Social Enterprise Spotlight – Bad Idea Organisation CIC
In our latest Social Enterprise Spotlight is Anthony Gerrard and Bad Idea Organisation CIC – a social enterprise that encourages young people’s creativity and entrepreneurialism through training, competitions and their digital communiity. Get in touch with Anthony on 0141 332 4360 / g@badidea.org.uk and check out www.badidea.org.uk. Connect with them on Twitter too.
Every few weeks we focus on a randomly selected social enterprise member for intense marketing support and promotion. Bad Idea Organisation CIC will feature in all e-bulletins, on our website homepage and on all our social media, alongside other support, reaching thousands of people across Scotland and beyond.
What’s your social and/or environmental mission? We’re here to inspire young people to transform their futures. We do this by encouraging their creative ideas and entrepreneurial attitude through our university-accredited training, competitions and digital community. We promote equality through self-empowerment. We don’t believe all conventional approaches do this so we challenge them.
How do you do it? We have our flagship ‘Make It Happen’ competition for secondary school pupils in each of the seven cities of Scotland. Backed by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland, through Scotland CAN DO, we run workshops and live audience finals where pupils compete for the chance to turn their ideas into reality.
What’s your personal motivation for being a social entrepreneur? My life experience gave me a deep personal understanding of the obstacles of inequality facing young people as I endured periods of poverty and homelessness that left me longing to transform my own future. I don’t believe anyone should suffer inequality, and have set out to tackle it through inspiring entrepreneurial skills and attitudes.
What are your current projects? Our national Make It Happen competition, and we’ve also just completed a pilot project called ‘Funl’ where I brought together 8 peer organisations to form a joined-up approach aiming to stop 30 school leavers becoming NEET. Bad Idea is also a Partner in the Scottish Government-backed Enterprising Schools Project.
What exciting things do you have coming up? We have a big event in September, with some amazing international guest speakers, to celebrate the final of our national competition. Following that, we are rolling our programme out across Europe with the support of the European Union. Thanks to support from LaunchMe we’re also launching our web service, and setting up international hubs in the USA, Canada and Australia.
Who do you want to work with more? I’m very excited about the work we’re doing with our partners in the Funl project we piloted this spring. We’re also achieving great things with the Scottish Government, the RSA, and URBACT. I love the Social Enterprise Academy, and looking forward to working more with them in the future.
What’s your biggest challenge? The tyranny of the status quo! There are too many people, especially in the public sector, who are fighting against change. The world is changing rapidly and young people and disadvantaged communities are really struggling because they cannot access progressive and innovative solutions to the challenges they face.
What top tip would you give to other social enterprises? Be more ambitious and aggressive! I see social enterprise as the driver for positive change in society, but it will not succeed if we all don’t start upping our game. We need to unite our fight against disadvantage, and aim higher! Otherwise organisations like Atos will take over!