Tom's thoughts on 'The social enterprise rollercoaster'

Our very own Tom Rippin, founder of On Purpose, explains his journey of launching this leadership programme and the lessons he learned along the way. Read the article on The Guardian's Social Enterprise Network to learn more about his experience and insights.

Half time at On Purpose...

Last week our current Associates left their 1st Placement organisations and kicked off their new projects - (well those that aren't sunning it up as they take a breather in between placements!)

Halfway through our first year and it's clear that the Associates are beginning to look towards the future and what they may be doing - but what of our Placement organisations? How is their On Purpose experience?

We took some time recently to review with the placement organisations their experiences of the first cohort of On Purpose Associates and we're delighted that they're proving a resounding success.  For all of the current Associates who are moving into their second placements we received the following feedback.  They have all exceeded the expectations of the host organisations, they've added value beyond the scope of their objectives and they've had a positive impact on the teams that they're in. Most of them have brought skills into the organisations that they don't otherwise have access to and have challenged organisational thinking in a positive way.

All of this is exactly as we expect to hear - the concept is working well and proving valuable to both the placement organisations and our Associates - we're running a review with how the Associates value their On Purpose experience and will be sharing that with you soon.

But I've saved the best until last - aside from the organisational impact that our Associates have had we are delighted that they are already saving their organisations on average in excess of 3 times their cost each.

The case for talent

Sir Ronald Cohen was recently praising, in the Daily Telegraph, the virtues of the innovative social impact bond and predicting the rise of social finance.

Along with it, he emphasises both the importance of attracting the best people to social enterprise and the commitment that many people feel towards this field: 

"Some of the most talented people are being drawn to it [social finance and social enterprise]. We are appealing to peoples' sense of social obligation and of social mission.

"About a fifth of recent Harvard Business School graduates have been drawn to social enterprise type organisations."

The social enterprise field is, of course, already populated with hugely inspirational and talented people. Like all industries though, it will only continue to be as good as the talent it is able to attract, develop and retain. 


Social enterprises need to offer the career prospects, development opportunities and salaries that compete with other top employers, not only during a recession, but also once the big private and public sector guns start hiring again. 


Managing a social enterprise is a difficult undertaking. It requires not only solid commercial skills but also well-honed social sector know-how. Developing leaders who spend significant amounts of time in social enterprise from an early age, who know and can manage the tensions, quirks and intricacies that are unique to these organisations has to be a priority for the sector. 


Neglecting to develop the next generation of talent risks social enterprise delivering on its promise; bringing in the best and brightest minds will mean that innovations like the social impact bond will be but the first steps towards a brighter, fairer and more inclusive economy.

Inspiring in every direction...

I've just returned from a fantastic evening at the First Women Awards  it's an evening recognising trailblazing women in business and the public services - it was a stunning evening and the buzz-word of the evening was 'talent'.
We at On Purpose are all about talent, we talk about the importance and value of talent and as you know we focus on leadership talent in the Social Enterprise space - so it was a real pleasure to get dressed up and listen to other people talk about talent in different ways! This evening's awards were recognising women so there was much talk of breaking through the glass ceiling and how values and styles can be so different between men and women.  Did you know that in Norway they recently committed to increasing the number of women at Board levels across all organisations to 40% and they've already achieved 30%? A stunning shift - but whilst we in the UK are still lagging behind - if this evening's room full of women are anything to go by we will definitely catch up!

We're often asked why our 2010 Associates are all women. And it's an easy question to answer - whilst the applications were 49/51% split - and there were male counterparts right through to the second interviews - at the end of the day the best of the bunch were all women.

So i've spent the evening hearing of tales of global success - some started out hatched around the table - in the case of Specsavers it was a table tennis table in a spare room in 1984 - now Mary Perkins heads up a global empire of around 1400 stores and over 26,000 staff. Others are where women entered into established industries and are now global leaders where women 'rarely go' - i was particularly touched (maybe it's the engineer in me) by Angela Strank who entered BP in 1982 as the first female geologist and now heads up their Global Technology arm (in her time she's delivered roles such as opening up a market in Angola).

I'll write more of some of the other winners soon - but for now - i look forward to being at the 'First Women Awards' the year ,in the not too distant future, when there is more talk of social business and one of our On Purpose alumni is receiving an Award (to the roars of joy of the others that will be at the table supporting her!).

Social Enterprise - commitment from the Queen.

Last month the Queen placed Social Enterprise at the heart of Parliaments delivery in the next session.  There's been much comment on the contents of the speech - some say that as the content wasn't vast and complex the accountability is therefore stronger. What do you think? 

We at On Purpose are excited to hear that Social Enterprises are being valued at the highest levels of Government and the commitment during this Parliamentary session is to support the growth of social businesses. We're looking forward to see how the government will deliver on this commitment. Needless to say, we believe that if the social enterprise and business arena is to deliver, it needs to continue to attract high calibre talent who will not only create social enterprises, but also help them scale. 

What the Queen said about social enterprise....

"The role of social enterprises, charities and the co-operatives in our public services will be enhanced. The cost of bureaucracy and the number of public bodies will be reduced."


By the way, we also think that social enterprises aspire to more than simply reducing the cost of government bureaucracy, but that will be up to us in the sector to prove.

The full speech can be read here.