More Canny And Less Nanny

More Canny And Less Nanny

New Zealand’s Centre for Social Innovation holds first Leadership Forum to look at the future of business-government partnerships

Auckland, New Zealand, 26 February 2009 – Finding new ways for business and government to partner in social innovation is a top priority for a group of New Zealand business leaders meeting with the Minister of Finance in Auckland on February 26.

The New Zealand Centre for Social Innovation is hosting a Leadership Forum with its founding partner, Kordia, to provide big business with an opportunity to meet with the Hon Bill English (Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and for Infrastructure). The group is working to find ways the private sector and Government can better partner to meet some of New Zealand’s most pressing social needs. The needs include long-standing ones such as inequality and dysfunctional families; emerging challenges as we adapt to new demographic, health and environmental considerations; and immediate recession-linked challenges.

The Centre for Social Innovation’s CEO, Justine Munro, will facilitate a roundtable discussion with the Minister of Finance and 19 leaders of New Zealand’s most innovative businesses and organisations including Kordia, Fonterra, Cisco, Fletcher Building, Air New Zealand and Counties-Manukau District Health Board.

Says Munro, “We’re all hoping that the upcoming Jobs Summit proves fertile in terms of the great ideas it will generate. But it has already proved fertile in another way – spawning other mini-summits. We hope this mini-summit – the Leadership Forum – on the eve of the Jobs Summit, will put a focus on public-private partnerships and the innovative new directions they can take.”

Social innovation is a movement that has taken hold in the UK and enjoyed notable successes in areas like peer-to-peer therapy, adult apprenticeships and the celebrated schoolofeverything.com. The Obama Administration recently announced its own Centre for Social Innovation. New Zealand also seems poised to explore these developments, with the country’s own Centre for Social Innovation launching this year with goals to develop the social innovation movement here –through advocacy and education, but also by initiating and guiding key projects.

Munro is optimistic New Zealand’s time has come: “When in opposition, John Key made a number of speeches in which he said that National would look to business as a partner in delivering social outcomes. So the will is there from both sides. Many businesses are keen to contribute, but the models and vehicles for collaboration just haven’t been there.”

The former Director of Policy at 10 Downing Street and an advisor to the Obama Administration, Geoff Mulgan, is also actively supporting the work in New Zealand, and will be meeting with key leaders here in April.

Munro describes the Centre as a ‘do tank’ and not just a think tank. “The key is to work with the people you are trying to help, seeing them as innovators and investors, not passive consumers. The best ideas come from those facing the needs, or working at the coalface – usually through conversations with people who have no fixed idea of the way things should be done. We identify areas where innovation is required, and bring together a collaboration of public, private and community organisations who want to partner in developing and growing a transformative solution.”

“The Leadership Forum this week will be an opportunity to begin this public-private innovation partnership,” says Munro.

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