SE Forum has since 2006 arranged monthly ‘SE Bars‘ in Stockholm where invited speakers that are active in the field of social entrepreneurship, or fields closely linked to this, talk about their experiences and give example of how to create a better world. The aim of the SE Bars is not only to highlight different success stories from the specific field of social entrepreneurship, but also to actively bring people together. We believe that in order to draw attention to the concept of social entrepreneurhship and enable the collaboration between people, the common debate is extremely important.   

In November 2009 Kjell Hasslert, winner of Veckans Affärer’s “Social Capitalist Award” 2009 and CEO for Telge-koncernen, was the invited guest speaker at SE Bar. In connection with this, we were also visited by Björn Paulsson that is involved with the start up of Open Entrepreneurship - a YouTube-channel website containing videos of  interesting events and people. The aim of the initiative is to inspire young people to become entrepreneurs by offering them inspiring examples of other entrepreneurs. Thanks to Björn and Kjell we are happy to give all of you readers a real example of what a SE Bar could look like. Moreover, we hope to see many of you at the next SE Bar, all voices are welcome to contribute to the discussion. And remember – the last Wednesday of every month!     

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There is a public call for tax relief and policy changes in Sweden to motivate corporations, as well as private donors, to support donations for research and charitable organisations (Regeringskansliet SOU 2009:59). Tax relief on charitable giving is the most important funding driver for the third sector in the UK and in the US.

Personally, I believe it would open up a tremendous opportunity also in Sweden to better integrate business with all of its stakeholders in society. It would be an important aspect of encouraging businesses to develop a broader and more efficient CSR strategy, in particular the SMEs, who currently may not think they can afford to do so.

Several high profile people have written articles in the daily newspapers to urge the government to vote for the proposition in order to stimulate the growth of social entrepreneurship. Among them is the director of the Fondation de Luxembourgh, Tonika Hirdman, in Dagens Industri on January 16^th. 

As much as I appreciate the proposal, in the debate things do get mixed up.  As a social entrepreneur, business is my focus. Not charity. The “social” aspect of my enterprise is that I wish to use my business acumen and my capital not only to generate a profit, but to actively strive to make a positive social change. It is in the mission of the company, in its measurements and affects all aspects of managing costs and income. It would also confuse the purpose of my operations, if what I do is labelled philanthropic, since I wish to reach a level of self-financing and profit where I can grow and develop just like other entrepreneurs.

In my role as consultant I have both started several social enterprises and guided other organisations that wish to contribute financially, but also with their products and services. They always want to make clear upfront that they do not wish to see these projects as philanthropy. They point out that they see it as taking their social responsibility.  Even so, in practice it is common that companies encourage employees and customers to fund raise for example, and that could benefit from the proposal.

For long-term engagement with the third sector though, I see two problems. First, the donor cannot expect anything in return. How do we then have a dialogue about the impact? Second, donations are an easy, but over time not very effective way for a business to engage with the third sector.

We need to call for additional economic incentives that consider the whole picture – today social enterprises often operate more like business than charity.

/Ruth Brännvall, Founder Njord Management Consulting Ltd

OBS! Ny lokal: Den här månaden går SE Bar av stapeln på Södra Teatern vid Mosebacke Torg (t-bana Slussen). Ses i baren kl 17.30! http://www.sodrateatern.com/sv/Bra-att-veta/Infor-besoket1/

Årets första SE Bar är på ingång, och denna gång gästas vi av Alec Carlberg och Kristina Blixt från kooperativet BASTA. Basta är ett fantastiskt exempel på hur man kan gå från ett liv i missbruk till ett som företagare – nu får vi chansen att höra om hur de byggt upp sin verksamhet, och vad de lärt sig under resans gång. Mycket att lära för alla SE’s out there med andra ord!

Basta är ett företag som i blygsam skala startades 1994 i Södertälje – då några personer beslöt sig för att starta en verksamhet som vänder sig till människor som vill sluta missbruka narkotika. Detta företag har idag vuxit till en hel koncern som ägs av dem som arbetar i den. Basta Gruppen består av omkring 150 personer som bor och arbetar på någon av företagets olika delar i Nykvarn, Borås eller Södertälje.  Alla boende har tidigare varit utslagna missbrukare, precis som de flesta på företagets ledningsfunktioner.

Basta driver numera också en yrkes- och entreprenörsutbildning. De flesta eleverna är ”drop outs” från skolor, irakiska flyktingar och människor som vill lämna sitt missbruk. Under 2009 gick tvåhundra elever den ettåriga utbildningen.

Basta är ekonomiskt bärkraftigt och tar inte emot några offentliga bidrag eller privata donationer. Varje år går företaget med vinst, vilken återinvesteras i verksamheterna.

Så kom på nästa SE Bar för att inspireras, diskutera och kontemplera tillsammans med oss! Och, nytt för i år: Vi behöver inte gå hem kl 19 prick om vi inte vill! Jippi!

När? onsdag 27 januari kl 17.30-19.00
Var? Södra Teatern, i baren, Mosebacke torg (t-bana Slussen)

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These words were spoken by one of the greatest leaders of our time. I fully agree, if you deep inside feel that something needs to be changed to the better, you must embody that change yourself in order to make a real difference in people’s daily lives.

It all started when I got back home to Sweden from a period living and studying Business and Mandarin in China. I had travelled around the South-East-region of Asia and saw the hardships that poverty created.  After my homecoming I ignited my passion, Africa’s Potential, during the Winter of 2007, when I received a Scholarship from SIDA, where my mission was to identify the characteristical features of potential entrepreneurs in the Ugandan village of Bubulo, and in corporation with Chalmers in Gothenburg install solar-panels in order to electrify the village and create job opportunities together with local entrepreneurs that weren’t just passive bystanders but active entrepreneurs. More than 150 entrepreneurial jobs were created and more than 3 000 people receive today water on a daily basis from a water-station which is driven by these solar-panels.

After my stay in Uganda, a relentless passion for going back to Sub-Sahara to “boost” more African entrepreneurs was initiated, due to the fact that I saw that the aid that reached these areas only killed entrepreneurship and was breeding inactivity in the Sub-Saharan societies.

During the year of 2010 Africa’s Potential will be involved in many “job-creating” projects in Sub-Sahara and especially East-Africa. I’m going to act as an Adviser for Stockholm School of Economics and their Business Labs international expansion to East-Africa. I’ll also be involved in a project regarding organizing the African Diaspora in Sweden when it comes to “brain-gain” to their home countries, as well as “match make” some of the Rwandan entrepreneurs I got to know in November with Swedish equivalents.

I’m also promoting the success stories of the African continent, which the western-oriented media channels very seldom publish or never promotes. There are plenty of success stories, but very few that reach the masses. My mission is also to make the public aware about the current aid-issue – that trade and not aid initiatives will empower and build the Sub-Sahara region.

This is my life-conviction, not a two or three year project, to “boost” local African entrepreneurs in order to increase competence, “brain gain” and trade to the Sub-Sahara, in the fight against poverty and corruption.

Please, don’t forget! The truth is that YOU also have the same ability to create “greater-good” to the societies’ most pressuring problems. All you have to do is to take that first initial step! 

Morakozee chaniii, (Thank you very much in Kinyarwanda)

/Emre Gürler, Africa’s Potential.

P.S. You can follow Africa’s Potential’s mission on Twitter, Facebook as well as Linked-In.

Alternative business models for good business are one of the main areas of focus for SE Forum. Read the latest debate article by SE Forum founder and board member Harry McNeil in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

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My name is Sebastian Stjern and this is my story.

One year ago I worked as a technical project manager at Volvo. I was in the comfort zone and even though I had a comfortable life I had a dream to do something different. The automotive crisis hit me with a hard blow, but it turned out to be a serendipity. I got the chance to do something completely different.

Together with my wife Lina, a former concert pianist, I decided to start a company called The Fair Tailor. We sell Fair Trade tailor made shirts over the internet. You can design your shirt almost any way you want. Change collar, cut and cuff – Have it your way!

What makes a concert pianist and a project manager to start that kind of business? Well, we went to China on a holiday last year and we discovered the amazing feeling of tailor made shirts. We started thinking about how we could start that kind of business, but we didn’t just want to start a normal clothing brand. We wanted to something Fair.

We got in contact with a Swedish entrepreneur living in Nepal. He put us in contact with the organisation Child Watabaran Center Nepal (CWCN). CWCN is a NGO, they have a childrens home and a school for street children in Kathmandu. They were interested in becoming more self sufficient. I got on a plane to Nepal, met with their president and convinced them that they should work with us. That was in April.

We have just started production in Kathmandu, our website is released and a world of possibilities lies before us.

If you are interested in starting some sort of business, any business, the important thing to remember is to not be afraid to contact people. If there is someone you think can help you, call them up or send them an e-mail. It might be Bono, The Prime minister, someone at the customs department or someone you went in first grade with. You will not get response from everybody, of course, but if you don’t contact anybody you will not get any help at all. 

I would also like to encourage you to ask “How?”. How has this been done? How can we do it better? How can we do it even better? How can we do it even better than that and for half the cost?

One example is a Facebook group we’ve started. For every member we donate 1kr (€0,1) to CWCN. Instead of posting an ad in a magazine we benefit from this AND CWCN benefits from it. CWCN gets money when we get a fan AND they get money when we sell a shirt. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Our website is available in Swedish, please check it out at http://www.TheFairTailor.com

And remember: Dress responsibly.

/Sebastian Stjern, The Fair Tailor

During the climate change conference weeks in Copenhagen, some 190 talks and panel discussions will be held in the people’s climate summit, Klimaforum09, and here things will sometimes be said that don’t necessarily fit the politically correct agenda of COP15. I find myself in the audience of the open discussion session “Tackling Capitalism and the climate crisis” where the tone is harsh and the words are blunt when speakers lay out the facts and ideas of how root causes of climate change are inherent in the social relations of capitalism. It’s hard to argue against that capitalist accumulation is the main cause of man effected climate change. “In the last hundred years, the only times the CO2 level has been dropping is during serious economy crises and if we don’t understand the old capitalism and find a new good driver for economic growth we won’t be able so solve the climate crises”, the speaker argues. I’m thinking of the enormous dilemma the world’s political leaders are facing. Not only during these extremely important weeks in Copenhagen but every single day. Because how to accept the fact that we have been and still are building modern society on a formula that is not at all sustainable. The western world is built on the pillars of economic growth as if growth could be infinite. That we live on a finite planet have not been a concern up until now. And what are our leaders to do when an alternative driver is so hard to accept, and invent?

When Tim Jackson presents his ideas on “prosperity without growth” in the session “From globalization to localization of life and economy”, I’m once more filled with hope. The sustainability adviser to the UK government shows us how the old system based on income, credit and spending can’t continue. And he as an idea of how to do it. Another world with a new economic structure is possible, and why wouldn’t it? Part two of the talk is today, Thursday at 1 pm. Looking forward to it.

When not in the seminar rooms the people of Klimaforum is interacting around the many stands and exhibitions in DGI-Byen. In the halls things are buzzing. We are discussing new innovations, religion, politics, looking at acute climate effects and drinking coffee all at once. People networks are intertwining, business cards and folders passed around. The 2020 Climate Solutions Meshwork provides great tools of interaction and immediate collaboration. YourClimate.TV are broadcasting live from a small studio hosting a wide diversity of people from all over the world. Hope and frustration are ever-present and I’m glad to have the opportunity to take part of it all.

If you are in the vicinities of Copenhagen, come by and join the summit!

By Johan Rutherhagen, SE Forum

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When I first heard about the social network www.Ideasforchange.tv was via JMK (the department for Journalism Media and Communication), where I had studied and from where I graduated last year. I was immediately interested to find out more about the project and thought what if I could make a difference and contribute with my ideas.

“Ideas for change”, was really like lovely music to my ears: “the right idea meets the right problem”. I could imagine myself be fully engaged in this project, to be able to contribute with my ideas.  It was not a question about how to contribute; the whole project was so clear and brilliant in my eyes that I did not hesitate before I contacted the project manager Daniel Daboczy (who later became my new boss at the web-agency Dabber TV, but that is a whole different story that I’d love to share next time).

I thought: this is my big chance to increase the awareness about global warming. This is my big chance to increase the awareness about children’s rights and the perspective of the child, a term used by researchers in cultural studies. More importantly, this was my chance to engage people and make them contribute with their ideas. Sometimes you only need the right voice to actually understand that you do not need to be a part of a NGO, a governmental institution etcetera to make a change. After a few seconds on www.ideasforchange.tv you will understand that it is like the whole planet has collected the very best ideas on a web site and you realize that it can only grow bigger and wiser. So many voices. So many faces. So many tears. So much pain. All floating next to each other, like an universe of its own called: ideas for change. 

Most recently I realized that social entrepreneurship is a matter of trying, a matter of acting rather than just reacting.  It is awareness about the fact that we all actually can make a difference and have a responsibility to contribute with our ideas to turn up the volume against injustice and rise together to fight and literary create a better world.

Some say that you cannot change the world in one day. I most certainly agree. However, who said that you cannot change your attitude in one day? 

On friday the 4^th of December the artist Shakira was one of the eminent guests at the popular show Skavlan and said “we all need to be political but we do not have to be politicians”. Well put Shakira! I share her point of view and must say that a political act is not monopolized by those holding the greatest power or those voices that are too noisy today. WE must never forget that we all have the power and possibility to make our voices heard, internet is the best listener in these times. The outcome of the presidential election in Iran and the anger and disappointment it caused is one of many examples. The people of Iran screamed and we all heard their voices. Imagine if they had thought that their voices could never be heard? We all have a responsibility to share our ideas and knowledge, so I truly hope to see more contributors on Ideas For Change and more arguments to reach a better world.

/Viola Zabeti, Ideas For Change

In the nearest we will start to present the texts from several invited bloggers on our SE Forum blog. The principal idea is to every week let conversant, inspiring and innovative people contribute with their views and personal stories on social entrepreneurhsip but also related topics such as social engagement, activism and responsible entrepreneurship. Although the topics might vary depending on who is the author of the blog entry, the important thing for us is to give wise voices more space on the web at the same time as we offer our readers and members different perspectives of social entrepreneurship.

First out will be Viola Zabeti with an inspiring text about her experiences from Ideas For Change and on how everyone can contribute to a better world just through a change of attitude.

If you like Viola are striving for a better society, if you are a social entrepreneur or an activist in your branch or every day life – don’t hesitate to contact us for this new blogging project. We believe that Sweden needs strong voices within the area of social entrepreneurship and as a result we welcome new inspiring and devoted people that are willing to contribute with their perspective of the field.

If this sounds interesting contact us at create[at]se-forum.se and don’t forget to check out Viola Zabeti’s blog entry during the coming week!

In December 2007 I partcipated at a Global Journey hosted by the organisation Pioneers of Change. The theme for the Journey was to understand sustainable communities and learn from them. Among other things we had wild discussions about the COP15 conference and how to create attention and awareness on climate change and to take action.

One of the people I met in the Brasilian atlantic reinforest was Julie Abitz. She is one of the founders and hosts of Survival Academy, an initiative to share knowledge and take action on climate change during COP15. This is how they define their work:

“We need to share responsibility as citizens, employees, consumers, social entrepreneurs, politicians, activists, leaders, and members of communities and organisations to meet the challenges of the world at this time.”

Hosted events range from change labs, deep democracy, open space seminars, to learning for future business moves and how organisations are creating financial value by adressing climate change.

So, don’t waste your time, take action and if you are in Copenhagen, don’t hesitate to participate in the events Survival Academy are hosting. Read full programme