The Weekly Round-Up: Social Ventures

Posted by The Live UnLtd Team In Employment, Work.

This week we were talking about social ventures and giving you some examples, as well as telling you about one of our Award Winners, Megan. We’re always sharing things at Live UnLtd, so make sure you’re keeping up to date with us on Facebook and Twitter.

What is a social venture?

You might sometimes hear us talking about social ventures, and there are similar words that people sometimes use (like social enterprise or social projects), but what exactly are they?

Between charity and business?

Some people would say that’s much too simple. But it’s a good place to start thinking about it.

Most of us would probably define a charity as a not-for-profit organisation that raises funds and/or carries out good work in aid of a particular good cause.

A business, on the other hand, is a money-making enterprise that aims to sell a product or service of some kind.

And then there are social ventures. These sit in the gap between a charity and a business. Or, rather, they are a little bit of a mix of both. It looks like a business, yes, but it was founded on an aim to do good things.

So what do they look like?

Social ventures are founded on using smart ideas to change their world, and that’s why we often back people who want to run them.

Some of these don’t sell a product but instead provide a service, such as HYC, which gets young people involved in learning how to run a business while offering a car wash service to the public.

Other services we’ve backed include free-running sessions, as provided by F.R.E.E. in Weston-Super-Mare, and a delivery service, Pedal Power Transport, which offers environmentally-friendly ways to deliver things (and people!) around Bristol.

Here’s Sam from Pedal Power explaining more on BBC Radio 1Xtra.

Laya Loves Inc is a cosmetics brand run by Live UnLtd Award Winner Funmilaya Aiyenuro who also holds confidence-building and cosmetic-making workshops, which had previously helped her to combat low self-esteem, to help others who are struggling with similar issues and to encourage them to set up social ventures like hers for themselves.

Laya Loves

Making One Difference

We can’t go claiming all the glory, though! Social ventures are a growing sector of the economy. Here are some more inspiring examples of successful ventures.

One Difference is one that involves the sale of products. It looks like a business – it sells household products like water and eggs – but it donates its profits to life-improving projects in developing countries.

And what you buy affects where the money goes. So if, for example, you buy their mineral water, you help projects to provide clean water in developing countries – including children’s roundabouts that are hooked up to pump water up from underground as the children play! And if you buy One Difference loo paper, you’ll be helping to fund sanitation projects. They’re offering people an opportunity to make a choice about where their money goes when they go shopping.

Social ventures come in lots of different forms, but what connects them all is they’re founded on doing good.

See the rest of our post with examples here.

Megan’s Baking Heaven

Photo credit: Clever CupCakes (CC License) http://www.flickr.com/photos/clevercupcakes/

When it comes to spreading happiness, most of us know that there are few things as effective as cake. Usually, however, it is eating cake rather than making it that is the best part. But for Megan Ellis, her love of baking has become an inspirational tale of how determination and a hobby can become a life-changing business.

It all started when Megan, who is 15, was asked to make cupcakes for an art exhibition open evening. The response to Megan’s (and her two friends Rachel, 18, and Courtney, 16) baking was so great that they began baking for more events.

Within a few short months Megan’s Baking Heaven became a fully fledged social venture, and Megan received two Live UnLtd Awards to help cover the costs of food hygiene training, insurance, and marketing.

“Megan just drove it forward in an amazing way,” says her proud mum, Rachael. “The business serves as a platform for the girls to form relationships with people they’d not normally come into contact with from the community.”

Read the rest of Megan’s story here.

Feeling inspired?

We back projects by people who want to make a change in their world. If you have a way to make a change and you need backing and support to help me it happen, get started!