297 | Accelerated Social Change Through the Power of People with Tim Griffiths
Our guest this week on the pod is Tim Griffiths. Tim is the CEO of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, an organization that supports people with innovative ideas to tackle Ireland’s social problems. They provide a range of programs - including Ideas Academy and the Changing Ireland Accelerator - as well as direct funding and access to an incredible community of alums, founders and sector leaders.
This episode is sponsored by the coaching company of our host, Zelizer Consulting Services.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland - an interview with Tim Griffiths
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer a transcript and the below summaries by Castmagic for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
You can read the full transcript of this episode here.
Timestamped Overview
[00:02:26] Tim shares professional background, worked with impressive organizations. Set up ad agency, grew to 140 people. Got involved with social entrepreneurship, switched careers full time two years ago.
[00:05:31] Declan Rhine founded the venture philanthropy organization in 2004. They support social entrepreneurs at different stages of development with different programs. Social Entrepreneurs Ireland have grown from a small team to a team of 20. They are launching the Changing Ireland Accelerator Program with support from Google.org, with four successful candidates receiving €60,000 in direct funding.
[00:11:02] Experience and individualized approach key for social entrepreneur support. Program continually evolving based on feedback and support from business community.
[00:13:57] Research suggests traditional accelerators may increase failure rates for social entrepreneurs due to lack of understanding about marginalized communities and their unique needs. This aligns with ongoing conversations in social networks.
[00:22:37] Clear vision and mission guide social entrepreneurs in choosing partners. Partners must align with their goals to achieve change efficiently. Money and support are not abundant, so choices must be made carefully.
[00:26:41] Social Entrepreneurs Ireland receives funding from corporates, individual philanthropy, and charitable foundations. They also receive international funding, especially from the US and the UK. They have various programs that go through rigorous selection processes involving multiple sets of eyes, including staff and supporters. They showcase their social entrepreneurs' work through events like The Gathering, which brings together all the social entrepreneurs they have worked with since 2004. The organization also provides opportunities for corporates to address specific problems faced by social entrepreneurs and empower their teams.
[00:32:15] Tim discusses social entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and community in achieving accelerated social change. The speaker highlights real-world examples and emphasizes the value of engagement in garnering support and resources.
[00:39:33] Social economy is growing, driven by social entrepreneurship. Governments don't always get it right, but social entrepreneurs help the economy grow faster. There is a lot of potential for exponential growth in the sector. Exciting growth opportunities lie ahead.
[00:41:47] Looking to increase support for social entrepreneurs, both in and out of programs, and build a larger community of supporters in a thoughtful, scalable way. Goal is a five-fold increase in pro bono hours but without exponentially growing the team.
[00:46:11] Tim shares 5 year goals. Listeners can suggest topics/guests via Awarepreneurs website. Thank you for listening.
Key Quotes
On The Growing Corporate Role in Social Entrepreneurship: "I think in the world that we find ourselves today, where we talk about sustainable development goals, we talk about ESG requirements, corporations are realizing that they need to play a much stronger role than they have done in the past in this space, and they're looking for opportunities to do that."— Tim Griffiths 00:20:42 - 00:22:32
On Making Mission-Aligned Decisions: "For a social entrepreneur, it actually comes down to being really clear, and we do quite a lot of work with our social entrepreneurs in this space of what is your vision and what is your mission? And that nearly becomes your sort of guardian for making any decision that you make for the organization, including the partners that you work with."— Tim Griffiths 00:22:37 - 00:24:38
On The Power of Being Human Centric: "It's about respect and nobody likes to be excluded from something for any reason, even if inclusion could be telling somebody, actually, we needed five people for this team and we had 50 applications, so we only have five. So I'm sorry you're not going to be part of it this time, but we will get you involved in something else somewhere down the line. And we do have conversations both with social entrepreneurs and corporates along those lines, but we're very clear and transparent in our communication and people know what the process is beforehand and they know why decisions are made afterwards. So I think it's just having that sort of integrity and empathy and sort of human centric approach in everything that we do."— Tim Griffiths 00:35:06 - 00:37:31
On Social Entrepreneurship in Ireland: "We think we've been really successful at finding social entrepreneurs. We think we've been really successful at giving them the programmatic supports that we've been able to give them, but it's trying to see how can we support people even better when they're not on our programs" - This quote highlights the need for more flexibility in supporting social entrepreneurs in Ireland and maximizing the impact of available resources.— Tim Griffiths 00:41:47 - 00:43:47