Other social enterprise models
Donald Kraybill, in Donald A Hay and Alan Kreider (2001), considers lessons from the Amish in the US in his chapter ‘Amish economics: the interface of religious values and economic interests’. The Amish are a determinedly agrarian community but have been developing alternative microenterprises since the late 1970s. While these businesses have done well to develop crafts and manufactured products they have had to work hard to insulate themselves from inevitable compromise. The communities do permit private property, but with commitments to the good of the society. They defer to their community, in counter-cultural contrast to American individualism. They eschew technology but have compromised to some extent, allowing 12 volt power from batteries for example but not mains electricity, and they hire cars and drivers if they need them. At the Amish settlement in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, around 20 per cent of these microenterprises are owned and run by women. Amish businesses are deliberately small in scale, only 6 per cent having more than seven employees. The church is aware that growing wealth will unbalance the equity of the community and in an unspecified way will “sanction entrepreneurs whose businesses become too big”. The limitations on size and the dangers of wealth creation are also mirrored by the compromises with technology. For example to cope with the prohibition against electricity they run a diesel engine outside the factory and use oil or air under pressure to drive heavy manufacturing equipment through hydraulic and pneumatic lines. They also outsource computing and payroll services as required. If nothing else the experience of the Amish tends to support Lord Griffiths’ claims, described at the start of this section, that the market can be used to fit a very alternative set of values, although there remains an ever-present threat of contamination of the Amish’s ideals.
Richard Higginson (2012) describes very different initiatives in both India and Kenya to find alternative employment and support for women involved in the sex industry. The Oasis Trust, a UK charity operating globally, has helped to set up refuges for women escaping prostitution in India, and runs Jacobs Well, a fair trade social enterprise in which women are employed to make clothes, bags and jewellery. In Kenya the Roman Catholic Church has helped to establish a co-operative called Bega kwa Bega (‘shoulder to shoulder’ in Swahili), which employs women in manufacturing activities similar to those at Jacobs Well.
Social enterprise: a new way forward
Adrian Ashton (2009) describes the concept of ‘social enterprise’ as emerging from a long tradition, even though the phrase itself is relatively new, first used by the UK government in 1999. The author looks specifically at 13 different legal incorporations under which a social enterprise can operate, noting that some of these identities can be mixed, such as a charitable company. While all of them are corporate vehicles established in law, it may be that one or other vehicle would allow a better expression of religious values. Faith-based enterprises ought to give particular consideration to their method of incorporation: structure and form can relate to faith through relationships with external bodies, the image perceived by the local community and the requirements of accountability. Because people find linking corporate formation and faith together difficult, the author looks at two historical precedents.