Social Sector Franchise Roundtable Mulls Barriers, Actions for Growth

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Social sector franchising is at a formative stage for using franchise business know how to solve serious social problems for millions while creating entrepreneurial opportunities in the developing world.

By William Maddocks and Dr. Fiona Wilson
 
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In recent years, there has been a marked growth in social sector franchising, which harnesses business format franchising to reach large numbers of customers with goods and services to fulfill previously unmet market and social needs. Social sector franchising is seen to hold significant promise in helping address pervasive societal problems, especially in the developing world. Social sector franchise businesses are represented in healthcare, clean water and sanitation, clean energy, education and other sectors.

To help advance this emerging field, the Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise — a joint venture of the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics and the Carsey School of Public Policy, both at the University of New Hampshire — launched the Social Sector Franchise Initiative in 2015. 
 
A signature program of this initiative, the Social Sector Franchise Innovations Roundtable is an invitation-only conference convening a diverse cross section of social sector franchise entrepreneurs, commercial franchise experts, social impact donors and investors, scholars, and students. The goal of the roundtable was to identify barriers to growth and define actions that can build the social sector franchising ecosystem among diverse contexts, customers, financing, and donor/investor relationships.
 
The second annual roundtable was held at the University of New Hampshire in Durham September 27-28. The International Franchise Association’s Franchise Education and Research Foundation was a major sponsor, as well as the DLA Piper law firm. 

Attendees represented broad cross-section

The roundtable was well attended with the theme Building Common Ground and Understanding for Scaling Social Sector Franchising and comprised a cross section of 50 commercial and social sector franchisors and others interested in the nascent methodology. 
 
Participants included health, clean water and agricultural franchisers; impact investors and donor representatives from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation; the US Agency for International Development; academics from UNH, NYU, Tufts University; INGO representatives from the International Rescue Committee; ABT Associates; PSI; and CARE USA. 
New this year, we created the opportunity to have student delegates attend through a competitive application. Eight UNH graduate and undergraduate students were accepted and took part in the Roundtable.
 
The two-day conference featured keynote addresses by leaders of highly respected and successful social enterprises: Ella Gudwin, CEO of VisionSpring and Aristotle Alip, CEO of CARD-MRI from the Philippines. One panel explored the challenges of investment capital for social sector franchises. A second panel discussed the role of health franchises in delivering high quality and essential care to people in the developing world. A final panel brought together diverse experts from social enterprise, higher education, commercial franchising and academia to chart a course for development of the social sector franchise ecosystem.

Living case study accelerator

An exciting highlight of the roundtable was the Living Case Study Accelerator on Day Two, a new part of the design for 2016, which featured three social sector franchises, all of which were winners of the IFA NextGen Competition. 
 
The goals of the LCSA are twofold. First, the mentoring and other support the social franchisers will receive will help them to solve critical strategic issues to accelerate their growth. Second is action learning by everyone involved in the process. The mentor and protégé experiences reported through the cases will provide useful and applicable learning for practitioners, academics, students, investors, donors and others interested in the organizational, financial, commercial and social benefit components of social sector franchises.  
 
The three social sector franchisers were chosen because they are each at a different stage of maturity and complexity. Key to the LCSA process is our partnership with the IFA and its Social Sector Task Force Mentoring Program, which will provide expert commercial franchise mentors to work with the LCSA social sector franchise cases. 
  • Ignite Health Services (Nigeria) will provide mobile health vans and clinics to bring safe and high quality maternal health care to women in the greater Lagos area. Julie McBride and Michael Seid of MSA Worldwide with serve as mentors to Michael Iyanro, Ignite Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
  • Ziweto Agrovet Shops (Malawi) is a franchiser of small shops, which provide vaccinations, medicines and artificial insemination services for livestock farmers in Malawi. Lori Kiser-Block of the Decide Group will serve as the mentor to Ziweto Founder and CEO Victor Mhango.
  • Jibu (Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya) provides safe drinking water and entrepreneurship opportunities. Peter Holt, CEO of The Joint, will serve as the mentor to Jibu Uganda Country Director Mark Mutaahi. 
The three entrepreneurs were subjects of a daylong accelerator process that discussed and created solutions to pressing strategic challenges facing the nascent social sector franchisors, and resulted in action plans to be implemented over several months. These franchises will receive ongoing support and report progress and challenges to the Living Case Study Accelerator website. 
 
During the roundtable, Mark Mutaahi of Jibu commented, “Our founder, Galen Welsch says we are building the plane while flying it. This conference helped us find our co-pilots.” 
 
Learners from the public will be invited to visit a dynamic website chronicling the progress of the franchisers through periodic reports, webinars and a Social Sector Franchise Essentials online course. 
UNH student social franchise fellows will have a unique opportunity to learn about dynamic social enterprises through their research support for the LCSA process. Two UNH students will travel to Africa early in 2017 to meet the franchise owners, franchisees and customers and experience the developing world challenges of social business development firsthand.  
Time right for social franchising’s ‘Giant Leap’
The social sector franchising is at a formative stage in its development as a new methodology for using franchise business knowhow to solve serious social problems for potentially millions while creating entrepreneurial opportunities for thousands in the developing world. The Social Sector Franchise Initiative, with the strong educational and research support of UNH, and the commercial franchising expertise of IFA, will provide capacity-building opportunities for emerging social sector franchisers and rich learning experiences for UNH students and social enterprise practitioners.   
 
The Advisory Board of the Social Sector Franchise Initiative met the night before the roundtable and articulated a vision for the SSFI to serve as a community of practice and ongoing convener for commercial and social enterprise practitioners seeking to expand the double bottom line impact of the field. 
 
SSFI Advisory board members feel the time is right for social sector franchising to take a “giant leap” towards a greater emphasis on business format franchising and the development of a benchmarking system, which identifies key success factors for social sector franchise systems. The system would include definitions, standards, tools, a benchmarking body, and a benchmarking process. The system will drive excellence and growth in social sector franchising by helping channel expansion stage funds toward well-designed social franchise opportunities and promoting the strategic use of early stage funds to create high performing systems. 
 
The University of New Hampshire’s Social Sector Franchise Initiative, in partnership with IFA and its dedicated Social Sector Task Force members, as well as other organizations, is committed to advancing social sector franchising methodology through applied research and activities to support and strengthen entrepreneurs, ultimately paving the way for greater investment and double bottom line impact in this exciting field. 

William Maddocks is a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Director of the Social Sector Franchise Initiative and the Sustainable Microfinance and Development Program (SMDP) at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy and Dr. Fiona Wilson is Executive Director of the Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise at the University of New Hampshire.

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