Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5 minutes

Tune In: Finding inspiration for your social enterprise

20 minutes

Find Out: Your social enterprise solutions

25 minutes

Take Action: Completing your social enterprise business plan

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will...

generate ideas for their social enterprise
perform SWOT analyses of their enterprise ideas
create a business plan for their social enterprise.

Success criteria

Students can...

complete a SWOT analysis as a tool for assessing the overall strength of an enterprise idea
complete a business plan.

Tune In: Finding inspiration for your social enterprise

Step 1

In this lesson, students are going to decide upon their social enterprise and put together a business plan to set the rest of the process in motion. To kick things off, show students part of the following clip featuring Daniel Flynn, of the social enterprise Thankyou (the bottled water and body care product company). In this clip, Daniel explains how he came up with the idea behind Thankyou Water (the clip plays from 07:52 and can be watched until 09:54, or you can continue on to hear his responses to questions posed by former US President Barack Obama about why he wants to give back and where his entrepreneurial spirit came from).

President Barack Obama interviews Daniel Flynn – Obama Foundation Summit 2017 — Thankyou from 07:52 (https://youtu.be/3Dp8kFwptFM?t=472)

Step 2

As a class, briefly discuss:

What was the original social issue Daniel set out to address with Thankyou?
How did he and the other founders of Thankyou set about addressing the issue?
What was the inspiration for their social enterprise?

Here, we want to show students that their social enterprise can still address a social issue without the core business activity having to directly relate to the issue itself. Thankyou sells various products that aren't sold or given directly to the people they are trying to help, but they do use the profits from their sales to help these people. This is a good point to make to students as they come up with their own social enterprise - find a product or service that people will want to pay for, regardless of the cause sales are supporting, and channel the profits into addressing the social issue.

Find Out: Your social enterprise solutions

Step 1

Since the last lesson, students should have ideas buzzing around their heads for their social enterprise. Begin by asking students for ideas they have identified for their social enterprise. Make a list of these on the board for all to see. As a class, discuss what they believe are the most promising ideas for the social enterprise. Encourage students to discuss this as a group until they feel confident with the top ideas they have (aiming for four is probably a good ballpark for the next part of this activity).

For classes with shy or modest students who have good ideas but won't necessarily sing about them from the rooftops, you may wish to open an online idea submission system or a collection box of ideas that all students can place their ideas into on slips of paper. You could then nominate a student to select from the submission system and read them aloud, with another student taking notes of the suggestions on the board.

Step 2

Explain to students that before starting any business, the founders of that business need to do some thinking and research to ensure what they're proposing makes sense. After all, there's no point in starting a business if it's not going to be successful or profitable—otherwise, the organisation won't make any impact on their chosen social issue! One of the most common activities in analysing the strength of an enterprise idea is to perform a SWOT analysis. On the board, draw up four quadrants with 'Strengths', 'Weaknesses', 'Opportunities, and 'Threats'.

Step 3

Choose one of the ideas suggested by the class and work through a SWOT analysis with that example so that students can better understand the context of each of the four terms when it comes to assessing the viability of their ideas.

Step 4

Give the SWOT Analysis worksheet to each student so that they may take their own notes for each idea. Encourage students to assess the viability of each of the top ideas. Depending on how many ideas your class has, students could choose which idea they want to complete the SWOT analysis on, working individually, in pairs or in teams.

Step 5

As a class, discuss each of the ideas and its SWOT analysis. Following the discussion, come to an agreement as a class as to which of the ideas has the most merit. As the teacher, you might have more insight as to which ideas are most likely to get off the ground and so you may wish to contribute to the discussion but, as much as is possible, allow students to come to the decision themselves. Of course, you may wish to have several social enterprise projects run simultaneously, therefore allowing students to choose more than one idea to run with. Where the same students wish to run with the same idea, encourage them to band together and to amplify each other's efforts, rather than creating competition with the same idea - a rising tide lifts all ships!

Learning extension: Students could rate their ideas using the ICE Scoring Model, which assesses the Impact, Confidence and Easy of each idea out of 10 which are then multiplied together to give each idea a score.

Take Action: Completing your social enterprise business plan

Step 1

With a social enterprise idea clear in their heads, the next step is perhaps the most important of all: creating a business plan. Explain to students that a business plan is a document used to plan all the details of their social enterprise. Business plans address all of the logistics involved in operating a business and will see them think about what they plan to offer, who they will offer it to, what their costs will be, how much they will charge, and several other crucial aspects of planning. For students, it might not be a white-knuckle thrill ride but it is incredibly important that they work through the business plan, otherwise, their social enterprise will not be as impactful as they hope it will be.

Step 2

Before starting their plan, ask students to look back at their strengths from lesson two as a refresher. Encourage students to re-read their notes and make any changes they might want to. Ask students to consider:

Have they shown any new talents previously unrecognised?
Are they actually less strong in a specific area than they originally thought?
Which of their strengths will be useful for their social enterprise?
What strengths do they not possess but will want in their enterprise? This is particularly important for determining who should be assigned which roles in the team.

We want students to remind themselves of their strengths, so don't dwell too much on this activity, spending a couple of minutes on this at most.

Step 3

Hand out the Business Plan worksheet, and set each group of students the task of documenting all the ideas and strategies they have chosen to include for their social enterprise. If you're working on the enterprise as a class, you may wish to have students take turns posing the questions on the plan while other students record the details. The plan is a working document throughout the rest of the project and can be changed, added to and updated as needed. Working through the business plan will likely take more time than you have left in the lesson. You may wish to use the entire next lesson to continue working through the plan.

You can see examples of other business plans from schools that have participated in the Social Enterprise Schools program here:
• Example Business Plan 1
• Example Business Plan 2

Step 4

With a completed business plan, your students are ready to work their way through the actions discussed in the plan to set up, run and continue working on their social enterprise.

Reflection

Step 1

Having completed the lesson's activities, ask students to consider the following and record their thoughts in their notebooks.

In completing the SWOT analysis, how did you view your ideas differently? What surprised you?
What did you learn about your product or service that was most helpful?
Through this lesson, what surprised you most? What did you find challenging?

Social Enterprise Education - Planning Your Social Enterprise

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