent business and we earn more than half of our income through trading (or we are working towards this).
3. We are controlled or owned in the interests of our social mission.
20 http://www.socialenterprisegreatermanchester.co.uk 21 http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk
4. We reinvest or give away at least half our profits or surpluses towards our social purpose.
5. We are transparent about how we operate and the impact that we have.
These criteria are similar to those used by Together Works in that they place emphasis on trading, a social mission, profit distribution and social ownership. They are also more stringent than the criteria used by the latest government estimate of social enterprises in the UK (Cabinet Office, 2013), which only required 25% of income to be generated through trading and that half of any profits made should not be distributed to shareholders – the above criteria however stipulate that half should specifically be reinvested or put towards their mission. It is worth noting, however, that SEUK’s criteria allow organisations to be ‘working towards’ earning over half of their income through trading, which, as Teasdale (2012a) points out, leaves room for interpretation on the part of the enterprise itself.
4.2.4.5. The Social Impact App and ClearlySo
These two databases will be discussed together as they contributed only a small number of organisations to the directory. The Social Impact App is a global map application that finds local and online social enterprises23. It includes only basic information for four social enterprises based in GM, three of which were already present in the Together Works directory. As such, it only contributed one new, unique organisation.
To be listed on the database, organisations apply online24 and provide basic information, such as name, address, type of social enterprise, etc. The definition used to distinguish social enterprises from other organisations is short: “a business whose primary purpose is social good” (Social Impact App, 2013). These vague criteria raise question marks over the validity of the data as they leave a lot of room for interpretation (Dart et al., 2010) and are clearly less prescriptive than the criteria used by Together Works and SEUK, for example. However, the database only contributed one organisation.
ClearlySo helps social entrepreneurs raise capital by connecting them with investors (ClearlySo, 2013). Its website25 hosts a directory over nearly 4,000 social businesses and enterprises from around the world. It has data for 11 social enterprises based in GM. Once duplicates were removed ClearlySo contributed five new, unique social enterprises to the
23 The app can be found at the following address: http://www.socialimpactapp.com 24 The application form is found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CCMM95M 25 Its website is found at the following address: http://www.clearlyso.com
database, meaning that, with the one organisation from the Social Impact App, data had been collected for 193 unique organisations in total.
The ClearlySo directory provides information for contact details, industry, social benefit and company type. To be listed, organisations must apply online and provide (i) a short company description; (ii) details of social impact; and (iii) a list of social benefits. The organisation will then be evaluated against the following definition of a social enterprise:
“A social enterprise is a business that has both social and commercial goals. What makes it different from other enterprises is that it places a firm emphasis on tackling social problems. This positive impact is as important to its business objective as any financial bottom line.” (ClearlySo, 2013, para. 4)
While these criteria are less strict than those of Together Works and SEUK, they do place emphasis on the two core characteristics of social enterprise, (i) the primacy of social aims, and (ii) that the primary activity involves trading (Peattie & Morley, 2008). However, they do not mention profit distribution or participatory governance.
4.2.4.6. Buy Social
All the directories discussed above were searched between 2012 and 2013, i.e. before the qualitative interviews were conducted (detailed in Stage Two). The Buy Social directory, however, was searched during 2014 (it was not available before this date). Its directory, available here26, is the result of discussions between SEUK, Social Enterprise West Midlands and the City of London Corporation about how best to develop the marketplace for social procurement. The directory was established in 2014 and has information on just over 10,000 organisations in the UK and 63 in GM. The majority (46) of these were already present in the databases discussed above. As such, the Buy Social directory contributed 27 new, unique social enterprises to the database.
To be listed on the directory social enterprises must apply using the online application form27. The form requires applicants to provide basic contact details, i.e. address, website and email, in addition to information on ‘trading activities’. Further information can be provided at the applicant’s discretion, including: ‘company description’, ‘track record’, ‘social mission’
26 http://buysocialdirectory.org.uk
and ‘social purpose’. For ‘social mission’, organisations could choose up to nine ‘missions’ from a list of nine options, e.g. ‘employment, training and education’ and ‘citizenship and community’. Using this information, the social enterprises identified by the Buy Social directory were assigned to analogous categories used by the Together Works directory.
The Buy Social directory uses SEUK’s membership criteria (outlined above). These criteria must be complied with and the site manager checks each organisation’s registration before it is approved for listing on the site (Buy Social, 2014).
4.2.4.7. Database summary
Through searching these seven social enterprise directories – a method consistent with the bottom-up, local approach (ECOTEC, 2003; Lyon & Sepuldeva, 2009) – 210 organisations based in GM were identified. The most useful database was the Together Works directory, which not only had data for the greatest number of organisations (126), it was the most detailed, providing information for annual turnover, annual sales income and number of employees. It also used rigorous criteria to distinguish social enterprises from other organisations, putting emphasis on social aims, trading, profit distribution and social ownership. The SEUK and Buy Social directories used similar criteria, but are arguably more stringent as they impose a ‘cut-off’ of at least 50% of income through trading and 50% of profits reinvested. This would suggest the organisations on these databases are genuine social enterprises. However, the data provided by the other sources are, arguably, less reliable given the lack of information on how it was collected. Therefore, steps were taken, detailed in Section 4.2.10, to ensure these databases held genuine social enterprises.
To some extent, all social enterprise mapping exercises suffer from these limitations. One of the greatest difficulties is the way in which social enterprises are distinguished from other organisations (Dart et al., 2010). Specifically, Dart et al. (2010) warn against the use of ‘arbitrary’ criteria. It has been shown that the Together Works, SEUK, Buy Social and, to a lesser extent, ClearlySo, directories use clearly defined, rather than arbitrary, criteria that, in some cases, is more strict than those used by ‘official’ national social enterprise surveys. Furthermore, the directories were not wholly reliant on organisations simply ‘self-defining’ as social enterprises and being able to sign up due to the ‘social desirability’ of being a social enterprise (Teasdale et al., 2013). However, there is still room for interpretation on the part of the enterprise as to whether they comply with the necessary criteria, e.g. regarding what is meant by ‘social mission’, etc. (Buckingham et al., 2010). Ultimately, there is little one can do to completely resolve these problems – there is no ‘perfect’ mapping study (Lyon &
Sepulveda, 2009). ‘Social enterprise’ is a contested concept that cannot be reduced to a single legal or regulatory form (Price, 2009), therefore there will always be room for interpretation. Thus, despite these limitations, the information provided by these databases give valuable insight into the social enterprise sector in GM.