The Business of Social Change

THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Interview with Francis Davis, Department of Communities and Local Government

Francis Davis, founder of numerous organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors, presented a talk on 'The business of social change - social enterprise and beyond' at a WBS Forum Series event on 6th December 2010. You can listen to the talk and watch the slides below.

Passionate about social entrepreneurship, Francis speaks about some of his experiences using business methods to solve social problems; he set up the UK’s first NHS social enterprise dental clinics amongst other ventures. His work forces people to think again about what the differences between the private, public and voluntary sector really are.

He asks us to imagine what we want organisations to look like in the future and which kind of people we want working inside them. At this time of change there is huge potential for the state to be re-energised by input from other sectors. However, for this change to be for the better, it needs the zeal and energy of individuals who have the capacity to think big and the passion to continuously challenge the status-quo.

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Francis is a Fellow of the Young Foundation. He has founded and led organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He is a member of the Oxford Centre for Mutuals, formerly taught at Cambridge and is a graduate of Warwick and Ashridge Business Schools. In 1992 he was co-founder - and from 2004-07 Chair - of an award-winning social enterprise during a period when it took community control of a hospital, and opened the UK's first NHS social enterprise dental clinics in addition to wide ranging social care, transport and training services. His 2008 study 'Moral, But No Compass' was described as "formidable" by the Conservative frontbench and "fascinating and important" by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury. Francis is Policy Adviser on The Big Society and Decentralisation at the Department of Communities and Local Government having previously been Policy Adviser to the Secretary of State. Francis is a governor of St John's College, University of Durham and advises a number of charitable foundations.