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First Ark Group bangs the drum in Westminster for Britain’s growing social economy

First Ark Group, the social impact business based in Knowsley, has joined an alliance to encourage Britain’s politicians to think about the social economy ahead of the 2015 general election.

And to get its point across, the alliance has launched an eye-catching advertising campaign created and supported through crowd-funding.

As MPs gear up for the final party conferences before the next general election, the adverts, featuring merged faces of key worldwide political figures from both the left and right of politics, will appear throughout Westminster with the slogan ‘The revolution is coming’.

The posters depict well-known international political figures - for example Margaret Thatcher merges with Che Guevara, while John Prescott’s distinctive features are blended with those of Angela Merkel.

The adverts, produced for the Social Economy Alliance’s 2015 election manifesto, will draw MP’s attention to the Alliance’s key election manifesto pledges, which support the building of a pro-social economy across all regions of the UK.

The pledges include new ‘right-to-buy’ options for communities so people can benefit from new energy and building developments, measures to strengthen social value laws and new powers to prevent land-banking in order to open land up for productive use.

Bob Taylor, CEO of First Ark Group, explains: “The First Ark Group is a unique social impact business, which inspires and motivates people and generates growth in the communities in which we work.

“We’re a long standing member of the Social Economy Alliance, and we’re fully in support of the campaign and the messages behind it.

“As individual member organisations, we all want to make a difference, but no single organisation can create this level of impact on its own.

“By coming together as a collective via the crowd-funded adverts, we’re able to raise the profile of the messages that the Social Economy Alliance wants to communicate out to politicians at this key point in time.

“Social investment is a growing global phenomenon, and the UK is a clear leader, with almost half of all registered charities in the UK now considering themselves to be social enterprises.

“Our political leaders must get behind the sort of economy that their voters are already building on their own; an economy that has seen social enterprises launch at three times the rate of traditional businesses to now account for 15 per cent of all SMEs.

“We hope that the marketing campaign will highlight our messages and encourage our politicians to include more social thinking into key election policies.”

The Social Economy Alliance, which comprises social enterprises, co-operatives, universities, housing associations, think tanks, charities and social investors, believes that 20th Century economic thinking in Britain has left businesses and society pitted against each other.

At the same time, however, citizens and communities are working together to create solutions to tackle their social and economic problems. Yet businesses can be vehicles for social change and markets can be used for society’s benefit, if the right policies are in place at a government level.

For more information about the First Ark Group visit www.firstark.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .