SUMMER OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

by Anthony Veluz — this story was first published August 16th 2015 @ ElephantBranded.com

Well, you could say it’s been a summer of social enterprise. Apart from my Masters, my summer has pretty much been social enterprise. Those who know me will have seen my countless posts on social media about NCS and the business challenge. For those who don’t know what NCS (National Citizen Service) is, it’s an amazing programme that’s run all over the country, where 16–17 year olds take part in a programme of social and personal development, culminating in a social action project in their local communities and fundraisers for a charity of their choice. I’ve been involved on NCS since 2012 and have been on nine programmes to date, working in a wide range of roles from mentor to social action mentor and this summer I worked as a lead mentor. In addition, I also delivered business challenges on NCS this summer, to three different NCS providers, two of which are social enterprises (EBP and Flying Futures) so I’ve seen NCS in many different ways.

In my lead mentor role this summer, I got to visit a lot of groups at their social action projects in their local communities and it was great to see the impact they were making. NCS is all about developing the skills of young people, changing people’s perception of young people and for the young people to give back to their local community and also help a charity through fundraising and raising awareness. Social enterprises are all about making a difference and NCS essentially aims to do the same thing. The amounts of money raised for the charities is incredible and the social action projects came along great in the end and as a mentor you only get to see your own group’s project but as a lead mentor I got to see more projects which was great. The effort and results from the groups over the social action weeks was really impressive.

Usually, on NCS, there would be a skills residential week at a university and one of the activities would be a business challenge. On past programmes the likes of Siemens, PGL and Coca-Cola Enterprises have come in and delivered these challenges and I’ve noticed that in some of the challenges a few groups incorporated a sustainability or giving back aspect which gave me the idea of delivering a business challenge on social enterprise where they’d come up with a brand new venture. The young people had already been incorporating some ideas on past challenges and it ties in well as the skills residential is followed by the fundraising and social action weeks so it’s good to get the young people thinking already about giving back and coming up with unique and creative ideas on how to undertake the fundraiser/social action, as well as promoting it and spreading the word. The business challenge is an activity I personally enjoy as I’ve studied business and my past groups have taken to the challenge well. My first ever NCS group actually won the business challenge where Coca-Cola set a task of creating a new drinks brand and some of the people in my group are now involved on NCS as mentors or work for the actual NCS providers on a full-time basis so it’s pleasing for me to see.

I also thought it would be a nice change for my team and I to deliver the business challenge as we all have a connection to NCS. My team consists of past mentees on programme and they now promote Elephant Branded and LSTN Sound Co like myself so I thought it would be great to have NCS graduates involved in delivering workshops on programme; I believe having NCS graduates involved on programmes is the future — we already have them back as mentors but I’d love to see them help deliver workshops on future programmes. With the business challenge it just started off as an idea and maybe we’d be considered for future programmes so I was surprised when we were offered to the chance to deliver eight business challenges for three different NCS providers for this summer so I had to say yes. As in the NCS slogan, “it all starts at yes”. I’d like to say a huge thank you to EBP, Flying Futures and Lincoln City Football Club Sport & Education Trust for having us, and also to my team of NCS graduates who have helped me deliver these challenges; they’ve done a brilliant job and it’s been quite an experience.

So the challenge we set the young people was to come up with a brand new social enterprise venture and pitch the idea at the end. Delivering the business challenges I found quite daunting at times, especially the ones where I delivered them by myself but I enjoyed it nonetheless. We’d talk about social enterprise and give Elephant Branded, LSTN and GiveMeTap as examples to help give an idea of what’s out there and inspire the young people for when they come up with an idea for a new socent venture, and to also spread the word about these amazing organisations. We’ve definitely gained a few new fans and even had people buy products from us which is great.

The new venture ideas that the young people came up with were brilliant and I certainly had a hard time judging as a lot of them were really good! Not only were the ideas good but the pitches were too and the creativity in the social media pages and other creations were great to see. A contact of mine on LinkedIn recently said about young people, “Yes, it can be clumsy sometimes, but young people’s creativity is boundless.”, and I’d have to agree; I was really impressed with what the young people were able to create.

One thing that I especially found pleasing was some of the young people coming up to me during the challenges and asking about how to become a brand ambassador for EB/GiveMeTap/LSTN and one young person shown an interest in promoting all three and she also happens to want to study law at university and become a human rights lawyer. I, of course, promote these enterprises, I too study law at university and my dissertation I’m currently working on is on human rights law so I do see her as a bit of a protégé and I’m looking forward to working with her and helping her as much as I can. This person is also quite proactive and impressed me on NCS; on social action she created a frog feature for the garden at a care home in Lincoln so I loved the creativity from her and I have no doubt she’ll come up with some really creative ideas and ways to promote the social enterprises. You know when people say, if they’ve reached out and inspired one person they’ll be happy…I’m the same.

On NCS you’ll meet some amazing people, from the young people to the staff; it’s such an amazing programme, and you might even meet the odd athlete or celebrity while you’re at it too! I would definitely recommend NCS to young people; I wish I had something like NCS when I was younger. I would also recommend NCS to my friends to work as mentors as its great working with the young people and it can be incredibly rewarding.

So NCS is over but this summer of social enterprise continues for me as I’m working on a new socent venture but I’ve been pre-occupied with NCS and my Masters dissertation which is my next immediate focus so it’s a busy summer for sure! Life of the socent mad postgrad it is indeed…