High Impact Entrepreneurship

High Impact Entrepreneurship research programme draws on newness, uncertainty, and disruptive breakthroughs that emerge from – Legitimation Theory – Collective Behaviuor, Bubbles & Runaway Sentiments  – Late Globalization, Re-Globalization and Exo-Globalization – research programmes.

This research programme motivates and facilitates research on High Impact Entrepreneurship and studies new ventures which pursue innovative, disruptive breakthroughs, and/or operate in uncertain national/international/global environments, and which produce superior net utility at society, industry, firm and individual levels.

This High Impact Entrepreneurship research programme is led by Chris Mould, CEO of Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion.

We invite entrepreneurs and other practitioners, policy makers, researchers to share with us their High Impact Entrepreneurship success stories.

Please use this TEMPLATE and submit your High Impact Entrepreneurship success story to Chris Mould via chris.mould(at)fscinet.org. Each submitted High Impact Entrepreneurship case will be evaluated based on the definition and scope of TBRP research on High Impact Entrepreneurship specified above as well as criteria set out in the template. Each HIE case as necessary will undergo series of revisions before it is published.

As part of this programme, TBRP team will collect and publish High Impact Entrepreneurship cases from around the world as part of TBRP Perspectives collection.

Publishing social enterprise rooted in lived experience of diversity and disadvantage

By Steve Mcnaught

The Arkbound Foundation is a social enterprise and charity that supports people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to have their voices heard through writing. The enterprise is an example of how small initiatives started by those from excluded backgrounds can grow fast, overcoming numerous obstacles, to give international impact in the social, cultural and environmental spheres. Now four years old, Arkbound has a functioning academic branch that is dedicated to supporting intersectional and cross-disciplinary research, new publications and knowledge transfer, together with supporting the voices of those in the Global South getting heard, who are most at threat from climate change. A pioneering social enterprise that has received commendation from HRH Prince Charles, won local and national awards, been the subject of dissertations and developed training courses and books that are referred to by international bodies and educational institutions – Arkbound is a model of high impact entrepreneurship that provides hope for others looking to do similar work.

TBRPP subject area: High Impact Entrepreneurship

TBRPP-8 available here

Levelling the Tutoring Playing Field: The Power of Volunteer Tutors to Tackle Inequality in Education

By Susannah Hardyman

This article explores the growth and journey of Action Tutoring, an educational charity established in 2012 that seeks to support pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve at least national standards in the core subjects of English and maths, using a wide range of high-quality volunteer tutors. The charity aims to address the large attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged families and their wealthier peers by making the benefit of tutoring available to those that wouldn’t otherwise afford it. Since its inception in 2012, Action Tutoring has grown rapidly, now working in eight cities across England supporting 3,000 disadvantaged young people a year through partnerships with both primary and secondary schools, with this expected to grow significantly further in the coming year. Action Tutoring has developed a carefully structured, well-managed and tailored programme, which ensures it can drive the best possible impact for its pupils. This article explores the structure of the Action Tutoring programme, designed to make it as impactful and scalable as possible, and the impact that the organisation has had to date.

TBRPP subject area: High Impact Entrepreneurship

TBRPP-7 available here

Bristol Housing Festival: A Barrier-Busting Collaboration Promoting and Enabling Innovation in Housing Delivery for Inclusive Growth

By Jeremy Sweetland

Bristol Housing Festival is a barrier-busting collaboration aimed at addressing the housing crisis by promoting and enabling innovation in housing delivery. Its vision is re-imagining better ways to live in our cities. Bristol Housing Festival is harnessing best practice and advanced technology to test and showcase better homes and city community living across Bristol. It brings together municipal authorities, government and innovative housing suppliers and creates conditions to prototype ideas, making it safer to “go first”. The Housing Festival is testing approaches that will lead to healthier, more resilient communities and the reduction of inequality within the city. The Housing Festival is addressing the bureaucratic inertia and the log-jam that results from very understandable caution in relation to risk that has contributed to the growth of the overall crisis in housing. Its outcomes will include a ‘council change model’ and a ‘decision-support tool box’, which will make it possible for the Housing Festival to share what works and replicate the solutions in other cities. The collaboration is also paying early attention to supply chain issues to facilitate future replication.

TBRPP subject area: High Impact Entrepreneurship

TBRPP-6 available here

How a Small NGO, The Trussell Trust, Mobilized a Nation

By Chris Mould

Every year hundreds of thousands of UK citizens face going to bed hungry. The UK social welfare safety net fails to respond fast enough when citizens seek its help in a crisis. The Trussell Trust designed and implemented throughout the UK a voluntary run local system where a range of food items sufficient to provide three days’ nutritionally balanced meals is collected in advanced, stored at accessible locations and distributed through a voucher system operated by a wide range of local frontline workers whose jobs mean they encounter people when in crisis. Annually, over 1 million UK citizens in financial crisis get immediate access to three days’ food sufficient to provide full meals for them and family members via the Trussell Trust’s franchisees. They get advice and signposting to longer term solutions and support through a coordinated approach which the Trussell Trust drives. Over 4 million citizens support the cause every year. Serious social problems like crime, housing loss, family breakdown, physical and mental ill-health and children being taken into state care are prevented or mitigated as a result. The Trussell Trust’s system highlights public service failure and points at policy improvements that would improve the ability of the welfare system to achieve better outcomes.

TBRPP subject area: High Impact Entrepreneurship

TBRPP-5 available here