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The Big Issue is probably the best-known social enterprise in the UK. Started in 1991 by John Bird, the concept is simple – a street newspaper, compiled by professionals and then sold to homeless people to sell on the street at profit. However, it is not a charity. The Big Issue is, first and foremost, a business. So whatever you do, don’t called Bird a ‘do-gooder’.
Raised in Notting Hill just after the Second World War, Bird was in and out of homelessness and institutions from the age of five up until his mid-twenties. Consequently, finding ways to make money, legal or not, became part of his survival instinct from an early age.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” says Bird. “I started going down to the market in Portobello and dragging wooden boxes round to people’s houses to sell as kindling.” By 10, Bird was collecting money for refugees – with no intention of actually donating the cash.
“Begging is very entrepreneurial,” he insists. “I would tell the most elaborate stories. I once advertised a book in newspapers which people sent me money for.” The papers never received their fee or the customers their book – but Bird made a tidy profit. He later transgressed to break-ins, shoplifting, benefit fraud and smash and grab thefts, while he’s previously also admitted to arson and vandalism. Several stints in prison followed.
Determined to ‘go straight’, Bird started his first legitimate business in his mid-twenties, selling enlarged versions of Victorian drawings. He then set about learning “everything there was to know about printing and publishing”, and started to publish books and magazines for other people.
The idea for The Big Issue was suggested to Bird by Gordon Roddick, co-founder of The Body Shop. The pair met years earlier, when Bird was “on the run from the police”. Bird’s quick to point out Roddick wasn’t involved in his life of crime, but says the two hit it off instantly. “Gordon was fascinated by me and I was all for telling people what a genius I was.”
Years later Roddick had seen a copy of a street paper in New York and decided it was something to try in London. Roddick asked Bird to head up the project due to his first hand experience of street life, but he was initially reluctant.
“I didn’t want to do it because I wasn’t interested in charity,” he says. Roddick’s solution was for Bird to run the magazine as a business. It proved to be the clincher, and Bird was on board.
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