The UK side of the project has identified a series of case-studies that have been developed in the UK and internationally as per these links below Social Enterprise Coalition Social Enterprise Alliance Virtue Ventures HongKong Government Non-Profit Incubator What is not clear from the case-studies that are available is how successful (in financial terms or in social impact) these cases are. The criteria for selecting them is not clear. Another approach to identifying case-studies is to look with a region (like Northamptonshire) but it is difficult to distinguish between social enterprises and community groups. A third way is to look at award ceremonies in the social enterprise sector- like the Enterprising Solutions awards which provide criteria on which to judge them. When the CUEB team visited the UK, they visited Adrenaline Alley, which is a high profile social enterprise in the Northamptonshire region. The visit programme also concluded that social enterprises could operate in any sector of industry, although they work predominatly in the fields of social care and public service, some of the most exciting social enterprises operate in very unusual circumstances. The forward programme for the UK team is to invite guest speakers from social enterprises to speak to first year students about their operations. This will be videoed and these films will be streamed from this website. In Chinese, the same issues are also true- social enterprises operate in many sectors and take many forms. The case presented below is an example of the sorts of case-study material, and the investigative questions, that first year students at the University of Northampton are now engaging with, through this project. In addition, this case-study indicates the type of case-study material being developed by the students themselves about UK case-studies Miaolosophy- history with a modern touchWebsite for British Council profileProfile of the Miao people Images of Miao culture Miaolosophy is the brand for Mrs Lijun Liu, founder of an emerging social enterprise based in Beijing. Her fascination with the minority Miao people in China got her involved in a 2year research project which resulted in her employing a small number of women from the remote parts of China to produce woven cloth and jewelry which are brought to Beijing where long-term unemployed people are employed and trained to add value to the basic products through picture framing and other presentational improvements. The products are sold to government agencies and foundations for use as gifts. The social enterprise is basically self-sustaining but it's social mission is limited to the use of culturally and historically important crafts being productised for sale. Mrs Liu suggested that the Miao people produce these crafts for their own use, but not for purchase by other people and, as such, the poorer Miao people are more concerned with earning money than their cultural history. In areas where the average income is Y700-800, the Mrs Liu's employees can earn about Y1,300, although this is still very low compared to the Beijing average per capita income of Y30,000. Much of the added value of the product is achieved in Beijing where the framing improves the presentation of the products and where the experience of the access to the sales market is located. Mrs Liu owns the company and has invested much of her own capital in the business. This is because it has been found to be difficult to set up a co-operative where the Miao people would benefit from the significant value that is added in Beijing. She provides training to her employees, but this is limited to productivity related training. She is seeking to capture the tacit craft knowledge in a handbook which could be used to train new staff, although this could disenfranchise the Miao craftspeople. In June 2009, she won Y80,000 prize for the best social enterprise business plan for an existing venture in a British Council funded programme. She is very keen to internationalise her business to grow the turnover and profitability but needs help in placing the products and accessing capital.
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