While the worlds of private business and social entrepreneurship may seem far apart, DCC chief Donal Murphy sees parallels. Each has a social responsibility, and each has to be run with a professional, ethical and sustainable model, he believes. The process of deciding which social entrepreneurs to support can also be likened to a more polite version of Dragon’s Den, he quips, the difference being that all the dragons in this case get behind the projects that make it through the rigorous appraisal process.
Murphy has often been in the room when these difficult decisions are made.
“It can be heartbreaking for the entrepreneurs that don’t make it as we assess hundreds of projects every year and many of them are fantastic ideas, but you know that many of them just don’t have what it takes,” Murphy says.
“We have adjudicating panels made up of a variety of skill sets like finance, HR, IT and marketing and its interesting to hear the perspectives of each of the judges. The idea may be sound, but the question may be, ‘can that person deliver?’ You would look four or five years out and ask, ‘what will that project look like?’.”
Each of the social entrepreneurs in this process receive detailed evaluation. Some walk away, he says, but in many cases, they come back stronger in a year or two, based on the expert recommendations they have received and then make it through the process.
DCC has been a major supporter of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland for 14 years. At its most tangible level, it has provided about €2.5 million in direct support, with this contribution growing in line with the not-for-profit’s expanding activities in recent years.
While not underestimating the importance of financial contributions, Murphy says: “Its relatively easy to just write a cheque and we are happy to provide money from our own CSR perspective. The harder bit is getting people in your team deeply involved in the work of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and we’ve managed to do that, which for me is equally – if not more – important.”
Working with social entrepreneurs can be very rewarding. “You see the passion and the ambition in these projects. In our primary roles, we spend our time with commercially focused businesses creating wealth. For social entrepreneurs, their primary mission is making life better for people and it’s a very uplifting feeling knowing you are doing something to support that. That’s one of the key reasons we got involved.”
Like most corporate organisations, DCC has many calls on its resources for supporting good causes, such as clubs, charities and societies, all of which are worthwhile in themselves, he acknowledges. “We sat back a number of years ago and took a good hard look at this and asked if the contributions we were providing were making a material difference in making our country a better place. That’s when we decided to concentrate a lot of our resources in this area.”
Again, Murphy notes the parallel with his own business, the conglomerate DCC.
“Over the years, we built our business by buying entrepreneurial businesses and helping them to scale and grow through applying our group expertise. We saw similarities with the mission of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in supporting projects that would help to make Ireland a better place,” Murphy says.
“When you look at the broad range of social issues that need to be addressed in this country, here is an organisation looking to put the capabilities in place to turn those great ideas social entrepreneurs have into something tangible that can scale and have real social impact. To me, that’s the real key to this.”
Many social entrepreneurs have the vision, passion, energy and intelligence to fundamentally make their enterprises succeed and the support they need is around filling in the blanks from their lack of commercial expertise or experience. “Some don’t have the training or knowledge on how to do detailed budgets or cash flow forecasts and some may not know the intricacies involved in managing their HR function,” Murphy says. These are areas in which they can be helped by the many organisations and professionals who provide their time and expertise on a pro-bono basis.
Over the years, Murphy says he and his colleagues have built good relationships and friendships from the interesting people he has met through this process. “It is very satisfying to see close up how some of these entrepreneurs have built significant organisations. Some have moved out of these organisations as they didn’t have the skills or capacity to build the organisation, but the organisations they have started have gone on to blossom with other leaders in place.”
Social entrepreneurs are clearly playing an important role, but are many of these issues not ones that Government should be addressing?
“In theory, yes but the reality is that the bandwidth for Government to address these issues is relatively limited and capital is also relatively limited,” Murphy says. “Many specific issues such as supporting autism or depression or food poverty are way down the pecking order and if we didn’t have social enterprise culture and environment in Ireland, lots of really important issues wouldn’t get addressed. We simply can’t wait for Government bodies to address these. Look at the number of important waiting lists that run into years. That’s not a criticism of Government per se, that’s just a recognition of the reality of where we are.”
With a limit on what can be done by public institutions, Murphy believes that commercial enterprises such as his own have a duty to support social enterprises.
“Every corporate has an obligation to support social issues from a corporate social responsibility point of view (CSR) point of view,” he says. “There are lots of people knocking on the door and you can’t support everything as we’ve learned. For me, the differentiator in Social Entrepreneurs Ireland is both the social impact that they have and the ability they have to get your people involved where they can make a tangible difference.”
Murphy notes how the younger generation, including those coming into the workforce now, have a very strong sense of social consciousness. Being part of an organisation that is involved in work that has a strong social impact can enhance the attractiveness of organisations as good places to work.
One of the highlights of the year for Murphy is The Gathering, an opportunity for the entire Social Entrepreneurs Ireland community to meet in a forum where the entrepreneurs and supporters network, share learnings and celebrate achievements. “Anybody who goes to The Gathering will walk out inspired by the energy and positivity in that room. I often say to the people who run Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, if you could just bottle that feeling, you’d have something really special.”