I'm a writer and social entrepreneur. 
     I'm obsessed with solving the problem of a world full of people with great ideas and talent who, because they are outsiders, lack the connections they deserve. Check out OneLeap
     I know a bit about some of the different sides of the outside. I grew up in the Botswana bush, in a converted cowshed. I'm writing a book about a prison, the ultimate outside inside. I'm also co-founder of Mothers for All, which helps the women who care for AIDS orphans.

Unreasonably Thrilled

OneLeap is the only UK organisation to reach the finals of the prestigious US Unreasonable Institute, which backs social enterprises that can reach more than 1 million people. Now we are racing to raise the funds to attend the Institute. Only the first 25 to reach $10,000 will get through. You help choose! Please support us - with a few dollars, a few kind words - and help us change the world. 



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What's your manifesto?

I was recently asked to write a manifesto, as part of the wonderful Hub Westminster's 1,000 Changemakers Manifestos Exhibition. I felt embarrassed writing it. I still feel embarrassed reading it. It's inescapably cheesy. But it is what I believe - and it does underpin much of the vision behind OneLeap, Mothers for All and my books.

Manifesto




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PSR and why it will be the new black

10 years ago, the mere fact of having a corporate social responsibility (CSR) division was a licence to be smug. Today the CSR department is a sign of backwardness.

CSR, the management consultancy mantra goes, should not be siloed, but integrated across the business. Meanwhile, CSR itself is teetering on the brink of extinction. The contemptuous expressions, when someone raised CSR at a recent gathering of social entrepreneurs, were those of teenagers asked if they still had black and white TVs.

Corporate social leadership – doing more than simply the responsible – is gaining favour, but this too must eventually wane. Positive social impact powers business growth and is increasingly recognised as doing so*. Social entrepreneur, though lagging CSR, likewise has an expiry date.

The DNA of the corporate social responsibility dinosaur may yet, however, see a revival. The very generation that scorned and outgrew CSR will, I think, find itself the subject of CSR’s descendant, personal social responsibility. Not PSR in the fluffy sense in which it is often written about. But a clear score and profile – the product of measurement – which people can, will and must be held accountable for, by the angry and urgent next generation.

Three trends in particular will drive PSR.

Read more at OneLeap, where this post was first published.

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Solve the World's Biggest Challenges in 1 Hour a Week

Imagine we could get the world's smartest people working on the world's biggest problems.

This is possible - and not at sometime in the distant future but this year.

Hour for Good's mission is to get employees in the world's biggest organisations - companies, universities, multilateral organisations - to each spend just one hour a week working for a social enterprise, of their choice, that's tackling one of the world's biggest problems.

It's a modest figure, but let's just take big companies as an example. (Companies are a good place to start as they are under increasing pressure to improve their social impact and give more autonomy to their employees.) If just 10% of people in the world's top 500 companies spent 1 hour a week working for a social enterprise, it would release 100,000,000 hours a year!

The idea came out of a question Bill Gates posted on Facebook. He tweeted afterwards that he liked the idea. Since then some great companies have said they're interested and I am working on creating a non-profit organisation, Hour for Good, to make it happen.

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