Hello and welcome to Blank Cheque's website where you can get a sense of the work we do, why we do it, and who our participants are.
I'm Bethany, one of the Co-founders, and through my and Laura’s work with marginalised and criminalised women, I have seen first-hand the impact that drama-based creative practice can have on building a sense of community, on feeling a sense of empowerment, on developing a voice, and ultimately on mental health & wellbeing. The frustrating thing is that to bring these creative opportunities to our women, we need access to funding. Securing it can be hugely onerous and time consuming, it can block our momentum, and it can make our work feel unstable.
But I feel like there’s a better way for theatre-makers who have a social change agenda to access the money they (we) need, and I plan on taking a deep-dive into literature, practice, and current knowledge and theories to find some answers. This quest is what shapes my postgraduate research at Newcastle University (generously funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium), a five-year journey on which I hope you will join me via this blog. The forthcoming entries will act as a vehicle for me to process my research, look at where gaps are, and begin to bring into focus some strategies for others like Blank Cheque.
Social Enterprise
There’s a term I like which has gained popularity over the past few years, thanks to organisations like Big Society Capital. The term is Social Enterprise. Social enterprises have been around for a while (since the 70’s in fact) but more recently, with funding models such as social impact investment, the term has become more familiar. But what exactly is a social enterprise? It’s not a formal legal structure in the UK; charities, non-profits, and profit-making companies can all be social enterprises. It’s more of a concept and a label that helps to demonstrate the values and define the activities of your company or organisation. To me, ‘Social Enterprise’ suggests working towards positive social change in innovative ways, using the basis of a circular economy – John Elkington named this ‘The Triple Bottom Line,’ or People, Planet, Profit. In other words, the money that is generated by the company’s activity is used to support more social and environmental change.
Keep in mind this is a very basic description of the social enterprise concept, there are a myriad of shapes and sizes of social enterprises, and a million theories that inform how a social enterprise is developed. The reason I bring it up in this first blog entry is because although we have no formal legal structure and are classified as an Unincorporated Association, Blank Cheque is a social enterprise. Our drama-based work seeks to empower people, primarily women, to be positive and confident citizens with a strong sense of self-identity, and to help break down negative stereotypes while raising awareness about the issues criminalised and marginalised women face.
My challenges, as a social entrepreneur, are to find out:
what formal legal structure is suitable for Blank Cheque
how to generate income through our arts-based activities
how to build robust impact measurement within our organisational strategy
and how human-centred design practices can inform Blank Cheque’s work to deliver the most social value it can
So that’s my starting point! Like I said, I’ll use this space to try to make sense of concepts, to share discoveries, and to ultimately explore the potential of arts-based social enterprises to be financially independent architects of a more inclusive, more aware, and more supportive society. Please feel free to leave comments and interrogate these entries, a good debate is always an opportunity for learning.