Oakfield Trust Social Enterprise Conference Summary

🙌 . A social enterprise is often focused on achieving sustainable profit as well as having social impact.

🤝 . There is a lot that social and traditional enterprise can learn from and teach to each other.

❓ It’s important to ask who isn’t in the room, whose voice isn’t being listened to and what silent barrier is holding back progress when moderating a panel

📖 Learn how to tell the stories of impact as their depth can’t be measured with a number.

🤔 If you were to adopt “curiosity” as a value, what would a curiosity strategy look like?

🖼 How can you show, graphically and visually, your social (or other) impact?

🔼 Focus on why you’re doing what you’re doing and the problem you’re solving rather than what you’re doing.

👏 There is a lot of social impact potential in your supply chain. Embed it into your procurement process. Check out buysocial.ie for a list of social enterprises.

💜 Respect and meet people where they’re at when it comes to the “social” side of this. Don’t impose what you think the solutions are but bring people with you. Some ideas as right but the delivery is wrong. Take care of the extraordinary people on the frontline.

💶 Investors are often missing in the social enterprise conversation. There needs to be broader language around return on investment. Look to the long term with hybrid models of finance.

🌲 Are we only reacting to problems that have been caused by inequality? What are those root causes and how can they be prevented?

📈Data is going to be released soon about income and employment levels, the number of social enterprises across Ireland as well as those areas that need light and oxygen.

🎯 The EU has a target of 10% of GDP to be driven by social enterprises.

👩‍💼 There is a need for directors who can add value, engage and understand the challenges and opportunities facing the sector so as to develop the space.

⚖ A balance needs to be struck between making that impact as well as measuring and showcasing the impact.

🆕 New instruments are needed for scaling social enterprises from financing to lifting turnover limits to capacity building.

👁️‍🗨️ The social entrepreneur must also think about an exit strategy, how to reward staff and paying bonuses and pensions as they’re rarely discussed at the start or any part of the journey.