The Irish Landscape of Social Entrepreneurship
Tim Griffiths is the Chief Executive Officer of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, an organization that has worked with over five hundred social entrepreneurs in Ireland since its founding in 2004. In this work, Tim helps accelerate social entrepreneur’s vision through a network of dynamic and professional supporters to create enduring social change through the power of people.
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (AI translation is still improving), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Tim Griffiths:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey. And I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tim Griffis. He is the CEO of social entrepreneurs Island, an organization that has worked with over 500 social entrepreneurs and islands since its founding in 2004. And this work, Tim helps accelerate social entrepreneurs vision through programs and a network of dynamic and professional supporters to create enduring social change through the power of people. Tim, it's such a pleasure to have this conversation with you. It's great to be here, Morgan, thank you. Well, first of all, I mean, I'm excited about your Irish accent, because I feel like it's one thing as Americans, you know, like, our accent, I guess, to ask this kind of bland. And, you know, anytime I hear somebody with a British and Irish accent, I feel like no matter what they say they just sound smarter.
Tim Griffiths 1:05
But I'm not, I'm not so sure about that. But having just returned from a trip from the States, it was nice to be to share my Irish accent,
Morgan Bailey 1:14
new and old friends in the States. I love that. So Tim, you have a really fascinating background, you began in advertising, you now help work with social entrepreneurs. I'm curious. How did you? How did you shift away from from advertising? Or what was it that led you to really believe in social entrepreneurs so much to shape your career in that pathway? Yeah, well, I think for me, personally, my path sort of crossed that sort of, of advertising and social entrepreneurship, about halfway through my career, which was about sort of 15 years ago. And I, you know, I'm fortunate that I had a very sort of good and happy career in the in the advertising world.
Tim Griffiths 1:56
And about 15 years ago, I myself was looking to do something else and to give something back to society, because I wasn't doing anything at that space. And I got approached by a former client and a friend of mine, who was in the process of setting up a show in our in our in tool, so operation, social entrepreneurship space. And they're an organization that were actually founded in the States, I think, back in the 70s, or the early 80s. And at the concept, certainly in Ireland, social entrepreneurship was a really new thing. I'd certainly never heard of it myself. So this, this friend of mine, polar bears his name. And he asked me to get involved, knowing that marketing skills would be important for social entrepreneurship, because there were so many great stories to be told there. So that was really my introduction to it. And for the last sort of 15 to 20 years, all the pro bono work that I'd done, was in was in the social entrepreneurship space. And some of those years, it was very little. But some of those years, it was quite intensive, you know, and I probably raised and between, I don't know, five and 7 billion euros in advertising space for social entrepreneurship during that period, which by Irish numbers is a big number is a big number. So that was all very exciting. And then just as I was getting to the stage, where I was just feeling a lot more passionate about the word social entrepreneurship than I was about the word of advertising. And I had the opportunity to make the jump, and that jump I made. Wow. And I think that's so true for many people who start laying in the social entrepreneurship space, because it's, I mean, it's business.
Morgan Bailey 3:30
But it's business with a purpose and a sense of meaning to it. Yeah,
Tim Griffiths 3:37
I think that's the challenge. And we come across this all the time. I think it's it is business. And it comes with all the challenges that that an ordinary business has, you know, so you've got to employ people, you've got to look after your revenue, you've got to look after your costs, you've got to market your business, you've got to have a sales strategy, all of those things that an ordinary business does. But on top of that, a social enterprise also is totally wedded and totally following their mission and their vision of what they're trying to do. So they will make decisions that are true to the mission and vision. And that if you were just looking at the commercial angle, you might make a different decision. And that makes it harder to run a business because you've got two masters so effectively, of that, that dictates are defined. So you run the business so that, for me, it's inspiring to see how driven the social entrepreneurs that we work with are and how where did they are to the mission, I'm really wanting to make that social change. Like they are so true to what it is. But it also inspires us to want to help them because knowing that they've got a harder journey than an average business. And I guess that's the fundamentals about what we're about.
Morgan Bailey 4:47
Yeah, absolutely. And you you really honed in on something I think really important is that, you know, for social entrepreneurs, it is business they face all the pressures, particularly social entrepreneurs who focus on for profit enterprise As they're faced with all the challenges that other businesses are in terms of profitability, and they have that extra piece of social impact, right, which is, for most photographers, the reason they got into the game, yeah. And they have to manage both of those stressors, and it's something that I often call the double burden, right? That, that non social entrepreneurs don't have to deal with. And so, it sounds like is that you know, and so maybe maybe jumping in a little bit about the work you do with social entrepreneurs, Ireland, or these sorts of challenges that you help entrepreneurs navigate? Yeah, no,
Tim Griffiths 5:39
and we come across it all the time. And it's, it's funny, because we do work with some social entrepreneurs, who don't have the business, the pure business model, and possibly, they're never going to make commercial money, you know, in the way that others will. So their business model actually becomes a philanthropic one, and we help them set up structurally as a charity, and help them with fundraising, help them understand that that side of things as well. But, you know, for the ones that do have that sort of commercial angle, and do have the opportunity to make money, it's very much we support them with and we support them across the full range of business skills that they need. We either upskill them them themselves with, with those skills, or their team with those skills, or we find people who can come in and support them. And that could be anything, you know, from whether it's legal support, or financial support, or marketing support, or sales support, or whatever it might be, we're always looking to help them to advise them and to, you know, and sometimes, you know, like, depending on the social entrepreneur themselves, but they haven't always come from a business background. So for somebody like me, who does have a background in business, some of these things are quite obvious. But for someone who hasn't come from that background, they're not. So we help them on that journey. And ultimately, we're consultants and we're advisors, but it's the social entrepreneur themselves, who are the CEOs who have to actually have to make the decision. But we can afford them as best we can. And I can inform them of my experience saying, you know, actually, I had a similar problem in my business world, I went down this route, and it didn't work, because, and at least give them that sort of lived experience that they can, they can see, and not just me, by the way, but we have a whole host of serious, experienced business, people who support us and mentor some of our social entrepreneurs, I'm really giving them the benefit of their experience to help them in their decision making going forward.
Morgan Bailey 7:32
And so I want to pause for a sec, because I know there, there are many individuals who are struck between whether or not they should be a social enterprise or a nonprofit, how do you help people decide which model is best for them?
Tim Griffiths 7:45
Yeah, it's, you know, there's a lot of question and answers, you know, and it's trying to work out, you know, what the best way to go about it is, ultimately, I think, is, you know, if we think there's a very strong sort of revenue opportunity there, to really stand on their own two feet is really where we're going to go down that sort of social enterprise, you loosen and doing it in that way. And, and, but there's a there's a lot of conversations that go on. And you know, and just really stress testing, where we think the future and it's trying to look, not just six months ahead, but actually, three 510 years ahead, what will this look like when it's fully formed? You know, because we're dealing with people who are very much on that journey to setting something up and starting something. But what's it going to look like when it's fully formed, because you might make a decision now, to set up as a nonprofit, which might actually curtail you in the future. You know, if you haven't set up as a social enterprise, we actually have one of the people that we've supported to have actually split into two and have both a nonprofit had a social enterprise element that that's going on as well. So there's a lot of conversations that go on. And, you know, we're very fortunate to have some some, you know, one of the leading legal firms in Ireland are called a and our good buddies, and they give us a lot of legal support, not just for us as an organization, but to all the social entrepreneurs. So you're getting the best legal advice, the best financial advice to make those decisions when we're when we're making those decisions.
Morgan Bailey 9:16
Do you have some examples of some of the the social enterprises and that you've helped? And kind of like, what is this scale? What are the sorts of challenges they're working on? And what is ultimately that business model look like?
Tim Griffiths 9:29
Yeah, so Yeah, listen, we've plenty of examples. And and, and just before I get into it, just to say that, you know, of that sort of 500 plus that we've supported over the last 20 years, we're kind of idea agnostic, so it can be anything so we've supported people are operating in the areas of climate change, diversity and inclusion, mental health, integration, ever everything that we do. And I think one of our sort of best known case studies of people that we supported is an organization called foodcloud and foodcloud was set up by two ladies is Sultan Evie, who both met together in university and Trinity College Dublin. And their passion is the whole area of food waste, and 30% of the food that you and I see on a supermarket shelf everyday goes in the bin for whatever reason, at the end of the day, and a food waste was a country, I think it would be the third biggest emitter of carbon that you know as a as an IT. So it's a huge problem for the across the globe. And what they have developed is cutting edge technology, which means that the people who are in the market who are about to throw the waste away at the end of the day, this what that is that goes through to the food hub sort of Mission Control straightaway, they see that say actually, we're sending one of our trucks down to now we're going to take that food away and put it into our warehouse and redistributed to other charities in time. And the 30% that we can't take right now, because it's perishable, and it won't keep in our warehouse, we're sending five or six local charities to you. And we're going to redistribute that to local charities that night. And, and today, they set up seven, eight, maybe nine years years ago now. They employ 70 people about 10 miles away from where I'm sitting now. And they've got hubs in various places across Ireland. And they've been exporting their technology and looking in partnering up with people in the UK, they've done some work in Australia, and they're doing some work in Africa at the moment, and Pilarczyk, putting some stuff in Africa at the moment. And we gave them their very, very first grant, which I think was something like 200 years, you know, like they did, they did get more from us over the time. But the very, very first branch we gave him some was something really, really small like that. And I think you know, and actually, the lovely sort of round circle to that story is thistles Ward, who is one of the co founders and sits on their board. So as the CEO sits on our board today, you know, and it's fantastic to have a social entrepreneur of that caliber, you know, representing social entrepreneurs around our boardroom table. So and they're just a fantastic organization. But there are plenty more. We recently have been working with an organization called mobility Mojo. And again, an interesting story. They have two founders. So Steven Chlumsky and Noel Daly. And they both applied for one of our programs, but they applied independently. But they're quite similar ideas. So we actually put them both together. And they've sort of formed mobility moto together. And both Steven and Noel are wheelchair users. And they were looking particularly in the hospitality industry about how do you make big buildings accessible. And their vision I think is to make every building in the world accessible, not just for people with wheelchairs, but for with with any disability. And what they do, again, they developed a piece of technology where if you were running a hotel or a restaurant, you download their technology and you can self assess. And within 45 minutes, you've been able to give yourself a score. And if you get a score of nine out of 10, fantastic you market yourself, you're saying I'm doing really well come here. But if you get your score at two out of 10, you either hide behind the couch and do nothing about it, or you do something about it, and you upgrade your premises and your property and you make it better. So that's fantastic. But then the global pandemic came along, pretty much every hotel in the world closed down for spring for six months. So what they were able to do is to pivot and they're now while continuing to look in the hospitality area by looking at workspaces, and the amount of organizations now that are redefining their workspace, where there's a lot of versions of hybrid working going on. And people say actually, my office needs to be used in a different way different meeting spaces, different sitting down spaces. So they're helping and advising that and charging for that consultancy service. And again, actually, I'm not quite sure how many people that are employed today. But they really have sort of a global potential footprint of what they could do. And they're doing some really exciting stuff and partnering up with some of the some of the big global organizations and some of the big sort of Office services companies as well.
Morgan Bailey 14:04
It's really, it's really inspiring to hear that and to hear those stories, and particularly how you, you know, the two people came in to your program, you know, with similar ideas, and you were able to sort of to match those and to kind of see you, you kind of, you know, it see, you know, what that grew into? Yeah.
Tim Griffiths 14:24
So,
Morgan Bailey 14:25
you know, when you you've been in this this industry for, you know, for several decades, right, so you've seen that grow? I'm curious, how have you seen the desire for more social entrepreneur shippers for more social enterprise in the market has that? Is that growing?
Tim Griffiths 14:45
Yeah. Oh, there's no, there's no doubt it's growing. You know, if I go, you know, as I was saying, when I started my journey, you know, the guts of 20 years ago, and there was very little awareness and very little demand, you know, for what was going on in this space. I think Where you see it are now it's a lot busier space. There are a lot more social entrepreneurs out there, there are a lot more organizations like ours who are trying to help them in various shapes and sizes in various ways. I think from a specifically Irish perspective, our government is in the process of writing its second paper on social enterprise, having written the first one, three or four years ago. So prior to that there was no government paper on social enterprise, there was no government view on social social enterprise. So the fact that the government is getting interested in it is, I think they're beginning to see and the broader society began to see that the role and the importance that social entrepreneurs and social enterprise plays to the overall ecosystem and to the overall economy. And the way I talk about it a little bit is that if you look at, you know, an economy, you know, with just standard things in place, it'll probably be on a steady growth, yes, there's the up and down, but there's a steady growth. But then you inject an entrepreneur in there who comes up with a break the mold type idea, and all of a sudden, you get a jump up, and things grow quicker. So overall, that steady line grows at a much higher rate because of the value that entrepreneurs that it's exactly the same in the social economy. If you have a government looking after the social needs of other population in a society, in general, a well intentioned government will improve things over a period of time, that object social enterprise interest and inject social entrepreneurs in it, that rises at a much quicker space and a better space. And I think governments, certainly in Ireland and across the world are beginning to realize that. And so there was a lot more interest now. And also, from a corporate perspective, you know, we're all talking about sustainable development goals, you know, the, you know, environmental, social governance ESG targets that corporations are talking about these days, you talk about companies who are setting themselves up as B corpse. No. So, you know, corporate, the corporate world is taking a far greater interest of seem to be responsible citizens, in many way driven by two things, one, their consumers and to their staff, you know, people want to like I know, when I was starting my career, I didn't interview the organization, I was going to go for an estimate as what was their view on the environment? Or what was their view on equality. But people are asking that in interviews today, and if companies don't have the right answers, where people will go and work for somebody else, or they'll buy their product for somebody else. So there's real commercial imperatives for poor corporations to get more involved. And there are a lot more conscious of it. I didn't say today than they were two or three years ago, let alone five or six years ago. So I think the world is changing. And I think largely for the better in people embracing the power of social enterprise.
Morgan Bailey 17:39
Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that point. And from my experience, in perhaps it's just as my awareness has grown in the social entrepreneurship space, but even over the past three or four years, I think there's been a massive outpouring of, of, of social entrepreneurs, and businesses looking to, to work more in the social space. And I think some of that came out of a pandemic. I mean, the pandemic was, was a social problem that none of us could could back away from. And it's something that all of us and all of a sudden work became very tied to social challenges during that time, and it was very visible, and particularly in the US as well. You know, after the murder of George Floyd, the businesses were really looked at to take a stance. And and I think that businesses are, it's becoming more and more difficult for businesses to sit back and say, Hey, we're, we're agnostic to social and environmental problems. Yeah. I'm curious. And that's been the experience here in the US at least. What's that been like? What's that climate been like in Ireland?
Tim Griffiths 18:49
Yeah, I think it's very true. And there's some we live in a pretty much a global world, you know, at the moment, so, you know, even things like, you know, the Black Lives Matter thing very much made its way across the Atlantic to art to arms, as well, and the me to movement, as well. So it's definitely here. And, and people are a lot more sort of conscious about how organizations behave, and they want the people they work to, to stand for something, you know, and people want to go in, you know, whether you're going into an ad agency, or you're going to work for a bank, or whoever it might be, I think people want to say that I work for an organization of reputation and integrity. Who are we're all trying to be good citizens as part of the world and contributing to the overall good. So it's, it's definitely the case in Ireland and interesting for me, like I'm in my early 50s. And the Ireland that I grew up in, you know, 3035 years ago is completely different to the art that I see today. And there's two fundamental things. One, we were a relatively poor country. Today. We're a relatively wealthy country. You know, as I said, I've just returned from a trip to the states. And one of the things What I learned was that aren't are now the ninth biggest investors into the United States, which is an incredible thing for a country with a population of 5 million. And, but we've always just had such a great relationship with the states, you know, over the last, you know, 70 or 100 years and beyond. And so that's, that's, you know, a really important part of that, that sort of economic thing that's going on as well.
Morgan Bailey 20:26
Wow. If I didn't know that night, you said the ninth largest investor in the United States. Yeah,
Tim Griffiths 20:33
I didn't know that as well, like, like the the the US like most of the big US tech companies have the European headquarters in Ireland. So whether that's Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know, a lot of these companies, Salesforce, they will have big headquarters in Ireland. And that all happened, you know, over the last sort of 1520 years. And I think at the time, what we had was a very young, educated English speaking workforce. Also, we're geographically closer to the States than any other country in Europe. But it's been a really positive investment. And it's made a huge difference to like our and we're far wealthier country than we are. But what it's also meant is actually, we're far more cosmopolitan country. So the country that I grew up in was exclusively white. Today, I think one or 20 of us do not speak English as their main language in art. And you know that, so it's a huge, different country, and we're far more cosmopolitan country and a lot more for the better. But with that comes social challenges as well. How do we integrate people of different cultures into arms, which is something that we have didn't have to do before. So we support an organization called mother tongues, which helps people where English isn't the first language in the household, and particularly those young kids who are going into the education system, and helps them embrace their culture and share their culture with other people. So they can actually become more integrated quickly into into local society and be of the indigenous Irish people learn about other cultures and these other people coming in, as we try and teach our culture to these people as well. And I think we all grow and become a greater whole because of that.
Morgan Bailey 22:04
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think that diversity adds so much flavor, and so much perspective and so much, it's a melting pot of wisdom. And what comes out of that can be pretty powerful. Yeah. So one thing I want to ask you just because your your deep experience in supporting so many different social enterprise and social entrepreneurs is, you know, for many, there's still a dichotomy between doing well and doing good, right, being able to make money and make an impact, right. And I think like, at a minimal, you know, like, Okay, well, we can maybe have a corporation that will, that will, you know, donate some money, right? Like that's at the very minimum model, right? Like doing some good. Part of me is always wonder like, what is the boundary of that, like, can can impact and business be fully meshed? Is there limitations to how much business can make an impact before it starts eroding ROI? We'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Tim Griffiths 23:02
Yeah. Listen, I think it's interesting. And I think it takes many different forms, I think, from a supporter perspective, as in corporates who are donating money, money to us, and I think it can make a difference. And I've, I've always been of the view, that social enterprise needs business we need sometimes we plain and simple, we need their money. But other times we need their skills, their expertise that they can bring to the table. As we were discussing earlier, I think where the world is today, that businesses need social enterprise as much as I want to show social enterprise since then. So yes, I think money is really important. And it is, I think businesses of the future, are going to be redefined. By having a mission and vision and doing good as part of what it is that they're doing, and doing the right thing as part of this. And that means that yes, somebody else can come in and run a business more efficiently and potentially make more money. But I don't think that's going to be the actual measure of success of a business. I think there's effectively going to be, yes, financial measures, and were brilliant financial measures, they will look at all the corporate reporting, every organization has to do look at measures like GDP GNP, all these things that we can measure purely in a financial space. But I think there's going to be a lot more measuring about well being, you know, what is the general sense of how people are how your citizens are in society. And I think we as a society should judge ourselves about how we treat the weakest people in society, not the strongest people in society. And there are so many things that have probably happened over the last 30 or 40 years, as the world has become far more globalized and far more commercialized, that we've really just focused on the numbers and a lot less of the well being and I think the dial is beginning to go back. It's why we see social enterprise growing in importance and relevance now, I think That will continue. And I think organizations it's like, you know, you look at something like the B Corp movement, you know, and there are other measures that they are putting in, and they're continually evolving. But it's looking at other things other than just how much money you make it, and you make it in the most efficient way. And I think the world is changing it. And these things never happen, just like that. But I think maybe in 10 years time, we'll be seeing that companies will be judging themselves differently. And you already see it coming into companies on your reports, as they report on things like sustainability and diversity inclusion.
Morgan Bailey 25:33
Yeah, I think that the more and more we see the the clear lines between businesses and social impact, right, because I mean, you think about it from historical perspective. Most of the social and environmental challenges have been brought about by business. You look at the world structure. I mean, it's been it's been brought about by business. I mean, colonization, was business. Right? That was, you know, business run by governments. Right. I mean, and so being a, I think business is required to deconstruct that. You talked about deconstructing racism that's like, well, business was a massive tool for that in the stratification of society. So I think you're absolutely right, I think it's, we're going to start to see that that's more and more. And you know, how we can start to see business as a source of as a source of healing, right, as a source of good, right, like, and in my view, I'm like, if a business isn't doing net positive for the world, it shouldn't exist. Yeah. Simple as that.
Tim Griffiths 26:39
Like, I think a simple measure is if you look at, roughly speaking, 30 years ago, the average CEO earns something like 15 times the average employee today is three, four, or 500 times the the average employee. And one of the things that's happened in that time is that most organizations have gone from giving a defined benefit pension to a defined contribution pension. So in a defined benefit pension, the employee has some certainty about the income that they're going to earn at retirement age, in defined contribution, they're probably going to contribute less than the company would have done previously. And and they're probably going to make financial decisions based on short term decisions as in I need to pay for the kids school now, or I want to go on a holiday or whatever it is, rather than thinking about investing for 30 or 40 years beyond. And what you find now in most countries, there's big debates going on in France at the moment about pension age, pardon certainly has pension issues, as a younger population is because it is becoming older, and you're putting stresses on there. Why did companies make the decision? Well, they made that decision to reduce the cost base. And they why did they reduce the cost base to increase shareholder value? And if you ask the average man on the street, how many shareholders did they know? The answer is not that many, and you're probably talking about the top 5% of population. So to me, that was a real clear case of businesses taken from the common man to give to an elite. Yeah, which is to your point about social problem has been caused by business, you know, and I think that businesses should probably be looking to go back here, and actually say, sometimes, you know, we had a really good model here that supported everybody going forward. And really does every CEO need to earn, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, in that in that sort of space? And is there a way that that it can be a more equitable and more balanced place? And it comes back to my point about how we look after the weaker people in society rather than the stronger people in society?
Morgan Bailey 28:35
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that, you know, I think there's probably much larger discourse on that, you know, because, I mean, especially how technology is now playing a role in creating some of those inequities, you know, that jobs are now being outsourced, you know, from technology, you have greater consolidation of wealth by the people on those technologies. It's going to be really, in some, it's interesting, and frankly, a little bit alarming to see where that trend is going. Yeah.
Tim Griffiths 29:03
But I think, like, on the flip side, I think we're certainly seeing more and more social entrepreneurs coming to us where technology is the heart of their solutions. And they're able to, and what technology does give the advantage of of a usually being able to do things quicker, and also to being able to spread geographically quicker as well, you know, so there's some very interesting people want one of the people that was on one of our recent programs, is an organization called Bio wave, red led by two people, Brandon and Evelyn. And they talk about their businesses about controllers. So gaming controllers, for people playing what I used to call video games back at pep back back in the day, and these controllers are fine if you're fully abled, but if you've got some sort of hand disability in some shape, or form, you become excluded at quite a young age, actually, from your peer group of friends. And that can lead to all sorts of social issues going forward. So They've designed a Modular Controller that no matter what your hand issue is, you can design this to your specific needs, which means you can still be included in what your friends are doing or what your peers are doing. And you can develop things going forward. That's very much a sort of engineering design technology led solution. games are played globally these days. So that's something that can go go through globally, and they've just raised 2.4 million in capital to move to their next stage of development. So again, you know, I think technology does do some some really good things as well. But we do have to have that open eye, as you say, to the people who are getting left behind, you know, through a lot of things that are going on.
Morgan Bailey 30:37
Absolutely. So I, I want to spend some time talking about the organization's social entrepreneurs, Ireland, and specifically like, for, like, how is it structured, you know, for those who might be interested in learning about the program, because then you have several different programs. Talk to us a little bit about what that process looks like.
Tim Griffiths 30:58
Yeah. So firstly, our vision is accelerated social change through the power of people. And we look to support social entrepreneurs no matter where they are on their journey. So we have and we start off with what we do, we call this our national call, which is basically a marketing campaign to let people know that we are running some programs if they want to apply for them. And the first one of those programs is what we call the ideas Academy. And this year, we're going to be taking in 30, social entrepreneurs who are going to come on to the ideas Academy. And they are people who've literally just come up with their idea, and they don't know what to do next. And so they come to us, we'll give them a very small amount of money. But we'll give them a three month course, which is just to help them really flesh out to sort of stress test the social problem, they're addressing the idea they come up with, and start talking to them a little bit about corporate structures, talk to me about digital marketing, getting them towards the pilot stage of those 30 will then take seven or eight of them will move them onto what we call our Action Lab. And they will get between five and 7000 euros worth of a direct grant, but also another three to six months worth of sports, which is getting them to that pilot stage and going through at that stage. But also, as part of that application process, we'll get applications for our mid level program, which is what we call our impact program. So by a wave, the controller group, I just talked about that as the program that they did our impact program, we get every year in the region of 100 applications for that, we long listed down to four, she we interviewed 12 And we take five onto our program, the pipe that come on to the program, we get 20,000 euros in donations, and they get nine months worth of bespoke support. So you know, it's not all five organizations get the same support, it's very much down to the individuals where they are in their journey and what they need. And that program is supported by Kennedy Wilson, who have representations both in the States and in Ireland. And then we've just, literally just last week finished the application for our third program, which is what we call our changing r&d accelerator. And this has come across because Google has just invested half a million euros interest, which we're obviously delighted today to debate and the changing of accelerator program, we thought we were going to get 40 applications second reveal we've had 72 and which we're delighted about and we're just going through the selection process for that at the moment. And we will be starting that program in the third quarter of the year. And we are going to take four organizations and those four organizations will have had a leaning towards coming from a disadvantaged community, and they will all get a year's worth of supports for us, including 60,000 euros worth of direct funding. So that's a really, you know, big, big thing for us. And you know, and I think it's, you know, from our the way we operate is that we're privately funded. So we do have you know what I've mentioned, some of the corporations and people like Bank of America support our ideas Academy and DCC are great supporters of ours as well. And permanent TSB support our community program as well. And that represents about 30% of the revenue that we get. But the majority of it comes from philanthropy, individual philanthropy and charitable foundations. And, and after that, about 20% of that gets sourced from the States, you know, and, you know, I said I was over there recently, a lot of that was visiting a lot of our friends connects with the armed funds are a great supporters of ours, and they help reinvest money from people who are from the Irish diaspora who have done well in the States and are looking to invest back in back back back into art. So the, you know, it's a constant challenge for us how we fund ourselves, because we want to support as many social entrepreneurs as we can, and we want to support them in as deeper way as we can. And we need the supports both on the corporates and individuals and we're lucky to have a very good community of supporters who help us do that.
Morgan Bailey 34:50
I mean, it sounds like a very robust and, and targeted impact that that you're having here. And I'm curious, you know, when you look at those applications, are there trends in terms of Have what sorts of businesses or sort of social or environmental focus that that people are coming up with?
Tim Griffiths 35:08
Yeah, I think I think it's really interesting because yes, is the straight answer. And I always say that in many ways, I think we're a nerdy, like an early warning system for society and issues that are that are coming up. Because and, you know, some of the people that apply to us have lived in experience of whatever the social problem is that that they're trying to solve. And sometimes it comes to us and say, Gosh, I didn't realize that was a social problem. But then you hear speak, they talk you through it, and you realize, oh, my gosh, this is a social problem that we need to address it. So in recent years, like last year, the biggest single area that we had applications for were in the area of climate change, which I guess is no great, great surprise, although it had been lowered here before as as it happens. But climate change is certainly up there. And diversity and inclusion, you know, is very big. You know, as I said, RMS has changed a lot over the last, you know, 30 years. So there are a lot of sort of growing pains, you know, through that. So a lot of the issues are in our in that space.
Morgan Bailey 36:08
Absolutely. And are you are you seeing anything in terms of like, I guess like the demographics, are people younger? Are they coming from certain regions? Yeah,
Tim Griffiths 36:17
no, we're, it's important to say actually, we're an all Ireland organization. So we operate both in Northern Ireland, and in Southern Ireland. And no, I don't think there's any grayish push, we did have those local Charitable Foundation who've been great supporters of ours called the life's too good foundation, and they had a particular interest in the west of Ireland. So we did a couple of extra sort of things in that space. And that certainly generation bit of extra demand that was coming from the west of Ireland, you know, roughly speaking, a third of the population of the Republic of Ireland, is in the greater Dublin area. So you know, our applications are probably in line with that, with that population split, what we do see is that there's certainly a skew towards we tend to get more female applications than than than male applications. So I don't know the exact statistic, but it's probably about 6575, or something, something, something of that region. And but no, geographically, largely speaking, it's sort of in keeping with the population of the country.
Morgan Bailey 37:20
And then there's a skew towards a younger generation.
Tim Griffiths 37:22
Ya know, the yes, and no, as you probably know, is probably the straight out, we certainly get a whole host of younger people, yeah, being really interested. But we have some amazing people who are towards the end of their careers, we were working with a fabulous lady at the moment called Mary Moore, who is running an organization called decode dyslexia. And it which is all about teaching people and having a way of teaching people with with dyslexia. And one in five of us have dyslexia of some shape or size. And also, when you get into things like the prison system has a far greater proportion of people in the prison system have dyslexia. So if you can address that at a much earlier age, you can really improve society. And Mary has had a career of about 30 years, you know, teaching kids with dyslexia. And she's, as she says, herself, it's as if she's been in a cave, and she had her way of teaching. And she's been evolving that over the years. And she came out of her cave, realizing that she couldn't do this alone. And she needed to spread the word. And realize that the world kind of stayed plot over the last 30 years, and her model has evolved. And it's evolved a little bit further. So she's a token evangelist of what she's doing. But I'd argue that she couldn't be doing what she's doing without having had 30 years of experience, you know, to know, so there are some definitely some cases of people who are at the older spectrum, who are just bringing their experience to bear. But yes, there's a huge driver of younger people as well, who are very motivated and very passionate about building a better world.
Morgan Bailey 38:54
Well, thanks for sharing all that. I feel like, uh, you know, it's gonna be exciting to see the impact. I'm very curious to see the impact produce Google program that sounds like you know, Google funded programs sounds like a really, really powerful way. Now, you know, what's, you know, when you look forward for social entrepreneurship, Ireland, and I guess, just social entrepreneurship in Ireland? How do you see that playing out over the next decade?
Tim Griffiths 39:15
Yeah, well, I think Listen, it's a really exciting time. You know, I'm, personally I'm in this role two years now. And I think it's a really exciting time to be working in the area of social enterprise. There are so many brilliant ideas and brilliant people coming through. And as we said earlier, there's such excitement about the space now and the broader population getting more interested. So I think that's really good for us. And what I am looking to do, as we look to deliver on that promise of accelerated social change through the power of people, is really to build up a really big community of people out there who are going to be part of our tribe, basically, and to help us support people going forward. Because if we're going to do it, we can't do it alone. You know, I said, we're a privately funded charity. I don't think it's in our interests or in our supporters interest that I build up a massive team of people. So I think we're always going to say a very lean and what we're doing, but we're going to need extra support. So we're very much looking about how we can get other people in to help us both financially, but also with their skills and, and expertise. So I don't know, I don't have a number on it. But I'd love to be talking to you in 10 years time to say that I've got a tribe of two or 3000 people who are part of our community who are helping social entrepreneurs, you know, every day and what to do. And so we're starting that journey at the moment.
Morgan Bailey 40:34
I love that. And I look for that conversation in 10 years. Yeah, me too. So if people want to get to know more about social Ontario of Ireland and its programs, how might they do so?
Tim Griffiths 40:44
So well, our website is social entrepreneurs dot E. And we're on all the usual social media channels, I think probably LinkedIn or Twitter are probably the best places to see us there. So social entrepreneurs are, you'll find us pretty quickly there. We also have a YouTube channel, which actually some of the people that I've mentioned through the course of this, we've got little sort of two or three minute videos that will show you a little bit more about the ideas that they're doing there. So if you look us up on YouTube, you'll find is they're
Morgan Bailey 41:09
amazing. And I'll drop that link into the show notes all the time. I really appreciate this conversation. I feel like I have a much greater, much greater concept and idea of what that looks like within Ireland. And just really appreciate all the work that you're doing and excited to see all the impact that comes out of it.
Tim Griffiths 41:27
That's great. Well, thank you very much, Morgan. I really enjoyed the talk, and it's great to be able to talk to your listenership as well. So thank you.
Morgan Bailey 41:34
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Prophet meets impact podcast. If you'd enjoy this experience, please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at www.profitmeetsimpact.com