"Social Enterprises Need to Grow Up" says Leading Expert Adele Blakebrough at Launch Event of Breakthrough

Breakthrough logo26th July 2006 - Social enterprises need to grow up and become more business-like to increase their impact. This is the message coming from Adele Blakebrough - head of Community Action Network (CAN) - speaking at a debate to mark the launch of Breakthrough: Scaling up social enterprise, a ground-breaking new initiative with Permira, a leading Private equity firm, to help established social enterprises scale up.

Leading lights from the public, private and social sectors attended the launch at Christ Church in Spitalfields on the evening of Tuesday 25th July. Political journalist, David Aaronovitch, who chaired the debate, posed the question: How can the social enterprise sector deliver a greater impact on society and the environment? Government and private sector perspectives were respectively put forward by Ed Miliband MP, the new Minister for the Third Sector, and Sir Mervyn Pedelty, former head of the Co-Op and senior advisor at Permira.

Permira is committing both its time and initially €1m of partner money to the two year initiative. The selected social enterprises that demonstrate the potential to scale up and a willingness to drive through the necessary change will be given both growth capital and strategic support from Permira professionals.

The need for the initiative rests on the fact that, of the estimated 55,000 social enterprises currently operating in the UK, relatively few have achieved significant scale or brand recognition. So far the Breakthrough initiative is supporting three social enterprises (see note to editors).

Commenting on the Breakthrough initiative Adele Blakebrough, CEO of CAN says: "Some of the work being undertaken by social enterprises is extraordinary. But what we are not seeing are these social innovations being delivered across the country. Those who are capable of doing so need support. We hope Breakthrough will play an important role supporting the social enterprise sector to fulfil its massively untapped potential."

According to Damon Buffini, managing partner of Permira and member of the Breakthrough Advisory Committee: "CAN helped us recognise that we had an opportunity to apply our expertise in growing or transforming businesses in the commercial sector to the social sector. Although it still early days for Breakthrough, from our experience, it is quite clear that good business thinking will have a major impact on the social enterprise sector."

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Note to Editors

Social Enterprise
A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business and in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit forshareholders and owners. (Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success, DTI, July 2002).

Size of Sector
At least 55,000 businesses in the UK are classed as social enterprises, accounting for 5% of all businesses with employees, with a turnover of £27billion per year contributing £8.4billion to GDP. (DTI Annual Small Business Survey 2005, to be published in Summer 2006).

In 8 years of supporting social entrepreneurs, CAN believe that only a very small proportion of these 55,000 achieve significant scale or brand recognition. CAN's mission is to assist high quality social enterprises to scale up and deliver a significant benefit to UK society.

Community Action Network (CAN) is the UK's leading organisation for the development, promotion and support of social entrepreneurs. The CAN team and members deliver high quality community projects in almost every field of social change and service delivery, from homelessness to schools and from healthcare to recycling.

CAN aims to stimulate new, entrepreneurial ways to tackle social problems, by connecting people in communities, bringing together those from voluntary and not-for-profit organisations with the public and private sectors. This enables the sharing of ideas and practical experience, and encourages innovation.

Permira is a leading private equity firm focused on supporting management in businesses that are either under performing, or not fulfilling their potential. The firm's philosophy is to take an active interest in the whole business, not just in its balance sheet. This approach requires strong strategic and operational competence, as much as financial expertise. Permira Funds currently invest in nearly 30 businesses with a combined turnover in excess of €35 billion and more than 185,000 employees Breakthrough Investments to Date

1. Green-Works

Green-Works' mission is to change radically the way society deals with waste and provide jobs for hard-to-employ people. Green-Works recycles over 6000 tonnes of office furniture annually to sell on at low cost to charities, community groups and businesses through its website and seven UK warehouses.

http://www.green-works.co.uk/

2. Law for All

Founded in 1994 by mother-daughter team Ulla and Anna Barlow, Law for All is committed to providing high quality advice and representation in the field of social welfare law to individuals and communities with limited means. Law for All operates a highly efficient social enterprise, in which its 30 solicitors handle over 10,000 cases per year from its locations in West London and - areas that would otherwise lack access to quality legal advice. Their mission is to roll out their model to eliminate legal "advice deserts" in the UK.

http://www.lawforall.org.uk/

3. TimeBank

TimeBank is a highly entrepreneurial charity whose mission is to modernise volunteering in the UK. TimeBank have over 230,000 registered volunteers and are rapidly growing through three core activities: managing targeted volunteer recruitment campaigns, harnessing the power of large corporate brands to inspire people to give time, and developing innovative new services that improve the volunteer experience and improve the quality of public services.

http://www.timebank.org.uk/