David Floyd of the ‘Beanbags and Bullsh!t’ blog has just interviewed June O’Sullivan, CEO of the UK’s biggest childcare social enterprise, LEYF. Floyd’s interview raises a number of challenging questions about the kinds of business models that are now being developed in order to deliver social impact in key areas such as childcare. This is a field that is full of strongly-held views and powerful vested interests, but you get a strong sense that LEYF is navigating its way towards a more balanced and streetwise approach to growing social ventures. For example, they seem to be recognising the vital importance of its historical heritage and core values (not just ‘window dressing’), while also taking some fairly radical steps to reconfigure the organisation’s underlying business model.
Another important issue raised by June O’Sullivan is what she perceives as a lack of public awareness of social enterprise, despite the best efforts of organisations such as Social Enterprise UK. If she’s right, we’re entering uncharted, and potentially dangerous waters. Dangerous because, without a well-informed public and a very well-constructed governance structure, there’s a real prospect of seeing vast swathes of the social sector marketplace becoming the preserve of larger and less scrupulous commercial players.
Fergus Lyon and Heather Fernandez have done some work on the growth of LEYF for the Third Sector Research Centre. I’ve also been working with Fergus in a study that examines LEYF as part of our attempt to take a more historical perspective on the growth of social ventures, presented recently at the Skoll SE Colloquium.
