Another International Conference on Social Enterprise held by Oakfield Trust in Dublin City!

September 2023

On Tuesday November 21, 2023, Oakfield Trust hosted an International Conference on Social Enterprise, entitled ‘Social Enterprise: Addressing Sector Challenges and Networking’, in the fantastic Linkedin Community Space on the canal in Dublin City. A very diverse audience from all over third sector were treated to some great and passionate conversation about the more practical side of assisting the development of the sector and individual social enterprises and community organisations.

In Part 1, Oakfield Trust Social Impact Manager Gareth Ebbs introduced Martin Avila, CEO of Community Enterprise in Scotland, and Polly Chapman, CEO of Impact Hub Inverness. They talked us through the genesis and huge success of the Just Enterprise programme in Scotland. Just Enterprise is a government-funded consortium of Third Sector partners, providing business and enterprise support to social enterprise in Scotland, and have been a massive success since its very first regional pilot in 2011.


Martin and Polly avidly illustrated the Just Enterprise journey, and there was a discussion afterwards about how a similar approach to business support for social enterprise could work well in Ireland, and why it is very worthwhile to start building the foundations for it right now. As well as documenting the brilliant Just Enterprise journey, they spoke of the importance of collaboration between support organisations in order to build a consortium, identifying where the needs and capacity is, the importance of national management but local delivery, and effective lobbying by support organisations to work towards a pilot.


They were also joined briefly by John Logue, CEO of Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI), who gave us an interesting progress report on the Shared Services Model (SSM) pilot scheme currently recently launched by Donegal Local Development Company (DLDC). This enables three social enterprises to come together to hire one staff member who works across all three organisations.


There was certainly no shortage of enthusiasm and a huge consensus of support in the room, for what would be an extremely worthwhile initiative and boost for social economy organisations in Ireland. The medium-term goal is to work towards a pilot programme for a government-financed business support programme, and perhaps also to roll out the next iteration of the Shared Services Model on a larger scale in Ireland. Watch this space.

In Part 2, we drilled down a little bit into ‘Illustrating Social Impact’ with fantastic panellists, Eamon Ryan (Co-Founder, Social Impact Ireland), Sam Marchetti (Founder, ConsortiaCo) and Síofra Kelly (Business Development Manager, Rethink Ireland). We discussed many aspects of how to put your best foot forward in all kinds of scenarios such as: applying for funding, doing promotion for all purposes, approaching philanthropists, and generally for getting that all important 'foot in the door', catching someone's attention quickly and effectively, and getting your mission and message across in a cohesive and authentic manner. You can see those tips summarised in our Linkedin Post from December 14th or indeed watch video footage on the web in our videos section.


Huge thanks to all our guests and panellists for their excellent and warm contributions. Special mention goes to Sam for his very, very last minute, and enthusiastic co-opting into the panel! Thanks to Katrina Enros, Aisling O' Brien, Caroline and all at the Linkedin space for their efficiency and responsiveness. Thanks also to Gather & Gather for catering and to my trusty colleague Marie Duffin. Feedback on the event was excellent - we had a really productive few hours full of practical conversation on pushing social enterprise support initiatives forward, and tightening up how we put our best feet forward. We look forward to holding our next event in the near future to build on the success of this one. Oakfield Trust is registered charity and has been successfully supporting community organisations and social enterprises for 26 years.