The Value of Social Enterprise – Some get it, Some Don’t!

It’s been an amazing several months.  We’re still very wary of an economic melt down ( like many other small businesses) because of the economy.  We have a double whammy!  We are also losing  state and federal support for our workers with disabilities.   Let’s face it , survival of a real social purpose enterprise depends on a lot of hard work,  some luck,  and, as we’re finding out, constant communications to reach  more and more people. The essential ingredients of this social enterprise are  our purpose,  our social impacts, our quality products and service and our efforts of  branding all these elements into one .   Let’s restate that. It’s a matter of touching a maximum number of people with the importance of  our mission,  the significance of it’s outcomes and the quality of our products  to gain financial stability to continue operations and to grow.  That contact,  if successful should be enough to get by and hopefully grow our enterprises.

If, like The Nezinscot Guild,  you are creating businesses to employ people with developmental disabilities, you were always more social enterprise than the “dreaded” stereotype of   sheltered shops.  Most people who actually visit our manufacturing business or purchase our products and services see this immediately.  Over the last few years it has come as quite a shock and an enormous frustration that the management team in the Maine DHHS  has chosen to abandon The Nezinscot Guild’s social purpose enterprise after 30 years of partnership.  After all, we continue to provide 25 meaningful manufacturing jobs .  We are 90 + %  self sustaining.  To put that into perspective,  just one DHHS management position  salary and benefits would have been more than we needed for some breathing room on the balance sheet.  We were certainly giving the state of Maine a better bang for their buck than the Maine Care welfare money DHHS is drawing down from the Feds to support itself.   Apparently we failed in our communications with the powers that be at DHHS,  or maybe they just didn’t want to hear what we were saying.

Okay,   so that’s the down side of the challenges and responsibilities that we experience for trying to do good things for good people.  The upsides of running a social purpose enterprise are many.  Every day we get inquiries from people  who have visited our website  www.thenezinscotguild.com. These business people want us to know that they are glad they found us and want to support our mission by purchasing our products .  These enlightened business owners see the benefit of choosing our products because they are excellent quality , they meet their commercial needs and there is a social responsibility dividend.  To them its a very effective way of giving back to society by helping those whose daily lives are more challenging.  The silver lining to losing  support from the Maine DHHS is that we have to vigorously seek out these socially responsible business  people.  It’s a lot of hard work but we’re finding them and the connect is invigorating. To hear how people from near and far support what we’re doing recharges us.

Another  upside to our social enterprise is the daily contact we have with our workers.  They are so motivated to get to work and so grateful to be in a real work place.   Many of them have friends or housemates that go to MaineCare model facilities. These friends and housemates  spend their days not working and not earning money. 

 As employees go,  I’d put ours in the category of   “Best”.   They have a voracious appetite to work,  and a very strong desire to earn money and be consumers.   And like our customers who want to support our purpose,  our employees want to be an integral part of the quality reputation that defines The Nezinscot Guild.