The workshop will invite social entrepreneurs who are nearing retirement age to sit with facilitators from the Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs to consider their best options for succession and transition. Workshops in other venues have often engendered a high degree of emotion as the social entrepreneur (often a founder) considers what is best for them and for their organization that they value highly, indeed often love, as their time to change roles or leave altogether is brought to the fore and discussed. Often it becomes apparent that there is no right answer as to what a particular person should do but sharing what others have done, as a part of the workshop, can be very helpful to the participant who feels somehow held and, over time, at peace with their predicament and the final decisioin they have to make.
The Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs was established some three + years ago by Andrea Coleman, Mel Young and Chris Underhill to respond to exactly this situation. It does so by holding bimonthly webinars and has created The Wisdom Bank is which the united wisdom of social entrepreneurs across the age range is held and shared. By October 2024 we will be able to announce a mentoring scheme that will be aimed at availing of the wisdom of Elders to be put to the service of younger social entrepreneurs.
The reason why this matter falls under a DEI category is that we at the Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs find that often older people are deeply disrespected and yet paradoxically we Elders hold wisdom that is much needed by succeeding generations. That is why, to our delight, we often find that our webinars are populated not only by Elders but in fact by folk from right across the age range spectrum in the social entrepreneurial field since there is a thirst for knowledge particularly around the question of transition and succession. We draw our members from all over the world and we are so pleased to be able to share different cultural approaches to Eldership as a natural contribution from our 300 + members.
One of the successes so far achieved by the Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs is the admittedly slow realisation of funders that they have to consider funding effective succession and transition and there is a remarkable divide between funders who see this as part of their responsibility and those who don’t.
