Maggie Clune: Work Integration Social Enterprise for Inclusive Communities

I've worked with a number of colleges with different years from first-year college right up to masters and it's really heartening to see higher education now reach out to social enterprises alongside other businesses you know to get involved in projects for students. Welcome to the From Passion to Action Podcast, a discussion about social innovation and social entrepreneurship from Dublin City University. I'm Dr. Emer Nieveraldi. I'm Donica Kennan and I'm Mita Power. In this series we talk to academic experts in social innovation and entrepreneurship social entrepreneurs who have founded their own social enterprises and community organizations that are contributing to meaningful social change. The aim of these conversations is to delve into the concepts of social innovation and entrepreneurship in theory and in practice to discuss why they are important to their society and above all to explore ways to embed these concepts in higher education across different disciplines. The From Passion to Action project is based at Dublin City University and funded by the National Forum for the enhancement of teaching and learning in higher education. We hope that you enjoy sharing these materials as well with your colleagues and with your students. Hello, welcome everybody to From Passion to Action and one of our podcasts of one of the leaders of a very interesting social enterprise here in Dublin. So with me today we have Maggie Klun who is the Training and Social Enterprise Manager of PACE. So hello, Maggie, you're very welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Emer. Thank you for inviting me. So Maggie, you are the Training and Social Enterprise Manager of PACE. We've come to pace now in a minute, but we're very interested in asking everybody the same questions at the very beginning. So I'll start with those questions. What's the first word that you think of when you hear the concepts social innovation and social entrepreneurship? Well, the first word that pops into my head is inclusion. That would be a word that would be very important to us and our social mission. Inclusion of what type of people? Inclusion of everybody to make sure that everybody's included that nobody's left behind. And for us in particular, we're working with people who've been to prison or people under probation services, people with a criminal record, and the criminal record comes with huge stigma and label. And even years and years and years later after doing their time, they can be very much still excluded from society. And our social mission is to ensure that these people are included as opposed to excluded. So yeah, okay, inclusion, very good. And what would be your own understanding of social innovation and social entrepreneurship? What is it? What are those things? Okay, well, I suppose to start with social entrepreneurship. Social enterprise is really its business, running a business, being a business with the social mission, where the top goal or the key aim is to deliver on whatever your social mission is, whether it's something to do with the environment, whether it's something to do like ourselves, including people, that's the main goal. I suppose, you know, over the years it's become acceptable now as well for us to talk about profit and making money as a social enterprise whereas before it was a conversation that you'd be afraid to have or nearly kind of say, well, you know, if we made a bit of money there, don't mention it. But the whole point is to make money and to reinvest into the business and for us, the more money we make, the more jobs we create. So just being a normal business with high standards, good products, good services, but with a social mission. So that's what I think social entrepreneurship is. Now social innovation, again, is, you know, coming up innovation to me is coming up with ways, new ways of maybe delivering a service or maybe new products or a new way of delivering an old product. Just coming up with new ways to reach markets and maybe creating more markets or finding a niche, finding where the gap is and developing something to fill that gap with the view to make money, to reinvest in your business and your social mission. I think the key that you have there in terms of the social enterprise versus any other enterprise is how you reinvest those profits and to widen. But we come back to that issue in a while because people, as you say, can be very uncomfortable with social enterprise making money. But yes, we will come back to that. But let's go back to what pace is. Can you tell us about pace? What is it and how does it work as a social enterprise? Well, I give you an overview of pace. In general, the pace organization, we celebrated our 50th anniversary, I think two years ago, our last year, it gets a bit muddled with all that's happened in the last 18 months. So pace originally, pace is an acronym for prisoners aid through community effort. So way back 50 years ago, local community people realized that there was absolutely nothing outside of prison for men coming out of prison in particular. It started with men. So the accommodation services was the first part of pace that was introduced. So prized would house, which is based in prized would open to over 50 years ago. As a result, years later, or, you know, over time, it became apparent that people coming out of prison were being excluded. And the men that were living in the house were doing nothing all day long. And obviously that had huge impact on their well-being and their self-esteem and slipping back into old habits of maybe addiction and then criminality. So a training program was started. And that expanded. So then it became so big that there was enough to provide two services. So then we had the accommodation services and the training services, which developed further than into social enterprise. And then the third service offered by pace is what's called prevention services. And there's three projects specifically aimed towards people with sex offenses. So the three projects are called safer lives, foothold and coser. And safer lives is a therapeutic project working with people in groups. Gold is about trying to rehearse people after prison when you have a sexual offense. And then co-star stands for Circles of Support and Accountability, which is a project that pace introduced to Ireland. I think maybe six or seven years ago, it started in Canada. And it's basically providing a social circle for people with sexual offenses after prison. Because obviously those types of offenses, the biggest issue for people with sex offenses is isolation and loneliness. And it's also one of the biggest triggers for reoffending. So if a social circle is built around these people to give these people the social outlets and people to talk to, then dramatically reduces reoffending. So pace, we changed recently there just after our celebrations because we broadened our services so much. So now pace stands for Prevention, Accommodation, Community and Enterprise. Okay, very good. So staying with that last theme, Enterprise, can you tell me about the social enterprises that pace has and how they work, what they do, what benefits it brings to people? Sure, so I joined pace in about 2014. And so I came in as the training services manager and we run two training centers. We've got one in Sanctuary, which is a huge woodwork and metalwork warehouse workshop, very much industrial, very work oriented. And we have a horticulture project in Kulak as well and a smaller woodwork shop there. So when I started, we were doing training and we were providing FETAC Level 3, Level 4 certification through CDETB. We also have some industry standard metalwork qualifications that we do as well. And we then have the wrap around subjects such as communication skills, career development, we've art classes, so quite a variety of classes. So people are getting their certificates and it became apparent to me that, you know, and a feedback from the people who are coming to us, like with all the certificates in the world, they still weren't getting work. So there was a clear issue, why aren't they getting work? Well, because employees won't take them on because of the criminal record, and the last known work, if any at all, was maybe two, three, ten, fifteen years ago before prison. So there was nothing on a CV to say, "This is what I can do right now, this is what I've been doing for the last few years, or, you know, for anybody to say, I can vouch for him or her, they're a good worker, they won't let you down." So that piece was missing. So I decided then that, well, maybe we just need to create our own work. And, but it was in the beginning, it was very much about doing something meaningful with time and making something that was appreciated by community, other people, you know, and it's become apparent to me ever since, just how important that part of this whole process is. Like in training, the student makes something, whether they're like making that particular thing or not, for feet at level three, it's a table. It's a very odd shaped, shaped table, it doesn't really fit into a standard house, terrace, terrace, tree bed house. So it's kind of like, where would I put that table? So there isn't huge enthusiasm to make the table. So, you know, it's kind of why, why would anybody want to make it then? So we started making things that people wanted. And the change in our trainees, you know, when they started making like flower pantoboxes was the first thing that we started making. And, you know, then people, then there was a demand for them. That's really key. But, you know, somebody, you know, for me, if I'm making something and somebody really likes it and they really want it, that is like huge feedback for me. And it's also validating what I'm doing as well. So the first part of the business was the flower planter box and garden furniture. We started off in 2014 and we have always had a good relationship with Donner's City Council in the area. And we, we invited the Community Development Office or in our priors with area, up for a meeting to see was there anything that we could do to make for the local community that they could fund and that we could give to the local community, you know, from a woodwork point of view. The reason behind all of that really was, you know, to show the local community that, you know, we're good people and we could, we make nice things and everybody deserves a second chance and also to create work and to create a bit of a demand for what we were making. So we started off really small in 2014 with our local community development officers in Donner's City Council. And we grew that, we grew the business from there. So I've seen the, the, the, the planters around five lamps there and driving down from DCU to the city center and around East Wall. So the planters are out in very public areas with your branding on it and so on. Yeah. So we have taken over Donner's City when it comes to flower planter boxes and and street furniture, garden furniture. So I'm very simply, we put our number on the side of the box and that generation calls. Where can I get one of these box? And then of course other Dublin City Council community group officers realized, okay, there's something in this and we realized there's something in this because what we were making, really private sector weren't interested in it. It's very niche. You know, you're dealing with communities, you're dealing a lot with community groups and we're very much of the community. So it really suited our social mission in lots of ways, whereas for private commercial operations, if you like, it's not really what they're looking to do. So we're making ad hoc stuff, custom made stuff and dealing directly with community groups now. So it really just grew from there and you know, we've we've we've really, within two years then we were in a position to apply for CSP funding. Are you familiar with that? No, please explain to us what CSP funding is. Okay, so it's like the Holy Grail for social enterprises and that was kind of always my goal from the beginning. I'd heard about community service program funding which it comes now it comes from department of rural and community development and it's managed through the bubble. And you know, when I was looking for it at first, it was kind of like this funding stream, but like it was kind of like I'll tell you what I'd have to kill you. Don't tell anybody I told you how to get this. So it was like not in the beginning, but so I searched around and a few, you know, those one or two social enterprises that have been going a long time who kind of know who knew back then how to access this kind of funding and and and support. And so eventually I got to the right person and we put in an application. So you have to obviously like normal business plan, do your five year plan, show how your social mission is going to help or how you know how you're going to achieve your social mission. So we were then awarded the CSP funding which is a contribution towards wages. So it pays about, so it's for a general operative. There's a contribution of about it. I think it works at about 70% of their wages. Now, you know, we're paying people the minimum of the living wage and that's our goal is to never go below that. So we're topping up everybody's wages through the profits of the social enterprise. So yeah, we managed to then create and since then we now have seven full-time people working in the social enterprise who are being paid proper wages, which is fantastic. When you say seven people, this is seven people who are making the garden furniture, the street furniture. Yeah, so they're working 39 hours a week and they're making products all the time. So between making the products and looking after the polytone and the flowers and then we have a van driver as well. So we deliver everything ourselves. So we were able to invest in a van to deliver ourselves. We wouldn't have happened. We were very, very early on we realized we need to be able to deliver this stuff ourselves because you know, it's it's big bulky product. So we had to be able to get it out there ourselves. Yeah, so yeah, so we've got that many people working for us now. So then sort of maybe three years ago, I think it was around 2018, just again through feedback from the people that were coming to us. Not everybody wants to make things. So we were like, well, what else is there that you'd like to do? So we was kind of like, well, what about customer services or I'd like to start my own business or I'd like to work in retail. So we were like, okay, well, how do we get people ready for that? So we initially decided that we made we would look at opening up a cafe and we looked into that and initially investment kind of the scared us a little bit. I don't mind admitting because like, you know, we're going to have to find a lot of funding and we're going to have to invest a lot of money to get this up and running. So we decided then, well, actually, let's let's do this on a smaller scale. So we decided on a coffee cart. Now the coffee cart took us about a year to build because we were building it ourselves from our profits and we've a metal workshop and a wood workshop. So any time we weren't doing something, we were kind of, oh, well, let's do a bit more of on this coffee cart project. So eventually we got it ready and we we found a pitch outside Co-reheal Court being supported by the IPS over there. They said, yeah, you can set up. So we were there for about three months when we realized we don't have the full fall here. We're not going to be able to create jobs and we don't want to rely on funding for this. We want this to wash its own face. This, you know, we want to really show that we can have done its own two feet. Exactly. We needed to prove this now at this stage and create jobs for people ourselves, you know, true a normal standard operating business. So we heard that the coffee shop in the four courts was closing, so we took the opportunity to approach them to say, well, we could just pitch up in your car park and that worked for them because they needed the space for more offices that, you know, where the coffee shop used to be. So we arrived there, I think it was 2018 towards the end of 2018 and we're still there. So we're operating. It's fully operational based on normal standard business, paying currently one barista because that's all we can have for social distancing. But it's also provided, I'd say about 12 people with work experience in a hospitality customer service, customer facing, highly stressful environment because the person who works there is essentially running the business. So this business, I have a very clever name for this coffee cart. It's the mug shop. So I think a very clever name for a coffee business outside the four courts in Dublin. Yes, I managed by people with convictions or former prisoners. I have to say I was a little worried in the beginning when we chose the same and how we did that was we just ran a competition amongst the team. So everybody got to throw a name in the hat. So, you know, we had some interesting suggestions and the mug shop on it, I was like, "Oh, that is so good, but it's a little risky, isn't it?" So we sent out, myself and the CEO kind of narrowed it down and then sent it off. We'd employed the services of a small little marketing company. Yes. And we sent a few names off and they said, "It's a no-brainer. It has to be the mug shop." So it's a little okay, right? I know, but so just a little bit nervous. It is a little tongue-in-cheek, but you know, we're not we're not making fun of, you know, the harm that crime causes. Yes. And as you know, we're very much about moving forward and not looking backwards, but you know, everybody that we work with, that's their goal as well. You know, they they have done their time for for whatever crime was committed and it's about moving forward. We do know that crime has those cause harm, but people are entitled to get on with their lives and the only you know the only way for people to come back into community is to include them and that has to be through, you know, letting them back in. And that's the community accepting them. Yes. And the the strapped line you have is coffee with character. And I think that word character fits as well with the character of these people that they have decided to take the better path. Let's call it. And they you're giving them the support to make sure they stay on that better path. How do people react in terms of the staff working in the four courts? Do they ever meet the judges or the solicitors who? Oh, yeah. We have a very loyal customer base who love our coffee, our coffee that we're serving is Moie coffee, which is also a social enterprise. I don't know if you're familiar with the Maria. I have it in my old kitchen, Moie. It's a packaging in the one I have. Yes. Yeah. So we we were very clear that we would be working with a social enterprise as a coffee supplier. So their coffee is fantastic. And it's very popular blend down in the four courts. And we have a very loyal customer base who just have to go and the person knows exactly what they want. And is it open to the public as well? Or do you have to be, you know, it's in the grounds of the four courts. It's not on the public street. Yeah, it's in the grounds. So generally you'd be doing business in the four courts. Or this is the land registry office and a couple of other buildings around there. But to go into the four courts, you do have to go through security anyway. So you don't need to be really gone in there if, you know, if you've got business to do in there. So during the pandemic, obviously a lot of the courts went online. So that was like, oh no, what do we do? But we decided that we were going to stick it out. It's a great pitch. We've a loyal customer base there. So we just set up with stay and, you know, hopefully we'll make it up again towards, you know, towards the end of the year. And yeah, we're back. We're back well over. We're back in business now. We've recouped any losses. And anyway, just that we invested in the first part of this year. We're back on track again. So it's, you know, it's good. So you mentioned earlier on when we spec began having a chat at Maggie, you mentioned that social enterprises are enterprises that run themselves like any other business to make a profit. The difference is that that profit is invested back into whatever social issue was being addressed. In this case, it's providing employment and career paths for people with convictions. Is it running completely independently without granted, without traditional funding? You know, is it managing to stand on its own two feet as a business? Take out the pandemic, you know, when the business model works. It is now. Initially, we got our, we got funding through ICE, inner city enterprise, which are funded through Dom and City Council as well. So they're quite supportive of social enterprises. So that's where we kind of got our initial seed funding to get up and running. Okay, which and ICE inner city enterprise would be similar to the local enterprise offices that provide support and training and mentoring and funding to private for profit enterprises. So in those days, it wasn't so easy to get money. Social enterprises don't get money to easily from the local enterprise offices and things are changing. And I have to say the local enterprise office in the city center have always been very supportive of of pace and the mug shot. But you know, there's there's different criteria. I think we may have been the first or second year to apply for the social specific social enterprise funding. And so we were awarded it. And which was absolutely fantastic because, you know, a lot of people thought we were a little bit really a coffee cart ran by people have been to prison. Okay, it was like so there was that that that little bit of um skepticism around it. And, you know, a large part of our social mission is to try and change attitudes. You know, not everybody who's been to poisoned is a thief. You know, the assumption is but there's going to be cash. Yeah, you know, so, you know, a lot, you know, there's lots of assumptions and made by people when you have the stigma of a label, you know, of criminal hangin' over here. So it was fantastic to get ice that the funding from ice to get the mug shot up and running. Even for those reasons to show, you know, the community that, you know, whatever's happened, people have done in the past that there's, you know, everybody deserves the chance and has the ability to change their lives around. Given our opportunity, opportunity is the key um to it all. It's just putting your faith and trust in somebody and showing them that you trust them to be able to do it. And these things are what we're trying to do. Training with you in in pace beforehand. They're not coming straight out of prison and going to work in the coffee shop. You're you're working with them on their feedback qualifications and so on to prepare. Yeah, I mean a mixture. It really depends on the person. We get such a mix of people. So, and I suppose the very different skill sets as well. Like working working in retail, working as a barista is very different skill set to making the flower planted boxes and garden furniture. So, I don't think we've ever we've had anybody come up through the ranks that way. Um, I suppose what I'm saying Maggie is that, you know, the person doesn't come out of prison having served their term and walks straight into a job with the mug shot. You're going to train them up. Yeah, of course. They're suitable for for employment. They are. Absolutely. They are trustworthy and so on. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, we need to get to know a person like any employer. Um, we'll do we do the interview process just standard normal stuff. Anybody who's working in the mug shot is an employee of pace. They go through all of the standard recruitment processes. Now, we will have more information because we're we're funded by the probation services and there is consent to usually given by the people that we work with that probation services can share information with us. Yeah. So, we know exactly their their backgrounds and that's really important because we need we need to know and discuss with them what supports we need to put in place for this to be successful for them. Yes. So, every single person that comes to pace has a key worker and that's that's another key difference between an, you know, a standard commercial enterprise and it's land to price for us anyway is to provide the extra support there that's needed for people who for whatever reasons got them into trouble and got them into prison in the first place. You know those those those issues don't go away just because you've done a spell in prison. Those issues you a lot of people come out of prison with the same issues that they go into prison with and a lot of people do a lot of work on those issues in prison as well you know the psychology and counselling and training in prisons as well but a lot of the time people are coming out with very similar issues and even more issues maybe the family don't want them back in the family home and you know there's there's a very big difference to not using drugs in prison and you know going back to you know old. Yeah I've gone back to your community so a lot of support needs to be invested in in people who've been to prison and we provide that support through our key workers as well. So yeah I mean it's just really important that we put as much in place for the person to be successful as possible. And do you envisage that these people will work for X number of months or years in the mug shot and then move on to let's call it for one to better term an ordinary standard mainstream coffee shop. Yeah we usually say mainstream it's kind of a term that we use yes absolutely and so one of the certainly in the flora plantar box in garden furniture you know the funding support that we get through public the CSP funding one of the criteria is progression so you know the goal is to move people into to progress into mainstream work. So that's very much our goal so we have a careers person as well so from the day somebody starts with us they'll meet with the careers person and they'll start working on what it is they want to do start preparing a CVs start doing role play and interviews alongside gaining the work experience and you know being in the work and you know so there's enough lot of work that goes that goes around the person wraps around the person. So from the point of view of a social enterprise your aim is to have a higher employee turnover you want them to move on to I suppose to to mainstream employment. We do yeah because you know the more people we can move on the more people we can move in to support now that hasn't been very easy over the last two years so you know we're going to have people with us for a while and that's okay but we were very lucky and that we didn't have to let anybody go and that was because March when was it March 2020? We were sitting in here early March 2020 just to have about to have a big meeting with a customer who was going to pretty much secure an order for six months and we were left and you know and all of a sudden pandemic struck and that customer's money had to be diverted into dealing with the pandemic so that order was gone. So we were left here going oh my god what are we going to do like we've got to make sure these these men don't lose their jobs because like detrimental you know all the work they've done on themselves and invested in themselves you know the risk of then sitting at home it was just it was just too much so we said we've got to go online we've got to target the consumer we've got to get into people's homes and so that meant changing our product line so we came up with a couple of three or four different products that could be sold to consumers domestic market and then we started selling our flour planter or sorry our flour bedding and honey baskets as well so there was a couple of those kind of products that we had to come up with and then we partnered we approached alone and said look we're alone they're the organization that looks after older people. Yes and said look if we if we make if we advertise we're making window boxes and that give the give people the opportunity to buy them and donate them to you and we'll deliver them you don't have to do anything but take them could we you know could we do this and they were delighted it's absolutely we've got older people all are over Dublin alone in their houses terrified from this pandemic to get a you know a box of flowers to arrive at the door would just be great. It's kind of like a version of the Christmas hamper arriving at the door except it's it's a flower box ready for your windowsill or your front garden. Exactly and it's you know the older person then has to look after it has to wash it it's colorful it's it's living it's you know it's going to grow yes um so you know that really worked for for everybody because we you know we were getting to make the boxes was keeping the men in work um the general public were getting to buy them and donate them so you know they were getting to feel good about that and then the older people were receiving a nice a nice gift so that really went very well so we got that open running for the summer of 2020 and that really worked well for us and certainly then that helped us get our uh window boxes products out there on social media so we both boxes are bought by by a private individual it's like myself who wants to give it as a gift to some elderly person living living on their own so that the business model is is that I'm in a way trying a gift for somebody I don't know yeah yeah knowing that I'm I'm also helping with the employment of these people with convictions again I'm interested as well you mentioned and early it's nearly as if there's an ecosystem out there of social enterprises dealing with each other in parallel with say mainstream enterprise so you you you you spoke about moya coffee which is another social enterprise and and then you speak about dealing with alone or dealing with other public organizations so it's interesting there's nearly a parallel ecosystem there that you all know each other and work with each other there certainly is you know my first choice will always be to try and you know kind of social enterprise do that um like for example the hot weather the guys are always open for bottles of water and say well let's stop with this choway bottle stuff um and I found a social enterprise called refills at i.e. and they're they're making reusable bottles from sugar cane I think it is I said right well I'm buying 20 of these everybody put their name on them and that's what you use for the whole summer there's the drink and water tap we've got to stop with all this plastic so I suppose we're now I'm I'm certainly in the mindset now as well you know what social mission can I support in my purchase um and I try to encourage that as well and now listen I'm you know I'm you know I do my best for them you're still down on the local supermarket as well absolutely yes I don't think we're you know we're not denigrating private for profit enterprise you know it has a role as well um but that if we have a choice and if we care about a particular social issue at least we know by buying these daily purchases that we want we know we're helping um that social issue I think we you know we're not trying to denigrate private enterprise no absolutely not I mean my my background I started my career in private enterprise and that that's where I grew up if you like uh from from college up until about 10 years ago or maybe 15 years ago time is moving very quickly um yeah so and I love to working in it uh in that sector uh just I was in sales and marketing and well I started in customer services and then I moved into sales and marketing for a big uh IT firm so what do you from sales and marketing into being uh the training and social enterprise manager but motivated you to change from private sales and marketing yeah I suppose two two key things um sadly back then so that was like my my baby's 15 now so and he's my third child and I just found that uh the industry and the yeah pretty much the industry I was working and wasn't very supportive of the working man I felt then I it was very stressful and I felt that I wasn't doing either job particularly well so in terms of being being a mommy and my account management job so I decided and an opportunity for redundancy came up so I took it so that was kind of a little bit of a time then to kind of think what I want to do next and in and around that time as well and I had no clue what was happening in the in the community I didn't even know anything that was happening from voluntary sector the period sector new none of that and that same time my mother had had a had a very bad stroke after an operation and she needed 24/7 care and we wanted her home. So enough a lot of care was going to have to go into looking after her and I started meeting people in the community, like community nurse, community carers and that. It just opened my eyes to this whole service that I said my god I didn't know you guys existed and thank god and so that kind of opened my eyes a little bit and then I did a coaching course mentoring and coaching course and during that course it gives you a little bit of time to like you have to be coached yourself so it gives you a bit of time to think about what is it I actually want to do and I realized I actually don't want to go back to that kind of work anymore but I have a lot of skills that I've picked up and I'm very good at business and I'm very good at you know negotiate and then building relationships all those things are essential in business and so how can I bring those skills with me to do something else so then I start at working in a community training center and fingers actually just doing a development a personal development program and I grew from there yeah I just never loved to back then just absolutely loved it yeah and and that brings me to other than the employees with convictions that that you work with what background do other staff in pace come from do they also come from a business background do they come more from that community background that you've mentioned you know what if they studied if they've been to college what kind of background do people have who work in social enterprises or in in in pace well certainly in hours in in pace social enterprise because we we like we didn't start as a social enterprise and it's past started a long time ago well before me so there's like in the training centers that I manage and a lot of the staff are working here a long time 15 to 20 years they would have started as instructors training instructors and so there was a huge learning curve and we're on it all the time we're still learning for excuse me everybody working here so I was asking those people okay we're not going to be a training instructor anymore you're not going to be a workshop supervisor and we're making things and you know we're gonna have to hit deadlines we're gonna be under pressure you're gonna have to start looking at quality control and we're gonna have to put all these processes in place and but this is what our clients want they don't want to just be trained they want to work so we need to respond to their needs and we need to evolve and we need to change in accordance to this or we're just gonna become obsolete so people had to yeah people had to change and everybody jumped on board because everybody was excited about making things that were of quality and that were wanted and like we get people you know emailing us in saying I've just seen one of your boxes it's beautiful how do I get one of those and that you know that does an awful lot for a person self-esteem mostly everybody works in pace comes from a social care background or one of those kind of qualifications we've a huge mix of people in pace employed in place as well in terms of some of interprison some having some have you know been on the cost of criminality you know mental health addiction so you know we've a lot of people with lived experience as it's called so from a business point of view we I think one other person on my team too that would have one had their own business and he's a key key player in the in the in the early days at the two of us were kind of like are we not and like no it's okay you know we keep each other going yeah so very few with with actual business skills yeah yeah so so and yes you're you're operating you know a business so you don't have anybody apart from yourself with your sales and marketing background you don't have a marketing department or a person who can you know is in charge of your your online shop how do you manage your online shop which sells all your garden furniture and and so on did you employ with that background to run the online shop where it's a service you both you know bought in on contract no we're doing it ourselves and it's I suppose a lot of it is like looking looking amongst the team that you have the skills that we have here so we you know for example we've somebody in her office who has a particular flare and and enjoys all the marketing kind of stuff so she's been key in designing a mobshot brochure in our fair planter box pace social enterprise brochure and then we have a social enterprise coordinator who's funded through public as well and quite techy he said I will all learn how to manage the online shop we employed the services of somebody to set it off and now the coordination does as much of the managing of the online shop as he can and I give you needs to call in somebody with the with the skills and we can get in get in touch with the person who designed it for us we try to do enough a lot of the stuff ourselves and sometimes yeah we should actually probably ask for help outside more than we do but in human resource management we would call that talent management you know where you're looking at the talents people have and the interest they they want you you want all of your staff to develop their careers and you're tapping into their talents interests and expertise and staying with the marketing issue Maggie there's an argument that customers might use a social enterprise out of pity or solidarity or because of the cause rather because it's good quality products or services that are being provided so how does pace approach that issue you know from workshop coffee or for the garden furniture business you know how much do you promote the fact that it's a social enterprise or do you just say here we are we're selling good coffee here we are we're selling good garden furniture yeah how does it work that's a really interesting question because it's not our experience that our customers don't expect good quality stuff and good quality coffee our experience is very much the opposite and that there is an expectation that what we're selling is of good quality from our point of view flower planter and garden side of the business like our van says pays social enterprise so you know we're a social enterprise we're on a mission to create work by and you can help us do that by purchasing our products and I think my reasoning behind the mugshot is different than we didn't go in there saying we're social enterprise nothing about the branding says we're a social enterprise we provide really good coffee which is served by skilled friendly baristas and you know we never went out we never went out there to me to say you know everybody we've employed has a criminal record or any of that and the main reason for that is well the flower planter business there isn't really a face to that like there's we've got lots of people coming and going there and down in the mugshot there's you know there's one person standing armed two people standing there and you know it just seemed contradictory to put a big label on it to say well you know we're trying to get people to forget about labels so let's forget about it it's just a business and the person in it is a barista it wasn't a great big plan of mine it was just kind of like I suppose you know it's a way of supporting the person where we're not going to you know one thing that we don't need to be doing is down there telling everybody their business and so we want to promote the mugshot as you know a social enterprise for people with criminal records really for that reason so it's just it's a coffee cart that sells good quality coffee with a nice friendly skilled barista yeah yeah from a customer point of view and have you any growth plans for the mugshot is it an enterprise like to expand to other locations with additional coffee carts yes we have a coffee cart ready to go and so we've come very close three times to a pitch and for for reasons the pitch didn't didn't happen so I consider it's pretty unlucky to be honest in in those opportunities now there's a couple of tenders out there at the moment for pitches so we'll tender for for some of those we're I suppose we're looking to foresee as well in that you know the the the four quarter has kind of spoiled us a little bit in that they're supplying the electricity and the water and there's a toilet for the you know for the barista there now you see all these coffee carts bringing up all over the place now during the pandemic which is absolutely brilliant and fantastic and it's normally you know it's normally people who've just found themselves at a work trying to do something with you know, their time and invest in something and, you know, a lot of these cards are making a killing and it's absolutely fantastic. But they're all, you know, they're self-employed and whatever standards they have for themselves is fine. As an employer, obviously, we have, you know, we have to have certain conditions for our employees to work in. So we need a pitch where the person can go to the toilet which is the basics. So that's kind of, whereas, you know, all the other pitches are probably not, you know, there's, I can think of a couple of pitches now, where they've pitched up on somebody they know's extended garden and they've an agreement to run in and use the loo and that kind of thing. But yeah, so we are looking for another pitch and yeah, so if you know of any pitches. Well, I'm thinking that national parks, for example, or public sector, publicly owned spaces, you know, so near the public library or, you know, being in public spaces, but near a public building where you could make an arrangement in terms of that. I mean, it's a very good thing to employ and access to a proper toilet. Yeah. Yeah, there's actually a tender that one of the the County Councils have a tender out now. As a result of queries from people, why isn't their coffee here? And vendors, like, why can't we set up in a park? So now there's a tender where we can, we can actually put in for one of the pitches, which is fantastic to say you're competing like any of the other private enterprises. Yeah, we're just competing and we will tell them about our social mission. So we'll be up to them if they see that as another positive reason to employ us or to award us the contract. Maggie, I'd like to go back to one thing you mentioned. You mentioned along the way a few times that you have received funding from the likes of Pobble. Pobble is the Irish word for community and Pobble is a state organization that provides funding for community development right across the country, rural and urban. You also mentioned that you got some funding from ICE in our city enterprise. I suppose the point I'm making is that a private sector entrepreneurs and new startups, they also can access public support through the local enterprise offices or at their larger scale. They can access funding or support through the likes of Enterprise Ireland. So there's no difference there in terms of the accessing public support for mentoring or grant aid and so on. Yeah, and actually that's that is a good point because that is something that you know gets said to me a lot. Well, you have, can you compare yourself to a standard commercial enterprise when you get all this funding? You know, and we're funded through probation service as well. You know, and I do get that. And as you point out, there is funding available for commercial enterprises, private commercial enterprises, but also a lot of the people that we're working with and trying to support, to come with enough lot of needs. So, you know, that has to be funded, to support the people takes funding because we have to have key workers. And, you know, my other discussion point would be that, you know, I really wish that we didn't have to exist at all. So, you know, if there wasn't a need for us, I'd be really, really happy. You know, so if mainstream employers are willing to to cut us out of the loop, you know, take these people on themselves, give them the mentoring and support that is needed, you know, when you come out of prison, and allow people make mistakes, allow people not show up, allow people get used to working and develop a work ethic. Then fine. You know, that makes my day. Well, you know, arguably love to, you know, reach a situation where a pace didn't exist because it didn't really exist. That would be the ideal, but that's not the case. And realistically, that's not going to be the case. So, social enterprise, certainly in our sector in the criminal justice system, is a huge important step for a person on the right path. And I think, you know, any funding, public funding that you get for, let's say, the rehabilitation or training services, it's better that the public funding is invested in that than invested in the role or in additional prison places or additional probation officers. Yeah, because that's the alternative, basically. So, it's a much more positive way to invest money. So, and the Department of Justice in the last, certainly in the last five, six years have really caught on down to this. And I've, you know, there's there's strategies of late, certainly the latest one, which is a strategy for social enterprise and entrepreneurship and employment is very much focused on driving the employment enterprise and entrepreneurship side of rehabilitation, if you like, or reintegration. So, that's part of the Department of Justice. Department of Justice, yeah. And interestingly, in parallel with that, we have, in the last few years, the first ever national social enterprise policy was devised agreed and published by the Department of Rural and Community Development. So, I think things are changing and a lot is happening. There's a better understanding of all of these issues. And you're trying to understand better all of these issues. Maggie, because you've very recently embarked on a PhD, what's the topic of your PhD? Yes. So, I have started a PhD and what I'm researching is looking at entrepreneurship as a means or a way for a labour market activation for young people in the criminal justice system. Yes. So, I suppose this has come out of my whole interest in enterprise. And I mean, the mokshot as well in developing the mokshot and to just watch people flourish as they're essentially running a business themselves, because that's what we let them do is to develop those skills, is to see how can entrepreneurship or if it can help divert people or young people in particular, to use and to entrepreneurial skills in a positive way. And entrepreneurship is a very it's very practical. It's about giving people anybody who's learning the practical skills to try out something. Okay, it might not have worked, but now we know one way that it doesn't work and we learn from that and it brings us closer to a way that something will work, whether it's developing a new coffee flavour, developing your coffee cart, developing a new piece of garden furniture that those are doesn't work appropriately. Yes. Which brings us to, you know, our project from passion to action is about fostering and embedding social innovation and social entrepreneurship in higher education. What advice would you give to higher level educators who are beginning to tease out, you know, how does this apply to my subject that I teach? So, could you give us any advice there, maybe take a discipline or a school or a faculty that springs to mind and how what would you advise those academics in terms of embedding the concepts of enterprise in what they do? Actually, I've worked with a number of colleges in with different years from first year college right up to masters and it's really heartening to see higher education now reach out to social enterprises. Alongside other businesses, you know, to get involved in projects for students, most recently I had a master's group investigated potential opportunity for us so they did a feasibility study for us. In the past, I've worked with a product design group and they had to come up with a couple of products for our social enterprise. So, it's really heartening to see higher education just even introducing social enterprise to students who, you know, really haven't got a clue what social enterprise is. To open the doors and to open their eyes to it as an option, maybe in the future, but I think that social entrepreneurship can be brought into probably every discipline really because even just take the product designs students, you know, we could employ a product designer to work for us. But I think there's like there's so much opportunity now for higher education to just kind of introduce their students to it. And it's becoming very popular outside of universities as well. So go back to that example where you had a product design group. How did that work? You worked with their lecturer on saying we need this new type of flower box or we need new ideas on garden furniture and how did it work? So I gave them a few ideas as to what stuff we needed. So two that they then they broke them up into groups and they got to choose a project. So one of the projects was to redesign the mug shot. So we our original design of the mug shot was we made it ourselves kind of just guessing and after two years of working in it, we realized it would actually, you know, it could work a lot better if this was over here and that was there and that. This is the cart itself. It's the actual cart, yeah. So a couple of groups redesigned it and then had to present it to me, you know, as a proposal. I was like a normal customer going in, asking them questions, you know, they had to cost it and all that kind of thing. And then we wanted a high-end product because everything we make in the in the social enterprise at the moment is, you know, garden furniture, flower planters, but we were looking at maybe tapping into a different market. So we thought, well, what about high-end furniture or something like that? So that was another project and another group took that on and yeah, so that was how that project worked. The project on redesigning the mug shot cart or the coffee cart, that was product designed students. They could have been doing that for job logs who wants to set up a new coffee cart and wants a new pitch. But if we look at some of the issues, the true work that pace and the mug shot does is about marginalization and inequality and access to the labor market for people with convictions. So have you worked with any degree programs that are to do with equality issues or marginalization or health? In my end of it, it's been pretty much related to solving a product issue or a service issue that we have. However, in doing that, the groups need to know the reason why they're doing that. So it's very much a part of the whole process with the students is learning about the social mission and with that comes the knowledge and learning around inequalities that people face. You want to take our cohort, for example. So in any of the projects that we work with, well, why am I doing this? It's not just about a product. It's about solving a problem by creating another product or developing something so that we can sell more coffee. What's really important for the students is knowing the reasons that we're doing all of this and that's our social mission and that's where they learn about the inequalities and how they can be a part of solving those issues through any of their disciplines, like any of the business students, any of the product design students. There are IT companies out there, for example, who are trying to solve technology issues in third world countries. They're crying out for support from IT engineers. Every discipline can get involved and work for a social enterprise. I think even just setting up the link of an awareness and just developing the awareness and saying, "Wow, today I met a former prisoner who has turned their life around with support and look what I'm doing as well in contributing to that real life improvement of the working conditions of developing that better cart for your, as you expand with the mug shot." Yeah, I mean, I worked with a couple of marketing classes. And as one of my goals was to let the business students, let the marketing students know that there is a whole other sector that they can work in and really, really love us. And that was really, it was very interesting to do because a lot of the students hadn't even considered it. They had their career path all panned out with the typical big companies that are in Ireland now. And I actually do think, "Yeah, go and do that because you need to get that experience." And then bring your experience, I suppose, like I did, and bring it into a social mission when you don't care as much about money. About Erin in the big box? Yes, yes. Well, I mean, I think, you know, it brings me to one of my other closing questions is, "What advice would you give to students who aspire to pursue a career in the area of social enterprise?" I suppose you've, you know, just building that awareness number one, we as academics can build that awareness and just show that that opportunity is available for students. But what advice would you give them if they say, "You know, I do want to build a career in this area." What advice would you give the students? I think it's a really good career choice, to be honest. And like I'm trying to remember myself back early 20s, I suppose, you know, my first time coming out of college because I'll always be learning something. And as I mentioned before, like, I mean, I knew nothing about community. Now, I imagine there's many early 20s, I was, you know, who know a hell of a lot more than I did. And my eyes were opened, you know, shortly after that, as to the amount of opportunities that you can have in a career. And, you know, I, well, I certainly got to a point where it was like, what's it all about? And I got to that point very quickly in my life. It's like my making absolutely little difference here, to be honest. And I just, I suppose I wanted to, to be contributing a little bit more to the community. And you, it's a great way to be able to do that and use your skills and talents as well in a very positive way. Well, it's interesting you talk about, you know, am I making a difference from passion to action is the name of our project here. What's your main passion now in the career, the role that you're in? I would like to see as, to see my team, the people that are working with those progress. And I suppose my, you know, we all celebrate here when somebody gets a job outside of pace, you know, this cake and, you know, it's fantastic news. And if somebody gets, you know, gets their own accommodation and a job, it's just like, it's just really to be celebrated. And they should be the basics for every single human being just to have your own roof over your head and to be able to go to work. And particularly when you absolutely want that and it's all you want and you want to be a good citizen and you want to contribute to society in a positive way. So I suppose that just needs to be easier for people, really. And I suppose that's what, that's what I'm working towards is seeing that being a little bit easier for people. And then like, you know, I want to promote, I suppose, amongst my own family, my children, just a little bit more tolerance and a little bit more open-mindedness. It's funny. You're passionate about all your employees leaving and walking out the door and finding a job somewhere else for all the right reasons. Yeah. I know when someone, you know, when you've got somebody, like we've got somebody at the moment and we're so reliant on them for a major part of the process. And, you know, he's so ready to go. We're just trying to push him out. I was like, get that person trained up quickly because this is going to happen. So then it's kind of like, oh my god. But then somebody jumps into their shoes and it's their time to shine then, you know, and then they start getting ready for mainstream. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's very good. And Maggie, I'm very happy with all of the insights you've given us in the work that you do as training and social enterprise manager with pace. And I have have to go off now down to the four courts and peer in through railings to see the Moke Shot card. You can go in, just you just have to go in the front door through the security and pretend you're going to court and I don't think you have to pretend. I've got to go and have a coffee. I have to break into the four courts. Thank you for listening to the From Passion to Action podcast. If you'd like to find out more about Bangi's work at PACE, you can visit their website at PACEorganization.ai.