Posted by Dan Berelowitz
A new report highlights how the social sector can learn from the business experience - and pitfalls - of franchising.
One of the shortcomings of social enterprise (and I say this as a social entrepreneur) is the drive to innovate. We spend a lot of time looking for innovative solutions when many already exist. This is a problem. Time and money are poured into developing new programmes to meet social need when so often this work has already been done and could simply be copied or adapted. Social entrepreneurs, and even large organisations, start new projects rather than researching what has gone before and learning from it.
In most cases, it's because we are well meaning, busy people who just want action but sometimes we fall foul of the ego and the thought that no one else can do it quite as well.
Add into the mix the fact that sponsors enjoy funding new ideas and you have a situation where social organisations are obliged to innovate even where there are proven methods that work.
This can't be right.
Too many brilliant programmes remain frustratingly small. Many are addressing local need but help 100 people rather than the 100,000 or more they would need to reach to really address the scale of the issue.
As a fellow of the Clore Social Leadership Programme, I was given the time and space to explore these challenges and look for solutions. Enter social franchising, a business model that can both take successful projects to scale as well as avoid the continual reinvention of the wheel.
Franchising is well established in the commercial sector with UK franchisees turning over £13.4bn in 2012 across more than 900 franchise brands and over 40,000 franchisee outlets.
The essence of social franchising is that a proven social change project is turned into a "franchise" and then quickly replicated. The central franchise documents their processes and then franchisees adopt the approach and are given support in establishing themselves.
This allows them to set up a successful business much faster, with reduced risk, whilst maintaining quality.
This is nothing new, there are already 95 social franchises operating in the UK such as Care and Share Associates (CASA) in the North of England, and the hugely successful Trussell Trust Foodbank which, surprisingly, has more in common with McDonald's than at first sight might be apparent.
For both the commercial and social franchiser, choosing the right franchisee is critical.
McDonald's, to whom I spoke at length, and the Foodbank, have both experienced broken relationships when the wrong franchisee had been selected. The franchisor-franchisee relationship is often likened to a marriage; if the people are well-suited with an open line of communication the relationship stays strong, but too many arguments and it breaks down.
Another critical factor is systemisation. Once you have chosen the right franchisee you have to be able to give them the blueprint to work from or you will get the job done in 10 different (often substandard) ways. It's something McDonald's and the Foodbank have got right yet where so many social sector organisations fall down. Making an operating manual is probably one of the least interesting parts of someone's job but it's pivotal to the success of the venture.
Where the sectors differ is that social franchising is much more diverse than commercial franchising with no one-size-fits-all model. For social franchises, the real challenge is finding a sustainable business model whilst ensuring the quality of social outcomes and impact. A deep understanding of the community you work in and trust is the only way to bring people with you on the road to development. What appeals to me about social franchising is that this local context is maintained but with the ability to reach scale.
Through gradual growth, social franchising has the potential to become another weapon in the arsenal of practical strategies for creating a more just and fair world, whether in the disability sector, the health sector or in addressing poverty, unemployment and beyond.
I was so convinced by its importance, that halfway through my fellowship research, I left my job to co-found the International Centre for Social Franchising (ICSF) a charity with a mission to replicate proven social ventures to scale. We are already working with a range of public, private and social sector organisations such Oxfam's partners and GlaxoSmithKline to create real, lasting change on a large scale.
If you have a proven social project that you think deserves to be scaled up, you know where to come.
Dan Berelowitz is a 2011 Clore Social fellow and chief executive and co-founder of ICSF.
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