Michelle Sharp leads Kilmarnock Ventures in Christchurch, New Zealand, which provides employment, training and qualifications to people with intellectual disabilities. Inspired by the people she works with every day, she maintains she has “the best job in the world” and that New Zealand can lead by example, to create a world that values diversity. This video was filmed at New Frontiers / Te Tūhura Nuku – April 2018 in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. https://www.newfrontiers.nz
‘What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments but woven into the lives of others.’ Pericles – elected Strategos of Athens, 494-429 BCE
These words were said by Pericles during his leadership of Athens, when his city was left in ruins after the devastating Peloponnesian War. His guidance came at a time when Athens needed it the most: the Athenians lost their beloved and iconic Parthenon and Pericles was faced with the hard decision to abandon or rebuild. Pericles saw this as an opportunity to reinvent Athens.
Through his leadership, Pericles transformed Athens – investing in art, culture and festivals. Most importantly, Pericles instilled the concept of active citizenship – he encouraged Athenians to take part in the decisions of the city. In fact, he went so far as to say that citizens should ‘fall in love with her’; so intimate he thought their relationship ought to be with their city. In today’s society, this era of Athens is commonly known as the ‘Golden Age’.
Christchurch has faced a similar history, with parts of the city destroyed in the earthquakes and major damage to the iconic Christchurch Cathedral. However, many saw this devastation as an opportunity to re-establish Christchurch. The movements that took place during the earthquakes’ aftermath also echoed Pericles’ concept of active citizenship.
The Student Volunteer Army, E.P.I.C., GAP Filler, and The Ministry of Awesome show how keen we were (and still are) to invest, engage and be involved as active citizens of Christchurch. This shift put the spotlight on Christchurch, both nationally and internationally giving us special recognition as a new city open to change and creativity.
There is also a feeling of commercial commitment, as more and more innovative and refreshing businesses emerge. Nick Inkster – owner of O.G.B.Bar, Troy Bilbrough – founder of Bacon Brothers, and Ami Muir – owner of Pepa Stationery, show that the younger generation are investing in this city, when in former years we would typically be losing young talent overseas. This in itself is an example of active citizenship: people choosing to stay and devote their ideas and energy to the city.
Some businesses are going a step further and want to assist Christchurch beyond profit. Social enterprises such as Kilmarnock Enterprises, Ethique, Exchange Christchurch, and Little Yellow Bird are contributing to important employment, cultural, community and environmental issues – taking the responsibility of active citizenship to the next level. So much so, that Christchurch is receiving international attention in this space. As a result, we have been given some incredible opportunities – such as hosting SingularityU in 2016, and the Social Enterprise World Forum in 2017.
Christchurch continues to maximise further opportunities to build a creative, dynamic city and we’re putting our hand up where it matters. For example, we’ve signed up to the Smart Cities programme, which is exploring new technology and approaches to help improve the safety, wellbeing and economic security of residents. We’re involved with Techweek – a festival amplifying New Zealand innovation. The Council’s Innovation and Sustainability Fund encourages ideas and projects that align with active citizenship in the community, schools, and business, and to help house new opportunities, we will have a state-of-the-art Convention Centre.
There’s no denying that the earthquakes shook us physically and mentally. They changed our city and we lost 90% of the CBD’s infrastructure in the process, but from this loss, we realised what was important (and what Pericles knew over 2,500 years ago): it’s not buildings or ‘stone monuments’ that matter, but the ideas and values we weave into the lives of others. The increase in social enterprise, B-Corps and Corporate Consciousness in Christchurch shows that modern businesses understand this, and have made such ideas and values a central element of their own ethos and business models.
The social enterprise sector is only going to grow. This is already evident, with Internal Affairs investing $5.5 million into developing social enterprise, in collaboration with the Akina Foundation. Based on figures from Scotland, the New Zealand social enterprise sector could grow to 4,000 social enterprises by 2025, generating $2 billion for the economy1. With Christchurch already dominating in this area, we can only see this as a positive opportunity and a chance to create our own ‘Golden Age’.
Kilmarnock Enterprises is already diverting tonnes of soft plastic waste from landfills.
Source: 1 NEWS
First published on Stuff.co.nz written by Jo Taylor-De Vocht
OPINION: Each year I tell myself “this is the year I will keep my Christmas consumption minimal”.
I diligently put together a tidy little spreadsheet detailing the limits of my excess, and then equally diligently, put it out of my mind as I gradually slide into overdraft.
Paranoid musings like “I can’t just get my mum a book can I? She looked after our child all year! or “Do you give preschool teachers presents? Only if you don’t want your child to be neglected next year!” eventually snowball into a Christmas list that makes Santa look lazy.
Crusader Nepo Laulala works with Daniel Forman bagging recycled wood for pellet fires while helping out at Kilmarnock Enterprises. They also produce wooden toys that make good Christmas gifts, while providing employment for disabled people.
Despite all of this, I know that this kind of consumption is terrible. It is killing our planet and making corporations who don’t care about us richer.
So, with all of this in mind, how do partially neurotic people-pleasers like myself make sure their inevitable Christmas spending spree has as little negative impact as possible?
Guilt-free goodies at a Trade Aid shop.
Well, intentionally choosing your presents from social enterprises is a good place to start.
Here are five great socially driven present options that might assuage your consumer guilt this Christmas:
27seconds wine — Selling wine able to be ordered by the case or the bottle, this awesome little online vino company sends all of its profits to combat human trafficking through NGOs such as Hagar. Every 27 seconds somebody is trafficked into slavery, your purchase can help make this stop.
Pathway reusable coffee cups — The name might not be snappy but these styley reusable coffee cups minimize environmental waste and generate funds for Pathway Charitable Group, an NGO that helps people make a fresh start with prison reintegration, accommodation and employment.
Kilmarnock Enterprises — This amazing social enterprise sells beautiful wooden toys, children’s furniture and more. As well as creating lovely products, Kilmarnock provides enriching paid work for adults with a range of abilities and equips people with the skills they need to transition into open employment.
Trade Aid — With so many trendy homewares, toys, books and furniture options Trade Aid can really be a one stop shop for everyone in the family. When you shop here you know that your purchase makes producers’ lives better and offers new economic opportunities to people who need them.
Smiles Gifts with World Vision — If someone has everything, buy something for someone who doesn’t! Choose a chicken, a goat or a pig, give someone the chance to start a new business or fund new access health care. All will have a positive impact on this world we all share.
So don’t be guilty this Christmas, be intentional. Check out what some of these great businesses have to offer and buy presents that will benefit you and the world around you. Your purchasing choices can make a difference.
Jo Taylor-de Vocht works for Pathway, a charity that helps prisoners reintegrate into society.
– Stuff
When he was at school, Bradley Holt was bullied by his peers because of his intellectual disability. His teacher told him he wasn’t worth teaching; he would never get a job or be able to support himself.
Now, he has a full-time job working at Kilmarnock Enterprises here in Christchurch and has 56 NCEA Level 1 credits under his belt.
“Look where I am today.”
Kilmarnock training academy graduates David Graham, Allan Burns, Despina Kouloubrakis, Rachel Meads and Bradley Holt at the Kilmarnock factory in Wigram, Christchurch.
Holt was one of five graduates of the Kilmarnock Training Academy, run by the Christchurch-based social enterprise company which employs and supports people with intellectual disabilities.
The training academy, a partnership with Hagley College for one-on-one learning, was a 12-week course for five Kilmarnock employees learning literacy, numeracy and other skills through NCEA Level 1 unit standards to improve employment opportunities for those with barriers to education.
The graduates, ranging from 30 to 50 years of age, recalled their time at primary and secondary school as a struggle due to their learning disabilities.
“We were like the odd ones out and were kind of left behind,” Holt said, who gained his first NCEA credits with the pilot programme.
“The teacher once said I wasn’t worth teaching,” fellow graduate Allan Burns, 42, said. “I struggled.”
“I struggled,” said graduate David Graham, 49.
“So did I,” said Rachel Meads, 36.
Kilmarnock CEO Michelle Sharp said the pilot was successful because it addressed the need for specialised education for those with learning difficulties. She said special education was still a major issue in local schools today.
“The education system doesn’t suit everybody,” she said.
“Opportunities for school leavers with disabilities are also quite limited. And for further education there was very little out there.”
She said the programme Kilmarnock was offering was unique, and following a successful pilot, there are plans to expand the programme.
“These guys proved this is absolutely what we should be doing and on a much larger scale.
“We want to be part of their employment journey.”
Sharp wanted to expand the programme to firstly accept more students within the Kilmarnock community, then anyone in need of the programme, such as school leavers.
Kilmarnock is crowd-funding on PledgeMe for $50,000 to continue growing its programme, accepting a class of 20 students from Kilmarnock for the first year.
The second group of students, people who work in the Kilmarnock factory, will graduate in two weeks time.
Currently around 90 people work at “Basecamp” in the Wigram factory, in a variety of roles including labelling and packaging food products, building toys and in recycling depots.
This year the social enterprise celebrates 60 years of serving the special needs community.
– Stuff
First published by Newstalk ZB
A Christchurch company is asking for help in changing the lives of people with disabilities.
Kilmarnock enterprises has been running a pilot programme, helping employees gain NZQA qualifications.
CEO Michelle Sharp says they have been funding the courses themselves through income from their factory, but they need 50-thousand dollars to expand the programme.
“We’ve seen the results and seen that we change peoples lives. The confidence the graduates come out with is simply remarkable. We know we have a winning formula and would love our community to get behind us.”
Michelle Sharp says they set up the pledgeme page because they want to be part of someone’s employment journey, not their destination.
ANNA WATSON
Kilmarnock Enterprises believes in a world that values diversity. It is changing attitudes towards disability through education, employment, and opportunity. It has just launched a campaign that is going full throttle on its social mission of empowering people with disabilities to lead purposeful and dignified lives: the Kilmarnock Academy.
People with an intellectual disability will come out the other side of the Academy with NZQA qualifications, empowering them to find purposeful employment and a valued place in the community. Want to know more? We did too, so read on!
We know that a lot of people with disabilities are not getting the same opportunities for education and employment as others. A lot of disabled people are leaving school with no option for further education that will suit their style of learning.
Through our campaign, we are opening up the opportunity for us – and our community – to cut to the root of this problem. We take a hands-on practical approach to helping our students develop work readiness and gain NZQA qualifications.
We ran a pilot of this programme and were so blown away by its success that we had to do more. We realised that we have a unique environment that sets us, and our students, up for success. At the start, a lot of our employees felt failed by the education system and didn’t want to get involved. It was amazing and humbling to see those very people go through the programme and come out the other side buzzing.
We have spent the last three years putting a lot of energy into engaging with our community. This has included working to brand what and who we are in connection with our crowd and gathering support and feedback along the way. We recently built a new Basecamp which in itself happened entirely with the support of our crowd.
We have taken courage from all this support to create an opportunity for our supporters to get involved. We have had so many people telling us they really want to back us. We really value this, but it hasn’t been the right time to take up those offers as we have been focused on using our commercial arm to leverage social impact. Now, the time is right to give our crowd a chance to build something meaningful with us.
We have a few awesome rewards! We have flights to Fiji up for grabs. Every single person who pledges over $50 and shares on social media with the tag #kilmarnockacademy goes into the draw to win return flights to Fiji for two.
We also have a ‘Wonderful Wine Lucky Dip’ reward for people who love good, South Island wine. A Black Estate 2014 Pinot Noir, anyone?!
We would love you to join us in building up Kilmarnock Academy! We are genuinely making a difference to people’s lives by taking them through an education programme that works for them. By pledging to this campaign you are directly changing someone’s life. You are giving them the opportunity and confidence to lift up their lives in a way that hasn’t been possible before.
Success breeds success, and this is exactly what we have seen in our pilot. We had one lady who was practically ready to run in the opposite direction when we suggested she be part of our second cohort. School had failed her, and she didn’t want to go through a similar experience. We managed to get her onboard. Now, halfway through her NZQA Level One she is already saying she wants to go for Level Two.
So many of these wonderful people have been told all their life they can’t. By pledging, you are showing them that they can.
Show the Kilmarnock community that they can by pledging to the campaign here.
by Sally Blundell / 21 November, 2017
A new breed of business, the social enterprise, is more intent on benefiting the community and protecting the environment than on maximising profit.
It was a eureka moment, though it played out not in a bath, but in the shower. University of Canterbury biology student Brianne West was washing her hair when the idea struck her: why add to the world’s mass of plastic waste simply because shampoo is so diluted it needs a plastic bottle? After all, there was plenty of water coming out of the nozzle. It was, she says, “one of those lightning-strike moments”.That was in 2012. A mountain of research, a load of experimentation and a rush of Facebook advertising later, revenue from West’s Ethique brand of solid-bar shampoos, cleansers, moisturisers and cleaners – all ingredients, down to the cardboard wrapper, biodegradable – is expected to hit $2 million this year from sales here, in Australia and the US.
A successful crowdfunding campaign in 2015 attracted the highest number of female investors in PledgeMe’s history; a second investment round this year raised $500,000 in less than two hours through crowdfunding and the same amount through wholesale investors.
“We are interested in growth because we want to rid the world of plastic bottles,” she says. A big ask, she agrees, “but it’s a goal we are completely serious about”.
West regards the goal of business as creating something that will make people’s lives better without destroying something along the way, so sustainability is important to the bottom line. Operating from a new 800sq m laboratory and warehouse in Christchurch, Ethique is certified climate-neutral and carries the international B Corporation (or B Lab) certification issued to for-profit companies that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. There is no child labour in the supply chain, no testing on animals and no waste.
The business buys its coconut and cocoa butter ingredients from co-operatives in Samoa and the Dominican Republic respectively.
“People care about what we are trying to do,” West says. “They are interested in a plastic-free lifestyle, in companies that do good, and they demand authenticity: they will not continue to buy a product, and we will not change the world, if we expect them to compromise, because they simply won’t do it.”
Across town, on an inner-city corner section vacant since the 2011 earthquake, a pedal-powered trailer of green waste bins collected from local cafes and restaurants is being unloaded. Here, as part of an urban garden project called Cultivate, the waste will be turned into compost, which will be used to grow vegetables, which will in turn be sold back to restaurants, cafes and the community.
Along the way, says the project’s co-founder Bailey Peryman, young people are learning how to grow food, the neighbourhood has access to fresh produce and restaurants have solved their green-waste problems.
Peryman says Cultivate is a sign of a thriving community. “Food is a great way to grow a sense of being in nature.”
Rhea Deacon at work at Christchurch urban garden Cultivate. Photo/Martin Hunter
West and Peryman are not lone voices. All over the world, small enterprises are tackling social, cultural or environmental issues: diverting waste from landfills, giving jobs to the long-term unemployed, cleaning up waterways and feeding the hungry. Peter Holbrook, the chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, in Christchurch to address September’s Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF), says there is growing realisation that our economic models are not sustainable.
Social enterprises, Holbrook says, are part of the solution, changing the way charities raise funds and businesses do business. They are more dynamic and more innovative than conventional businesses and fairer to women and ethnic minorities: “This is not just something that deals with market failure or public-service delivery; it is something that is thriving and disrupting markets across the world.”
Ronald Cohen, who chairs the Social Impact Investment Taskforce of the G8 – the industrialised economies of the world’s major democracies – goes further: social enterprise, he has said, is bringing the world to “the brink of a revolution in how we solve society’s toughest problems”.
That may be stretching the point a little too far, says Alex Hannant, founding chief executive of the Ākina Foundation, a charity whose mission is to expand social enterprise in this country.
“But I think there have been some very artificial silos: a charitable sector rooted in the Victorian era over here; a post-war welfare safety net there; a massive scale-up in business as a result of technology and globalisation over there.”
Now, he says, silos are being opened up: charities and not-for-profits are stepping up their trading activities and businesses are rearranging their mission statements to include social or environmental goals. Meanwhile, Māori development is modelling a new way of doing business. “All are creating this middle place, this third way, called social enterprise, where profit-making entities put social, cultural or environmental goals at the forefront of their business plan.”
The 1600 delegates from 45 countries who attended the SEWF, hosted by the Ākina Foundation, needed no convincing. And a new generation of entrepreneurs is grabbing at the opportunities: in the UK, an estimated 80,000 social enterprises, from small start-ups to organisations with hundreds of employees, are turning over about £25 billion ($48 billion) a year. In Scotlan
d, a country similar in population to New Zealand, 5000 social enterprises employ more than 112,000 people and contribute £1.68 billion to the economy.
These enterprises are not just surviving but thriving, even outperforming mainstream businesses financially. Surveys suggest that one in three British consumers will pay more for products that have positive social or environmental impacts and 60% of millennials want to work for an organisation with a social purpose.
A report to the Department of Internal Affairs last year, “Social Enterprise and Social Finance: A Path to Growth”, says the Scottish figures suggest that by 2025, “with the right supports” New Zealand could have 4000 social enterprises – twice as many as we have now, turning over $2 billion a year.
In the US, the trend is snowballing, with investors joining in. According to Forbes magazine, assets under management in sustainable investment funds have increased by 135% since 2012 to US$8.72 trillion ($12.7 trillion).
London-based Rob Wilson championed his “delicious and pint-sized” response to the 900,000 tonnes of fresh bread – more than 40% of the total baked – that goes into landfills each year in the UK. His Toast Ale, an award-winning beer using bread that would otherwise be dumped, is now stocked by British supermarket chain Tesco and was recently launched in the US and South Africa. He has published his recipe so bakers and brewers around the world can partner up to replace expensive grain with surplus bread.
“We are not preachy,” he says. “We are not pointing the finger. This is a frigging beer at the end of the day. But food waste is a really fundamental issue. We don’t want to be around forever, we don’t want to see food waste in the first place, but there is a lot of bread going to waste and we see a solution to that in the beer industry.”
Elsewhere on the bill at SEWF, Andrea Chen described the Propeller Incubator, the small enterprise she co-founded in New Orleans in 2006 to help local entrepreneurs establish their businesses amid the chaos left by Hurricane Katrina. Now it supports more than 50 start-ups and not-for-profits dealing with poverty and racial inequality.
The Skill Mill in north England gives young people caught up in the justice system work in environmental projects, where they can obtain land management qualifications. Javara in Indonesia protects food biodiversity and indigenous knowledge by finding new markets for artisan products made by local farmers.
In New Zealand, achieving social value through the marketplace is not new. Trade Aid has been using fair terms of trade to support farmer or artisan groups to break out of poverty since 1973.
For 60 years, Kilmarnock in Christchurch has worked to provide meaningful employment for people with disabilities. It has changed from a charity to a business model, competing on its own merits for commercial tenders.
“We had to turn the message from ‘please help us’ to ‘this is what we are really good at’,” says chief executive Michelle Sharp. “Now, our customers need us as much as we need them – it is a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Although 70 of the 100 staff have disabilities, there is no “them and us”, says Sharp, a former telco high-flyer who came to Kilmarnock in 2010 after finding a “huge gap” in her life on top of the corporate ladder. “We are all just one team trying to achieve the same goals and we all bring strengths to the table.”
In recently expanded premises, Kilmarnock offers food-repacking services, recycling, decanting of bulk crushed glass, wooden furniture and toys and administration services. It has big contracts with Fonterra, the Gough Group and Air New Zealand among others. Staff have access to health and safety advice, fitness and yoga classes and a new training academy to break the glass ceiling for school leavers with disabilities.
As in the UK, however, many social enterprises in this country are relatively young. In 2010, artist and occupational therapist Juliet Arnott set up ReKindle, a venture in Auckland aimed at reducing wood waste. Following the Canterbury quakes, she moved to Christchurch and set up a workshop where timber from demolished houses was fashioned into thousands of dollars worth of furniture, jewellery and art objects. It reduced the mountain of building materials going to waste and provided jobs and training for 20 people.
ReKindle now runs workshops in traditional craft-making skills such as whittling, weaving and carving, using wood or vegetable fibres otherwise destined for landfills. It’s turning nothing into something.
Hannant says that initiatives such as these are neither fads nor commercial operations tacking a plausible social or environmental activity onto a business-as-usual programme. “We are talking about organisations that exist primarily to meet a social need but are delivering it through a business model. It is great to see more mainstream businesses finding more sophisticated ways to create social value, but when we are talking about social enterprise, we are really asking, ‘Why do you exist in the first place? It is because you exist to deliver a social or environmental benefit.’
“It is about the power relationships and democracy inside an organisation. It is about community resilience, connecting people within the community and re-orienting the economy around them.”
Cultivating a sense of community is the driving force behind Crave, a cafe in the inner Auckland suburb of Morningside. It’s a hub for food, coffee, conversation, cooking classes, quiz nights, education nights and a twice-yearly free street feast. That idea was launched in 2010, when co-founder Blue Bradley unloaded a dead pig from his car boot. That evening, about 80 locals got to know each other over a free barbecue and a memorable community experience.
“It’s a neighbourhood thing,” Bradley says. “We’ll facilitate it – we’ll create a venue, do the PA or the pizza oven, but everybody helps out. People say, ‘You guys are creating legendary experiences our kids will never forget’, but I think all communities should be creating legendary experiences their kids will never forget.”
Bradley’s point is that everybody wants to live in a community of their dreams but they don’t just happen by themselves. Among people’s problems are loneliness and social poverty. “When we first started the cafe, there was a lot of high-density living but no social spaces where people could connect. It was a bit soulless, a bit industrial. But hospitality is something you do with your life, not just the hospitality industry, but living lives that are hospitable – the cafe is an extension of that.”
Now in its third incarnation, in bigger premises and with a staff of 45, Crave is still channelling its efforts – and profits – into strengthening the local community.
“It still has to run at a profit,” says Bradley, “but if profit is not your primary reason for being in business, everything is up for grabs.”
To make progress, social enterprises need to break into the mainstream, says Hannant. This in turn requires more Government support and more consumers using their buying power to reward initiatives that have a social value.
Crave staff Chris Dews, Sulieti Tulimaiau, Sophie Wagener, Bradley, Jess Angove and Louise Giles. Photo/Angie Humphreys
“It’s push and pull,” Hannant says. “Consumer demand can be triggered by options being there in the first place, providing more purchasing or service opportunities for people to choose from in their everyday decisions. But at the same time you are trying to build public awareness to create demand. If we want an ethical pension fund, for example, maybe someone will create that opportunity.”
In the US, sustainably invested assets now account for more than one dollar in five, and millennials are twice as likely to invest in shares or funds that target specific environmental or social outcomes.
In New Zealand, social enterprise start-ups find receptive audiences on crowdfunding platforms, but high-end, high-impact investment is still in its infancy, says Bill Murphy, executive director of Tauranga-based Enterprise Angels investment network. Some investors say it’s too risky, but “others are starting to wake up to the fact that we can’t keep going the way we are and they will ameliorate the commercial way of looking at it. They’re saying I want my money to make a difference – a capital D difference.”
Local authorities, too, are beginning to look at how they can make a “capital D difference” through their procurement strategies. The 2002 Local Government Act requires regional authorities to adopt a sustainable development approach to procurement practices, taking into account the social, economic and cultural interests of their communities and the need to enhance the quality of the environment.
Tania Pouwhare is the social “intrapreneur” for Auckland Council’s The Southern Initiative (TSI), which aims to increase social and community innovation in South Auckland. She says that although the council’s size makes it difficult to connect with smaller businesses and providers, some arms of the “council family” are using tenders to help social enterprises meet procurement and social-outcome goals.
“It is not just the type of nails you are going to use in the decking or the pitch of the roof,” she says. “Those things are there, but we are now buying quality employment outcomes for people far away from the labour market, reductions in carbon emissions and diversion of waste. So it’s the impact we are buying – on local communities, environmental sustainability and on wider social outcomes.”
Each purchase, she says, carries different weightings according to different criteria: the emphasis may be on gender equality, professional development, leadership, wages or, of course, cost, “but we are not about feeding the low-wage, low-productivity problem. Our job is to disrupt it.”
To help smaller enterprises compete in the tendering process, large projects can be “unbundled” into small packages. When a comprehensive creek restoration project was planned for Mt Roskill, for example, the propagating and planting portion was awarded to the local Te Whangai Trust. The trust has since set up a native nursery at Wesley Intermediate School, where vandalism has fallen, schoolchildren are learning about native plants and biodiversity and unemployed locals get training and qualifications in horticulture, says Pouwhare.
Earlier this year, TSI joined Auckland Transport, winner of the 2017 New Zealand Procurement Excellence Awards for its commitment to social and environmental outcomes in its City Rail Link project, to develop Fale Kofi, a coffee kiosk at the new Ōtāhuhu bus-train station.
The pop-up cafe, run by local Pacific youth agency Affirming Works, offers Māori and Pasifika food with a focus on high standards of nutrition and affordability. It is staffed by young students, who fit work around their class timetables, and promotes Māori and Pasifika identity though food options, bilingual signage and a fit-out designed by Roots Creative Entrepreneurs made from recycled and upcycled materials.
As a pilot social enterprise model, says Pouwhare, it’s a win for all parties: the city gets a vibrant transport station, local businesses are developed and supported, “and visitors know they are in the largest Polynesian city in the world”.
“How does the Government get more value, how do we as taxpayers get more value out of things we would have bought anyway?” says Hannant.
For central Government, that win, facilitated by close engagement with grass roots organisations and community groups, is not so easy to attain. Governments have huge buying power: from big contracts for social services to paper clips and toilet paper, OECD Governments spend about 15% of GDP on procurements. But finding ways to use that spending to improve social and environmental outcomes has been a slower process.
“Social enterprise is part of our thinking,” says Margaret Pearson, chief adviser of procurement for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. “It is not saying you have to favour a social enterprise over another type of business. It is about fairness to all suppliers, which links back to our international obligations, but the principles are flexible enough to allow agencies to make those balanced decisions and take those other factors into consideration.”
Crown agencies have a responsibility to get the best deal, “but that doesn’t always mean the lowest price – economic, social and environmental impacts should all be considered as part of that procurement process. Quality of supply, ability to supply, sustainability – those factors are all taken into consideration. It may not be worded ‘social enterprise’, but the rules and principles are flexible enough to draw those three components into consideration.”
NZ Post, which is now in its 177th year, has been using that flexibility to support local communities for more than a decade. It encourages its staff to do volunteer work; it is reducing its carbon footprint through the use of recycling and electric vehicles. Now, in partnership with Ākina, it uses its procurement processes to help social enterprises. For the SEWF it contributed delegate bags made from recycled billboards by Wellington social enterprise Spinning Top. It also negotiates subcontracting possibilities with larger suppliers, and is working with Ākina to set up regional social enterprise hubs for training and support.
“It is not a question of spending more,” says NZ Post head of sustainability Dawn Baggaley. “We have to manage our costs because we have to deliver a return to the Government and, as with any other purchasing decision, we look at all the criteria – cost, service delivery and the additional social or environmental value that it adds.
“For us, it is a no-brainer: we are going to buy these goods and services anyway, so if we can buy them from a social enterprise that can deliver the same product or service and deliver a positive impact in society and the environment, then that is good for us, for our customers and the community we operate in. Why wouldn’t we do it?”
But there are barriers. Many small enterprises do not have the business acumen to compete with large-scale operations; few would have the tender-writing teams to seek out lucrative local or national government procurements; some struggle to tell their story to win the interest of consumers and investors.
Another challenge is the absence of a legal structure for this new breed of values-based commercial entities. As it is, a social enterprise must operate either as a charity or a limited liability company. Neither model, says Christchurch lawyer Steven Moe, works well.
“A charity will struggle to find investors or business support because there cannot be any private benefit. A company can be profit-making, but then it is not eligible for public-sector funding or philanthropic grants.”
Moe is recommending a mix of the two: a separate legal structure by which social enterprises must state their purpose and report on their social benefit activities. Such an entity would be required to put a cap on the level of dividends paid out and would be able to claim tax exemption for the parts of the business that are purely charitable.
As he points out in a new legal handbook on social enterprise, this is being done overseas: Scotland recognises social enterprise through a legal “community interest company” category; Canada and 32 US states give legal status to social-benefit corporations and Australia is looking to introduce something along those lines.
“So we need to take the best of what has been done overseas and apply it here. A social enterprise company structure would automatically mean people feel comfortable that you are trying to do something good and acting with purpose. As well as attracting investors, it would raise the profile of the sector in a way that is not possible if we just make do with existing structures.”
Hannant says a distinct legal structure for social enterprise would also make it easier for the Government to develop policies and financial support for those organisations, provide quality assurance to customers and investors and reduce the risk green-washing – people calling themselves social enterprises because “they feel it is a popular thing”.
The Government is looking at new ways to support social enterprise. The report to Internal Affairs proposed a cross-agency Social Enterprise Unit to address policy barriers, an intermediary body to spearhead social enterprise growth through mentoring, technical assistance and online resources, and a development grant fund for social enterprises in their early stages.
Already momentum is growing. In 2014, the Rata Foundation, formerly the Canterbury Community Trust, allocated $2.5 million to a new Social Enterprise Fund. Last year, the then Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Jo Goodhew announced a new cross-agency working group to gather more data on social enterprises and explore ethical investment. In July this year, the Government announced $5.5 million in funding to boost social enterprise and do research into the size, scale and value of the sector over the next 3-4 years.
This year, too, Ākina announced its Impact Enterprise Fund for large-scale investors, and the country’s first social-procurement model prioritising Maori and Pasifika enterprises in local government and corporate supply chains was launched. NZ Post, meanwhile, has committed to buying goods and services from at least three social enterprises over the next 12 months.
Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Peeni Henare says the Government will be looking at further ways to facilitate social enterprise. “It is something that has really come on to the radar over the past decade and we are keen to see it grow more.” But before looking at further funding commitments, he says, it is important to see where any barriers to growth might be – whether in legislation, policy “or the mechanisms that allow businesses and the like to donate or contribute to social enterprise”.
Watch this space, says Hannant. Following overseas trends, social enterprise, he says, will raise standards across the economy. Mainstream business will be expected to create more value by including social enterprises in their supply chains, and everyday investors will be demanding more from their pension funds and savings accounts.
“It is important we see social enterprise as a tool, but it has to be led by something which has more intention around what is the community and the country we want to create. Then, within that vision, what does business look like? Rather than seeing it as a niche thing, it should resemble what wider society wants.”
In her Christchurch laboratory, Brianne West has no intention of developing Ethique as a niche brand.
“When you enter a new market, you have your early adopters – but then hopefully you branch out because your product is so good they tell their friends. I want this to be business as normal – business should be responsible. It concerns me when people ask why we operate in this way. Because you should do – it really is that simple.”
This article was first published in the November 11, 2017 issue of the New Zealand Listener.
Meet the Kilmarnock Team as we move into our new Basecamp in Wigram, Christchurch
Michelle Sharp was a corporate go-getter, working for Vodafone before co-founding a successful tech company. But the Kilmarnock Enterprises CEO says she found her path to happiness when she stepped off the business treadmill.
Steve Jobs said “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”. I’ve always been a bit crazy.
Ever since I started my first business at age nine, the Garfield Drawing Club, I have been feeding an entrepreneurial hunger that saw me gain a great variety of experience in the commercial world. I climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, and found myself looking back at my childhood. It was there that I found my inspiration to climb back down the ladder and begin a new journey.
Nowadays, the change I fight for is a lot closer to my heart. I am very proud to be the CEO of one of New Zealand’s leading social enterprises, Kilmarnock. We provide education, employment and opportunity for people with intellectual disabilities, empowering them to lead purposeful lives. I believe that with the right support, encouragement and opportunity, we can all achieve incredible things.
Despite all the success I experienced in my commercial career, this is the first time that I believe my younger self would be proud of me.
I grew up on the outskirts of Mexico City in a nearby mountainous village. My family was surrounded by poverty, and on a daily basis I saw firsthand the many barriers that stood between good people with good ideas, and the ability to build a business that would feed them and their families. I witnessed my parents fighting to break down those barriers and give the people in our village the chance to make something of themselves.
KILMARNOCK IS KNOWN FOR WOODEN TOYS, BUT IT’S ALSO RECYCLING E-WASTE.
I remember days when my brother and I would miss school because my mother had offered the seats in our car to the women travelling to the city markets to make money. I recall being upset about missing school so my mother sat me down and told me that one day away from school would not hurt me, but one day in the market could feed a woman’s family for a week.
I reminded her of this years later when I was twelve years old and we had moved to Newbury in the UK. I was being teased in school for looking different, sounding different and struggling with dyslexia. I repeated her words ‘one day away from school would not hurt me’, she stuck by her words but added that ‘running away from my problems would’. She told me to embrace my differences and that one day I would see the value of diversity.
I adapted the way I learnt to counter my dyslexia and went on to study mathematics at the University of Southampton, and later an MBA at the University of Leicester. I convinced Vodafone to sponsor my studies and I spent my holidays working in the different departments and getting to know all aspects of the business. I saw incredibly well-run units and very dysfunctional ones, and I experienced the way one person could so strongly influence the culture of a company. I credit Vodafone for teaching me the importance of ensuring every one of your employees is happy, supported and has the room to grow and develop. Because if the culture is right, the business results soon flow through.
My greatest commercial success was co-founding and becoming the client services director of Timico Ltd, one of the fastest growing business to business telecommunication providers in the UK. We were a telecommunications, data and IT supplier for the small-to-medium enterprise sector. We repeatedly won the Microsoft tech track award for the fastest growing tech organisation.
In that role, I was able to employ a number of exceptionally skilled second line support technicians on the Asperger’s spectrum. I learnt to adapt the work environment to suit the individual and as a result, some incredibly talented people who had previously struggled to hold down employment were able to excel. It was a great feeling to see my team grow in skill and confidence. But slowly I began to burn out.
I was working excessive hours in a high-pressure environment and realised I barely knew my children. My Kiwi husband and I made the decision to make the move to New Zealand in pursuit of better work life balance.
One day I was walking down Riccarton road and came across Kilmarnock Toys. I was drawn in by the beautiful wooden toys and discovered they were advertising for a part time business development manager. I was overwhelmed by the realisation that I could use my business experience to make a genuine, tangible and lasting difference to people who had experienced endless barriers to secure employment. I cannot describe the sensation of discovering a job that combined both my love of business and the intense desire to break down barriers and unlock opportunities for people who has been unjustly marginalised.
Three years later I was offered the role of CEO, and embarked on the daunting challenge of transitioning Kilmarnock from a charity-based model, to one of New Zealand’s pioneering social enterprises. I began by transforming Kilmarnock’s culture into one that is creative, aspirational, and enthusiastic. One where there is no hierarchy and communication channels are open and receptive.
WITH THE RIGHT SUPPORT WE CAN ALL ACHIEVE, SHARP SAYS. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
As a nine-year-old in those first days of the Garfield Drawing Club I learnt a very important lesson. I knew that Garfield was popular and I desperately wanted to meet other kids my age. So I sent flyers around advertising lessons on drawing Garfield. The only problem was, I couldn’t draw. Thankfully in my first session I found an aspiring artist who could, and that day I learnt a lesson I still carry with me: that a wise leader surrounds themselves with incredible people who are strong where they are weak.
Together, my team turned Kilmarnock’s dire financial situation around by diversifying and stabilising contracts and introducing new, previously unimaginable, revenue streams. We now operate essentially six businesses in one and we’re no longer beholden to one single customer for our financial stability. We provide a number of services at a competitive price, including, collating and packing, assembly, labelling, food re-packing, shrink wrapping, woodworking, refurbishing, electronic waste recycling, and much more.
Transitioning to a social enterprise has enabled us to leverage business excellence to greatly enhance our social mission. We provide a fun, connected environment where the team is inspired to take command of their future and show the community that we all have strengths, regardless of our disabilities. I suppose this is what my mother meant when she told me that by embracing my difference, I would realise the power of diversity.
Every day I see something that makes me proud. Just yesterday one of my colleagues came to me after being invited to join the Kilmarnock Academy, an in-house training programme where employees can gain NZQA qualifications for work-related activities. She told me that she was going to decline the offer as she had done very poorly in school and was afraid to revisit the academic system that had isolated her so much in her youth. I was able to tell her that we had offered her the slot because we truly believed in her ability to succeed. I shared with her my story and now she looks forward to proving those who doubted her wrong and rediscovering the confidence crushed so many years ago.
I may not live the same high flying corporate life anymore but I have found something that is far more rewarding. Through my lifelong love of business, I am empowering people to unlock their individual potential, find social and financial independence, gain confidence and build a life for themselves that they truly value.
This content was published by thespinoff.co.nz and is part of an ongoing social enterprise series in collaboration with Kiwibank and the Social Enterprise World Forum.