Government Investment Should Focus on Established Groups, Not Startups: A View From Abroad

Gerry Higgins has some simple advice to government leaders who want to invest money in groups that use business models to advance social causes, or “social enterprises” — place your bets on existing groups rather than on startups.

The chief executive of CEIS, a Scottish group that provides money and services to more than 100 socially oriented businesses in the United Kingdom, said in an interview with The Chronicle that start-up efforts that rely on government money are significantly less likely to succeed when compared with existing groups that have already proven that they can make money.

Mr. Higgins, whose group organized the first Social Enterprise World Forum last fall in Edinburgh, is in the country to attend this week’s Social Enterprise Summit in New Orleans. In his interview, he discussed his organization and what lessons United States lawmakers can learn from his work in the United Kingdom: