Jamie Veitch interviewed Morgan Killick on Sheffield Live studio (30th May 2014) to talk about employee ownership, social enterprise, the FairShares model and preparing a business for sale. Morgan was the founder and social entrepreneur who established ESP Projects Ltd, a pioneer of the NewCo Model that informs the development of FairShares. He has now formed https://valiumsedative.com/ LevelUpSolutions to provide business advice, and recently became a social enterprise adviser at Sheffield Hallam University.
Maureen McCulloch, one of the association’s new members, has submitted an abstract to a conference on reconsituting capital to be hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW) Conference on 17th December 2014. Working with co-founder Rory Ridley-Duff, they have proposed a poster and workshop on aspects of reconstituing capital using the FairShares Model. This recognises a wider range of contributions to enterprise success. The submission follows the discovering of a sustainability group within the ICAEW who are considering radical proposals regarding the way capital is accounted for in business and society.
As Maureen states in her submission:
“FairShares is a method of paying a return to the creators of intellectual and social capital within the enterprise and the wider network. It looks initially like a method of financing but it is, through the mechanism of issuing https://valiumsedative.com/side-effects/ shares to workers and users based on participation, a way of gradually transferring some of the control of the organisation (and of all its various capitals) to the providers of intellectual and social capital, treating them as equal to the providers of financial capital. Furthermore, just as the providers of financial capital retain ownership of their contribution, by using Creative Commons licensing FairShares allows the contributors of intellectual capital to retain ownership of their contribution.”
This is a clever articulation of the essence of the FairShares Model and Maureen goes on to argue that while there are various initiative to understand the value of social, intellectual and natural capital, the debate is yet to move onto to finding ways to properly compensate those who provide (access to) it.
Good luck to Maureen – we hope the presentation is accepted.
This year, the FairShares Association is allowing Sheffield Business School to use its intellectual property to run the Co-operative and Social Enterprise Summer School. We’ve https://valiumsedative.com/anti-anxiety-medications/ just received this information about satisfaction levels with previous summer schools and thought it is worth sharing.
In this article, FairShares Association co-founder Rory Ridley-Duff outlines the continuing case for social and economic reform to support a FairShares Model of enterprise. FairShares brand principles change the way that investment activity is understood to ensure that capital is allocated for entrepreneurial, labour and user activities as well as financial contributions. The result is wealth and power that is shared more fairly.
FairShares Association awarded the Co-operative Marque on 5th March 2014
The FairShares Association is amongst the first wave of co-operative enterprises to be awarded the Co-operative Marque. This initiative – launched at the International Co-operative Alliance conference in South Africa at the end of 2013 – is a global brand for co-operative identity, awarded to co-operative enterprises and organisations that support the development of co-operative values and principles (the FairShares Association meets both criteria).
We received an e-mail from Nicola Huckerby, the ICA’s Marketing Lead for Global Co-operative Identity (see http://www.identity.coop) on 5th March 2014 congratulating the association. She is actively encouraging all supporters of co-operative values and principles to use the Co-operative Marque branding and .coop domain.
Today, we began a trial run advertising campaign on Google and Facebook using the results of a FairShares Branding Survey conducted amongst our supporter base. The survey asked supporters to choose between a number of options based on the theme: “If I was a….., then I’d like to be….”
Facebook Ads – Feb 2014
The survey results established a number of clear winners out of the 18 scenerios tested, and we’ve now created Ads for Google and Facebook to see which will produce the most ‘clicks’ to our website.
FairShares Branding Survey – Results
Only statements supported by more than 30% of respondents have been included.
Statement
Clarity
Ranking
Total
If I was an organisation, I’d be a co-operative society
7.67
6.65
14.32
If I was a singer, I’d be Ella Fitzgerald
3.67
8.05
11.72
If I was a politcal system, I’d be co-operativism
5.67
6.05
11.72
If I was a leading man, I’d be George Clooney
3.00
8.55
11.55
If I was a figure from history, I’d be Albert Einstein
3.00
8.30
11.30
If I was a social reformer, I’d be Nye Bevan
6.00
4.95
10.95
If I was an engine, I’d be economical
3.00
7.25
10.25
If I was a holiday destination, I’d be The Scottish Highlands
3.00
6.40
9.40
If I was a social enterprise, I’d be The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers
3.00
6.00
9.00
If I was a revolutionary, I’d be Karl Marx
3.00
5.55
8.55
Clarity score is a measure of the clearness of the choice amongst respondents – the higher the score, the more people agreed.
Ranking score is a measure of the respondents’ preferences for a particular question – the higher the score, the more popular the question.
Sample Google Ads 2014
The adverts will run for a week, and then we’ll compare the benefits of doing so with ‘boosting’ a post on Facebook. The goal is not only to highlight the intellectual property we have been creating, but also the subscriptions, audit tools and advanced diagnostics that can now be purchased from the association. If they generate the results we want, we’ll hold them ready for the day we have the money to use them. These initial advertising trials are being paid for by vouchers that came with our web-hosting package, and some fee income from reviewing a new book on co-operative economics for ZedBooks!
The FairShares Association is piloting survey tools using Toluna technology that support practitioners who want to do FairShares social auditing and advanced diagnostic analysis.
Educators can use them to support learning and teaching about social enterprise.
Researchers can use them to undertake social enterprise research.
Click the ‘Diagnostics‘ menu – have a go and tell us what you think!
Do we really need hierarchies? I see so many voluntary sector organisations, social enterprises and Charities structured in a way that reminds me more of Dickensian time. The formula of members, Trustees/Board employing workers delivering to clients/beneficiaries is still the norm
But are these structures the most effective way of delivering the best governance, creating the most effective decision making or harnessing the contributions of all those involved in or supporting the enterprise? Over twelve years ago when I started the social enterprise training for managers course the main complaints from managers were around the decision making process and the role of their governing bodies.
Also twelve years ago I came across Innotiimi in Finland. Here was a successful business that maintained that governing was best seen as a process not a structure. They harnessed the power of people working in teams and in pairs and all 50 or so workers contributed equally to the key decision making. They were led by an elected CEO (part time) with a limited term of two years and drew strength from the fact that within the organisation they benefited from the experience of several former CEOs.
We have much to learn from our co-operative traditions and current practices. Here in the UK its been interesting looking at how SUMA Wholefoods operate. Around 150 workers and not a single boss in sight yet they won the employer of the year award in 2013. In SUMA Jobs are rotated (everyone has three jobs) and the decision making is shared. Bob Cannell from SUMA expresses his dismay at the growing “CEO Cult” in the social enterprise sector. He will be pleased no doubt with the Otesha project UK that changed from having a CEO to having equal co-directors last year.
I understand that for many people the traditional way of working works for them. But I also suspect that the main function of hierarchies, certainly in the Private sector and maybe also in the public sector is simply to ensure that power and money flows to the top. Social enterprises have the option to move away from hierarchies and to look at the processes of governance and decision making as opportunities to engage and empower their founders, investors, workers, clients, communities and beneficiaries. In Innotiimi, Suma Otesha and no doubt many others we have examples of where flatter more inclusive and innovative structures seems to be working and working well.
Time for more social enterprises to stop trying to mirror the private sector, move away from Board meetings and CEOs and find our own style? Would be interested to learn of other social enterprises who have adopted different approaches to the process of governance.
With 2013 drawing to a close, it is timely to look back at the first year of the FairShares Association. The new organisation was launched by six founders at the Co-operatives Yorkshire and Humber AGM in Leeds, West Yorkshire. We held our first supporters meeting on 18th May at Sheffield Hallam University.
Currently, the association is an unincorporated co-operative of social enterprise consultants, educators, researchers and assorted supporters who share an interest in multi-stakeholder models of social enterprise based on the member-ownership principles of the social economy.
On 16th February, the FairShares Model 1.2a was published with supporting documentation on the FairShares Wiki (http://www.fairshares.wikispot.org). In the course of 2013, a number of important documents were also deposited in the Sheffield University Research Archive:
In 2014, we look forward to V2.0 of the FairShares Model in the Spring which will include changes recommended by the co-operative adviser at the FCA as well as user comments and feedback. Work is also under way to port the FairShares Wiki to the MediaWiki software platform (used by Wikipedia). Lastly, we will take the next steps to realise Steve Wagstaff’s data model for a web-based administrative system for FairShares companies and co-operatives.
Growing Supporter Base
As of today – 30th December 2013 – the association has 46 registered supporters and 225 members of a LinkedIn Group. Nearly all are experienced advisers, consultants, educators, researchers and co-operators supportive of social enterprise. We hope to attract a number to the association’s first AGM to incorporate the network and establish some governing processes.
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Whilst I’m sure that other founders have been spreading the work about FairShares, it is striking for me to note just how many places I’ve been invited to formally give presentations and talks on the FairShares Model (see below). Many presentations included a diagram similar to the one below – something which has helped to communicate the model’s core concepts and political commitments.
List of presentations on (or including) the FairShares Model (July – December 2013)
15th July – ESRC Seminar, Reconstructing Social Enterprise, Manchester Met University
18th July – Co-operative and Social Enterprise Summer School, Sheffield Hallam University
24th July – Research Colloquium on Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford University
4th Sept – Work, Employment and Society Conference, Warwick University
9th – 11th Sept – British Council Lecture Tour, Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia (4 universities)
31st Oct – Chelmsford Ideas Festival, Anglia Ruskin University
13th Nov – Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Cardiff City Hall
9th Dec – Social Economy Conference (organised by SLAP), VERN University, Zagreb
12th Dec – Co-operative Councils Innovation Network, Unison Head Office, London
There’s good evidence that supporters in the network have been talking extensively about FairShares. Cases Ltd continues to work out how to use the first FairShares Company registered in the UK to organise an international network of consultants, associates and social licensees. Secondly, in the north of the UK, Rotherham Ready are now poised to create their first FairShares Company – they will meet me in January to prepare registration documents. In the south, The Magpie Co-op planning a restructure for its worker co-operatives using the model.
While most supporters are UK based, we also have supporters based in Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland, France, Croatia, Sweden, Italy and Germany.
Personally, I have two firm goals for 2014. The first is to lead an EU funding bid from Sheffield Hallam University, to include Social Enterprise Europe (UK and France) and SLAP (in Croatia) in a bid to research the barriers and enablers to FairShares in EU countries. The second is to follow up this year’s paper on the origins of the FairShares model with a new paper about the way association supporters are developing practice.
Have yourself a fabulous New Year celebration and wherever you are watch this space in 2014.
