A truly global conversation at a unique moment in history
Hélène Malandain, Chair of Social Enterprise World Forum
9 November 2020
This year, we’ve all learnt a lot about the necessity of being agile and the importance of adapting. Such is life. And change is good.
The Social Enterprise World Forum exists to accelerate our transition to a global impact economy. Our contribution to this new global impact economy is the work we do to support and activate our global social enterprise movement – because we believe social enterprise is an effective tool in our collective toolbox. Our main activity has historically been around the convening of global events, gathering our global community in a different social enterprise hotspot every year, for the last 12 years. So this year, like everyone else, we’ve had to rethink our plans.
It was a significant challenge for our team and our Board, with only a few months to pivot, but not convening our global social enterprise community this year was simply not an option. With the impact of Covid-19 affecting society at every level, and in particular social enterprises and the communities they work with, the convening of our movement felt more critical than ever. So we changed direction and explored our options to make the most of technology and to convene in a whole new way.
On September 21-25, the global social enterprise community gathered online and participated in a programme of sessions that followed the sun, hour after hour, day after day. Speakers, contributors and moderators were live-streamed from their place in the world during their day time, which enabled a great diversity of voices and perspectives across the 94 sessions and 120 hours of social enterprise conversations. Over 5,000 delegates from 102 countries registered in the event, and were given the choice to either participate in live sessions throughout the week, or to access the sessions recordings at a later stage. This was the largest Social Enterprise World Forum ever.
The size of the gathering is obviously not an end in itself. It is however an indicator of how much more accessible and how much more inclusive this year’s Forum was. Going fully digital meant that we could lower all barriers to attending – from cost barriers to travel, logistics and time constraints – and therefore meant that we could reach out more widely, attracting a much more diverse audience to join the conversations about building a new global impact economy.
Despite some preconceptions about the suitability of the digital medium at a time when our need for connectedness is even greater, it seems that we can successfully convene online to advance our work in growing an economy where people and community can thrive. The wealth of knowledge that was shared throughout the week was fabulous and each participant would be their own takeaways. Here are three things that stood out for me.
#1. Transfer of knowledge is taking place at a whole new level
After 12 years of convening in-person global events, my biggest fear was around the quality of engagement. For a movement that is so focused on people, with wellbeing as a key driver, and deeply ingrained in our ways of working, what would be the implications of a lack of human interaction?
A lot has been written this year about digital engagement - about opportunities and challenges, pros and cons. I am no expert, but what I witnessed at the Social Enterprise World Forum sessions was a positive surprise. I was blown away by how ‘real’ and how deep our connections and conversations were, despite the lack of physical presence and proximity. Everyone who spoke or contributed was very genuine and very honest with their stories - more modest and vulnerable than one might expect on an ‘international stage’. One of the many powerful stories was that of Mirabelle Morah of BlankPaperz (Nigeria) who talked about the challenges she faced, starting her enterprising journey at a young age: “I love that I faced set-backs as a young entrepreneur. The set-backs have made me who I am today.”
This depth and vulnerability seem almost counter-intuitive given the digital medium. But in hindsight, maybe the distance makes people feel less exposed and more willing to open up. Or maybe we’ve significantly increased our ability to share and engage online. Another reason may be the sense of urgency – and the sense of opportunity – that the global crisis created. Very practical initiatives, learning and insights were shared through stories of social enterprise and community-led responses to Covid-19 – both in small, participative sessions and on the main stage. Stories were specific. Insights were granular. Learnings were profound. And as a result, transfer of knowledge was taking place at a whole new level.
#2. Systems change thinking is more prominent amongst grassroots initiatives
I also noticed signs of more people thinking about the whole system and the difference social enterprise can make to accelerating systems change.
I love how the conversation about long-term systems change is getting woven through stories of community-led initiatives. A few speakers talked about using innovation to tackle the immediate, Covid-19 related issues in their community, as well as thinking strategically about long term solutions. I think it is one of the silver linings of the crisis. The pandemic - and all the human, social and economic challenges that are emerging – seem to have put into perspective the wicked problems of our times. It has given us another wake-up call around the threat of our bigger, more ingrained social and environmental challenges, and the little time we have to solve or mitigate these issues.
“The crisis has opened up conversations with the wider food ecosystem” said Bec Scott of FEAST (Australia) during our discussion on social enterprise responses in community recovery. “We have been prompted to think big about the responses to our bigger environmental issues – not just this crisis”.
This crisis is telling us to build resilience for the future. And to move from recovery to resilience will require the whole of society to take a systems approach to leadership and collective impact. Cross-sector initiatives have been applauded in countries that best managed the spread of the pandemic – including in Aotearoa New Zealand. Whether it is community-led initiatives combined with central government action, or whether it is the private sector and not-for-profit sector working together, cross-sector responses to the crisis have proven to be impactful in these most disruptive and uncertain times.
“Ma whero ma pango ka oti ai te mahi”
Māori whakatauki (proverb) that can be translated by:
“If everyone does their part, the work will be complete”
I hope that we will see greater readiness to duplicate such models and that they gain traction. Effective values-based and outcomes-focused cross-sector partnerships have been talked about for a while. Now is the time to stop talking. Now is the time to take action.
#3. The self-organisation of our movement is accelerating
Again, the self-organisation of the social enterprise movement is not a new topic. As intermediaries, we’ve been talking about it and supporting the self-organisation of our movement for years. But I think that there is new and evident momentum with the formation of several significant new networks this year in various locations. Is this another silver lining of the global crisis? There’s been fantastic progress made by existing networks – whether national or regional, and whether intermediary or practitioner-led. They are responding to the crisis with greater collaboration and greater influencing power. The crisis also acted as a catalyst for budding networks to launch: the Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland network (SERI) and the Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks Australia (ASENA) were both established to provide a strong voice for their social enterprise movements in times of crisis and opportunities. “Our first networking event happened before lockdown. Very quickly we had to move online.” says Nicholas Verginis of ASENA. “Because there was a vacuum of social enterprises voices at national level - the crisis fuelled us to prioritise working collectively to form a body and create a policy document.”
As our respective economies move into recovery and hopefully onwards into renewal and regeneration, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - and duty - to work together to build bridges to better futures.
This work is made possible by continuing to focus on people. The people who form our movement, the people who do the work on the ground, the people who influence and advocate, and of course the people who are the most vulnerable in times of crisis and uncertainty. As one speaker said - “We’ll make it work, no matter what, because we care for our people and our communities”.
There is still a lot of uncertainty around in-person gatherings and the possibility of these in the near future. Even if large scale gatherings were allowed again, our community is less and less willing to fly around the world to attend events.
The Social Enterprise World Forum already had a new environmental strategy in place, and had already committed to being more inclusive as a movement and to ramping up our influencing work. We started this work in 2018 and the 2020 global pandemic compelled us to accelerate this shift that we had started already – for the best.
To make our dream of a global impact economy a reality, we need greater, faster innovation. We need deeper connections. We need more effective collaboration. We need evidence and inspiring stories from the communities – because they know best what a thriving life in a thriving place looks like to them. We’re all learning how together we can turn a year of global chaos into a global opportunity. Moving forward, Social Enterprise World Forum will draw from this year’s experience to inform the way we deliver our various events in the next few years, with the aims of fostering greater, deeper and more sustained engagement with our global community, and ramping up our influencing work with the support of our partners and supporters.
“Things can be different. Thanks to the hard work of countless activists and academics, networkers and agitators, we can also imagine another way. This pandemic could send us down a path of new values.”
Rutger Bregman
About the Social Enterprise World Forum
The Social Enterprise World Forum is committed to accelerating our transition to a global impact economy.
Our contribution to this new global impact economy is the work we do to support and activate our global social enterprise movement.
The delivery of our impact model relies on 3 key areas of work:
Building capacity and capability
Enhancing the connectivity of our movement
And influencing and championing the potential of social enterprise.