I am working on content this morning for a workshop Frank has been organising for next week. We will be working with a small number of new enterprises that are part of a programme run by the Welsh Homeless charity Llamau. The question is how can design help these new enterprises do what they but do it better.

I have been asking different people what can be done for young/new entrepreneurs and social enterprises in Wales on a wider scale a lot since an event E:DN ran earlier this year. What I have been asking is how can we scale up support and offer something (from the Welsh design community) that is meaningful and high value. The main message that I get back is that everyone wants to help but unsure what direction to take or what can be offered. There is a need for clarity.

At the moment I think the simplest option will be to suggest something which is normally contentious in the design community… pro-bono work. There are already plenty of examples of designers and architects offering a certain % of their time to work on pro bono projects for social good. Some of these are formal e.g. the 1% network and Open IDEO and other are less formal e.g. Fiona Bennie from Forum for the Future is now offering a 1/2 day a month to work pro bono on sustainable projects.

So my suggestion is that whatever is created for the workshop next week forms the basis of a tool that can be used by social enterprises across Wales. Depending on the feedback from the enterprises next week, I will discuss the tool with the Welsh design and social enterprise community to explore how this can be supported on longer term basis through pro bono input and support.

Another option (to be explored later) will be to work with the new creative industries apprenticeship programmes to leverage some time for other social impacts.

If you have any initial comments let me know.