CSR |

As an entrepreneur who has launched, built and sold successful businesses, I’m no stranger to attracting support and investment for ventures that are poised to give an excellent return.

Except I have announced my intention to make a different kind of investment. This time, the investment is not for profit or gain; it’s an investment in the local community, and in the disenfranchised young people who feel the world is a hostile, no-hope place.

My new initiative – to be piloted in Oxfordshire, but which I plan to take nationwide – is NEET Interface. In short, it’s a not-for-profit organisation structured on an Industrial and Provident Societies model that aims to help vulnerable young people in the county get jobs in our community.

There are 750 16-18 year olds in Oxfordshire who are classed as NEETs – not in education, employment or training – the majority of whom believe they won’t get a job because they have no qualifications, and competition is too intense.

That’s where NEET Interface steps in. Working with local companies, we will arrange internships for NEETs. The youngsters will work for a short period of time within the company, undergo training where appropriate, and leave with work experience, an employer’s reference, and higher self-esteem. The company also will have the option to hire the young person as an employee.

NEET Interface will run an independent register, and oversee the assessment and placement of NEETs in these roles – working alongside Oxfordshire Social Services.

The benefits to these young people are boundless. So, too, are the advantages to local companies: potential recruits will be independently matched; there will be no long-term obligation; and the company will demonstrate meaningful and measurable corporate social responsibility activity.

For me, NEET Interface is a personal pioneering venture that addresses a need in our society and community – and fits exactly with the Big Society vision of taking responsibility for our own lives and our own communities.

As an entrepreneur, I’m taking the courage and belief I normally put into commercial ventures and am pouring it back into my community. The returns may be different from what I’m used to, but this time they’ll be personal rather than for profit.

How many organisations do corporate social responsibility (CSR) meaningfully? Hand on heart, are your CSR activities carried out merely to tick a box in your year-end results, or are you actively making a commitment to having a positive and profound impact in your local community?

With the new impetus for CSR in the UK, thanks in part to the Government’s Big Society initiative – of which I’m a huge supporter – now is the time to engage in community initiatives and get involved as though you mean it, rather than regard it as empty rhetoric.

If you’re a business wondering where the hell to start, then I’ll point you in the direction of the Industrial and Provident Societies (IPS) model. Bear with me here.

IPS enterprises are run as a co-operative – think of housing associations or working men’s clubs, for example. To qualify for registration under the Industrial & Provident Societies Acts, a body must be a ‘bona-fide co-operative’ or a ‘society for the benefit of the community’. It has limited liability and a mutual structure: investors become shareholders (one-member, one vote) and this funding goes to help the local community.

What a golden opportunity this represents. OK, so the caveats are that return on capital must be limited, and profits have to be shared equitably among members, but IPS enterprises already have a combined turnover or £27.4bn – and I think it’s a cracking way for social enterprise to put its money where its mouth is. I also believe we will see more IPS set-ups as the Big Society evolves.

My soon-to-be announced new CSR initiative in Oxfordshire will run along IPS lines, and will invite local businesses to help disadvantaged young people in the county.

Getting involved through the IPS model means that not only are you ticking a mighty huge CSR box, but you’re engaging explicitly and purposefully with your community. Surely social enterprise could well be worth exploring.