Social Founders

Making Founder Succession Successful

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 08:05:57 -0700

Social Founders: Making Succession Successful
Guest Blog for Social Founders, by Philip Kirkpatrick, Partner, Bates Wells

Philip Kirkpatrick is a partner at charity law firm, Bates Wells. Philip has over 25 years’ experience advising charities and not-for-profits. He has specialist expertise advising purpose-driven founders and businesses across a range of sectors; helping to structure new ventures and manage difficult commercial and governance issues. Philip is recognised by leading legal directories, Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners.

Philip was a guest speaker at our Social Founders Forum on 'Founder Transition and Succession' in September 2025.

JANE: Mary Poppins, how long will you stay?

MARY POPPINS: We'll see.

MICHAEL: You won't leave us, will you, Mary Poppins?

MARY POPPINS: I'll stay until the wind changes.

One thing you can be sure of in life, alongside death and taxes, is that the wind will change.

For most social founders, whose purpose is often to achieve change, deciding when the wind has changed so that it’s time to move on is notoriously difficult.

There are all kinds of social businesses, from charities to B-Corporations, and the succession considerations for their founders are different. In particular, the considerations are very different for a founder whose wealth is tied up in...Read More

For My Eyes Have Seen the Glory - when letting go becomes the greatest act of love

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 04:50:21 -0700

Guest Blog for Social Founders, by

Noel Mathias, Founder & CEO, of WEvolution, 'Small, Powerful Groups', and now 'Novel Solutions to Wicked Problems'

Noel Mathias, based in Glasgow, Scotland, founded the WEvolution charity in 2011, with the innovative concept of 'Small, Powerful Groups' - meaningful, resourceful and accountable communities where everyone can be a change-maker and an entrepreneur. Below he details his year of planning to leave and close WEvolution, how he enabled the Small, Powerful Groups to continue independently, and while launching a new social impact organisation.

Noel has written this guest blog for Social Founders ahead of our Social Founders Forum on 24th September, where we will be discussing 'Founder Transition and Succession'.

Noel Mathias' guest blog for Social Founders

For...Read More

Problems to Passion – Sarah Wren’s founder journey from a 'wicked problem' to an £11 million turnover.

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 04:50:25 -0700

"Every leader doubts their ability at times, and questions whether they have the skills and experience that their business needs. But when a crisis needs solving and lands at our door, it is surprising what can be achieved if we embrace it as an opportunity and give no airtime to doubt." Sarah Wren, Founder & CEO, HILS

Sarah Wren, the author of this blog, is Founder and CEO of HILS - a groundbreaking social enterprise, and the UK's largest provider of support to vulnerable people in their own homes. But Sarah's founder journey didn't start well - as founder and originally volunteer chair of the board, Sarah had to deal with a terrible double crisis just 2 years in.
Read Sarah's compelling founder story, learnings and advice - and do leave your thoughts in the comment box.
In the beginning…
I imagine that most social founder journeys begin with one of two things: a wicked problem or an
all-consuming passion.
Almost twenty years ago, where my own founder story begins, I was juggling a career as a lecturer, a family, a number of charity Chair roles, and was responsible for services as a Local Government Councillor in my area of England. One of those local services was 'meals on wheels' - the local government service providing prepared meals delivered to vulnerable people in their own homes. It was that which became the wicked...Read More

Social impact founders in Japan

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 09:54:05 -0800

As Founder and CEO of Social Founders, I've been privileged to spend February and March 2025 back in Japan, building our network in this fascinating country with its combination of innovation and tradition woven into every element.
Below are just a few of the founders and organisations I've met up with in my first few weeks back in Tokyo.
It’s been a joy to be back in Tokyo for Japan Social Founders, to meet up again with social founders from our 2019 Tokyo launch, to connect with new social founders, and a range of innovative support organisations.
Big thanks to Venture Cafe Tokyo for hosting a lively Social Founders ‘round table’ in their impressive space high up in the Toranomon Hills Business Tower, attended by a fascinating mix of social impact founders and entrepreneurs at all stages of their founder journey.
Social impact activity and interest across Japan is growing. There’s a keen desire among both young people and older people to create impact by setting up Not-For-Profits (NPOs), social enterprises, for-profits with social impact, plus community groups and networks.
There is good collaboration between the founders and some dedicated impact intermediaries, including the Japan Association of New Public, set up by a small group of social founders, with a growing membership of 180+ social ventures, and Impact Shift, who are expecting 2,000 social entrepreneurs and young people to...Read More

Life as Co-Founders:

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 09:15:56 -0800

Joey Li and Thuta Khin, Co-Founders of Leiho, a tech-based social impact business, share their social founder story, and the highs, lows and lessons of life as co-founders.
How Leiho Was Born: A Story of Friendship and Purpose
Founded back in 2019, Leiho began as a simple idea shared between us, Joey Li and Thuta Khin, when we were two masters students at City University, London. We were both international students when we met during our studies and quickly bonded over a shared desire to build something meaningful—a business that would make a difference. From long conversations over coffee to brainstorming sessions late into the night, we found common ground in our belief that businesses hold a responsibility to help shape a better future.
This belief led to Leiho's mission: to create everyday essentials that give back. The brand focuses on ethically made, eco-conscious products like socks, caps, and tote bags, with a portion of proceeds dedicated to funding employment and creative opportunities for under-served communities.
We didn’t just want to sell any products. We wanted to create a fun, feel good brand by adding meaning into the everyday essentials people use or wear. We want to prove that businesses can be a force for good.
"We need to change things and we need to think in new ways about big things." Pete Donnelly, Founder, The Wheelchair Skills College, and Churchill Fellow.
Pete Donnelly has been an active member of our Social Founders network for a few years now, coming to our Forums, matched with an experienced Founder mentor, and encouraged to apply, successfully, to the Churchill Fellowship for a paid learning journey to meet other social founders supporting wheelchair users in Australia and New Zealand.
Enjoy reading about Pete's founder story, and his Fellowship travels in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, at this key stage of his organisation's growth and impact. And comments much welcomed of course.

We all know that things aren’t working. Everyday we read about new crises; housing, healthcare, social care, cost of living. It seems that we have a new one every day of the week.
"We need to change things and we need to think in new ways about big things."
I had been working in the Third Sector, specifically in disability charities, for 10 years as a programme manager and while there had been lots of great projects that I was proud to be part of, I also felt that there was something missing. I felt like the vision and values of the charities that I had worked for didn’t align with my own.
On 4th July 2024, the annual Social Founders EY Summer Forum was hosted at EY’s London Bridge offices, marking seven years of EY's commitment to supporting Social Founders, community building and uplifting social causes. Over 40 established and emerging social founders gathered together in the spectacular space with a scenic view of the Thames, Tower Bridge and Tower of London.
The Social Founders Forum theme this year was ‘Building a positive Culture’ - how we, as the founders of our impact organisations, can best build, inspire, enable and lead a culture that maximises wellbeing, kindness, respect and equity, for all who interact with our organisation.
We believe that a culture of kindness, led by us as founders, is also the key to delivering impact, sustainable business models, scale (if you want scale), and resilience - resilience for you, your team and organisation, and the communities you support.
We set an open theme for our forum, which led to insights, challenges and debate about many relevant issues, alongside solutions to how, as social impact founders, we can build positive culture in and around our organisations, as we move along our founder journey, from start-up to stepping down, and maybe to starting again.
Creating a positive culture in such tough times is no easy feat. Change and challenges are all around us, at all levels, both inside and outside our organisations. We are constantly being challenged, in our values, in available resources, in our business models, in our visibility as founders, in our impact story, and hugely on behalf of, and often by, our teams, beneficiaries, communities, funders and...Read More

Chief Happiness Officer: a social founder's real role

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:03:16 -0700

Henry Stewart, Chief Happiness Officer and Founder of Happy Ltd., was key speaker at our Hackney Social Founders' Forum in October 2024.
Speaking to 40 social founders of all backgrounds, ages and experience, Henry faciliated a fast-paced, insightful and participatory half-day seminar, based on his 30 years of learnings and practice at Happy. What a privilege for those of us who were there.
Read Henry's blog below, and maybe you'll change your job title!

Let’s Create Happy, Productive Workplaces - a blog for founders and leaders by Henry Stewart, Chief Happiness Officer - and Founder - at Happy Ltd
At Happy one of our core principles is that “people work best when they feel good about themselves”.
I have asked many thousands of people whether they believe this is true, and well over 90% say yes.
If that is the case, what should be the key focus of leadership in an organisation? I would suggest it is creating the framework for people to feel good at work.
When I speak at conferences, I ask people whether that is the focus of leadership in their organisation and only about 1 in 50 say yes.
Yet when I get them to discuss the concept, the results are always positive. If that was the focus, they say, there would be greater retention, less absenteeism, less office politics, greater innovation and greater productivity.
The research backs this up. Harvard Business Review did a cover story on happy workplaces. They found that happy workplaces result in a 37% increase in sales, a 31% increase in productivity and a 300% increase in creativity.
People sometimes ask me what does make people happy? My answer is, ask them.
What doesn’t work is “the golden rule”, that you...Read More

A powerful dose of emotion and hope…ChangeNOW in Paris

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 08:23:52 -0700

A powerful dose of emotion and hope…ChangeNOW in Paris
1,000 solutions, 130 countries, 1,200 investors, 35,000 participants:
Caroline Diehl MBE, Founder & CEO of Social Founders, shares just a small part of her three days at the ChangeNOW summit in Paris
“Wow! It was a powerful dose of emotion and hope, leaving an indelible mark on all of us.” The closing words from the co-founders of the 2024 ChangeNOW summit in Paris - a gloriously intense, super-connected, global gathering of 35,000 social founders, change-makers and impact investors.
It was a delight to spend 3 days with passionate, innovative and inspirational social founders from all over the world at ChangeNOW, coming together to share solutions, connect and collaborate, inspire each other, partner, invest and so much more. Delegates included my fellow INSEAD social entrepreneur global alumni joining us in Paris from as far afield as Pakistan and Brazil.
The ChangeNOW summit in Paris at the end of March 2024 was the 7th summit, and the biggest yet.
The above speaker is Rosario del Pilar Diaz...Read More

Founding Street Storage - Rachel Woolf talks why, how, 'growing pains' and big vision.

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 09:00:57 -0800

Founder and Director Rachel Woolf writes about her story of conceptualising and growing Street Storage - the first storage organisation for people experiencing homelessness.
“I’m not a businesswoman in any way. I’m not a creative person. I’m not driven by profit. But I did notice a need that wasn’t being addressed in a huge sector and I did make something happen.”
In her guest blog below, Rachel writes about the ‘growing pains’ she’s endured in building the organisation, the challenges of measuring hidden impact, visions of a much larger headquarters in central London and plans to replicate Street Storage across the UK. After witnessing a gaping need for storage facilities for the homeless community during her time working in the sector, Rachel Woolf set up Street Storage in 2018. The organisation is the first of its kind; it provides people sleeping out with physical respite from carrying their belongings around all day, plus peace of mind and a greater chance of stabilising their situation.
During her more than decade-long experience working with the homeless community, Rachel had seen countless people carrying multiple bags of belongings around with them, often losing all they own within a couple weeks on the streets.
With such a simple idea, it is amazing that there was not already a service provider to combat storage needs for people experiencing homelessness.
It is inspirational to see that Rachel has taken it upon herself to address this problem and we look forward to tracking Street Storage’s growth. Read on!
Read More