Social Innovation for Youth Development: The Knoll Group Project

The Knoll group aims at benefitting the youth in the Brighton area of South England by providing social and economic development to the society. The group focusses on instilling skills that help in job creation among the youth. The project experiences implementation challenges arising from lack of funds and resistance from the local community. The social innovation and community engagement theory refers to various activities including social entrepreneurship, social relations and the development of new programmes and services. The Knoll youth project will engage the youth of the Brighton area who have lacked the opportunity to attend higher education due to poverty and poor grades. The project will contribute to the common good of the society by allowing the free flow of information about the life-changing opportunities available in the society.

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Name of student
Name of institution
Name of instructor
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Executive summary
The Knoll group aims at benefitting the youth in the Brighton area of South England. The
Knoll group will work with various organisations to provide social and economic
development to the society. The group focusses on instilling skills that help in job creation
among the youth. The group intends to teach the youth to become innovative, decisive and to
have the ability to survive in the business world. Additionally, the Knoll group will engage in
innovation and other projects that benefit the society (Bessant John, 2012).
Knoll group has the ability to develop the society by improving the lives of the youth using
the life skill training. The group will engage qualified trainers to ensure that the youth get the
best from the training (Bund Eva, 2015). Additionally, the group will support the youth with
funds to start businesses and perform follow up to ensure success.
The Knoll group financial projections for the year add up to 68 million. The funds will go
towards payment of trainer salaries and financing start-up business. Therefore, the group will
collect donations from various corporates that share in the vision of youth development. The
youth development project will help increase the skilled employees within the environment
(McCarthy Daniel, 2014).
However, the project experiences implementation challenges arising from lack of funds and
resistance from the local community. Therefore, the Knoll group will require donations to
fund the various activities. The group will also require to market the group to create
awareness and reduce resistance (Diane, 2015).
Social innovation and community engagement theory
The social innovation and community engagement theory refers to various activities
including social entrepreneurship, social relations and the development of new programmes
and services (McCarthy Daniel, 2014). The activities aim at benefiting the youth within the
society by instilling new knowledge and life skills. However, the social innovations and

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engagement theory lacks a specific description. The lack of a specific description arises from
people doing things using new methods. Therefore, the activities involved rotate around
innovation, system change, sustainability and development (Gordon, 2013). The social
innovation and community engagement theory has evolved over the years to open innovation.
The open innovation represents a paradigm shift to a system that allows free flow of
information and ideas across organisations. The social innovation and engagement campaigns
for the free flow of information among the society members. Therefore, the ideas generated
reach each person within the group for the purpose of improving the social standard.
Furthermore, the organisations have currently shifted to the use of digital media to enable to
smooth flow of information to large groups (Gurviez Patricia, 2013).
Social innovation and community engagement involve community centred changes that
tackle the challenges and issues facing the society (Laursen Keld, 2012). The benefits derived
from the social innovation and engagement depends on the nature of interactions with the
society. The social engagements require the cooperation of the targeted groups to allow the
delivery of the benefits. The social innovation and engagement theory has resulted in a global
trend of creating sustainable societies.
Social innovation and engagement have evolved over the years to result in the improvisation
of the solution to challenges using the scarce resources available (Laursen Keld, 2012). The
innovations come from a rich understanding of the society and the resources available. The
innovations assist the marginalised groups to enjoy the benefits of existing scarce resources.
Therefore, the societies and groups have the ability to grow economically and eradicate
poverty. Moreover, the theory refers to the empowerment of the communities to identify
opportunities in the environment.
The social innovation and engagement theory deals with the generation if benefits to the
society (Li Yong, 2012). Therefore, the activities do not aim at improving the income of

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entrepreneurs and investors engaged in the activities. The actions aim a solely improving the
living standards of the community by giving the ability to exploit the opportunities available
in the society. Therefore, the engagements bring together the various groups for equipping
with the necessary knowledge about economic prosperity. Additionally, the groups also learn
other skills such as how to maintain the health and hygiene standards (Moore Michele, 2015).
The education given to the groups depends on the issues affecting the various societies.
However, most of the social engagements aim at improving the economic standards of the
marginalised groups. The non-profit organisations mostly engage in the social groups since
the investors and profit-making organisations shy away from such projects.
Knoll youth project
The Knoll youth project will engage the youth of the Brighton area who have lacked the
opportunity to attend higher education due to poverty and poor grades. The organisation aims
at equipping the youth with various entrepreneurial skills (Olsson Per, 2017). The skills will
allow the youth to exploit the opportunities available in the society to create employment for
self and other people. The training will instil a sense of social awareness and goodwill that
enables the youth to work towards improving lives. Additionally, the project intends to help
the youth get employment opportunities by equipping with employment skills such as
teamwork and decision making. Furthermore, the Knoll group will connect the youths with
future employers, which helps in dealing with the problem of unemployment (Phillip, 2015).
The project will enrich the society with the necessary life skills to make income through
entrepreneurship and employment opportunities (Phillips Nelson, 2012). The youth will have
the ability to identify and exploit the opportunities available in a way that leads to the
generation of income. Furthermore, the project will give hope of a better future to the youths
suffering from poverty. Therefore, the youth will have a good platform to launch careers and
start own businesses.

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The project will contribute to the common good of the society by allowing the free flow of
information about the life-changing opportunities available in the society (Richard, 2014).
The employment training and entrepreneurial skills will enable the society to reduce the
unemployment burden. Therefore, the Brighton community will experience a reduction of the
challenges that accrue massive unemployment and poverty. The vices include theft, drug
abuse and depression. The elimination of the vices will make the society a better place since
the people will leave in harmony. Additionally, the skills will assist in wealth creation for the
society, which will play a huge role in the development of infrastructure and other social
amenities.
Moreover, the Knoll programme will allow the society to develop a sense of identity by
realising and prioritising the issues affecting the society. The society will respond to the
issues by coming up with solutions to the problems, therefore, leading to a better society that
works for the common interest of each other.
SWOT analysis
The Knoll programme has the strength of being a learning centre where the youth get skills
that help in entrepreneurship. The programme disseminates important information that helps
the society to exploit the scarce resources available (Tom, 2012). Furthermore, the
programme has a weakness of relying on donations from corporations. Therefore, Knoll lacks
the ability to freely use the finances since the donors give guidelines for use (Tom, 2012). On
the other hand, the programme has the opportunity of evolving the way the Brighton youth
identify and exploit the resources. The youth will get the necessary knowledge to exploit the
scarce resources from the environment and make a living (Tom, 2012). However, the
business faces the threat of competing for donor funds with other projects. The donating
corporates receive many project proposals that require funds, which results in Knoll project
competing for finances (Tom, 2012).

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PESTLE analysis
The Knoll youth programme has support from both the national and local governments. The
governments have given the programme the necessary licenses to operate in the society and
seek for donations. Additionally, the government also funds the programme annually
(Veronika, 2014). The economic conditions faced by the organisation include the use of the
finances to ensure social stability. The funds go towards training the youth to know how to
exploit the available resources (Veronika, 2014).
The social analysis indicates that the group has incorporated many youths within the area of
operation. Therefore, the programme is able to achieve the social appeals that attract the
youth. Furthermore, the programme has advanced technologically by allowing the youth
digital platforms to access information (Weber Mark, 2012). The programme has educated
the society on better take care of the environment. The methods include recycling and
adopting green production to prevent environmental pollution. Finally, the project team meets
regularly to ensure that the operations follow the set of national regulations for such a
programme. The meeting checks for possible violations and seeks solutions in the case of
deviations from set regulations (Weber Mark, 2012).
The funding implications of the social innovation include the lack of adequate finances to
support the activities (Olsson Per, 2017). The financial inadequacy exists since the
programme does not engage in profit-generating activities. Therefore, Knoll project depends
on donations from partners who share in the vision of helping the youth.
Furthermore, the ethical implications of the project include fairness and justice in the access
to the scarce resources (Gordon, 2013). The project will equip the disadvantaged youth with
the necessary skills to identify and exploit resources in the environment. Therefore, the
society will have equal knowledge and ability to live a better life. Furthermore, the project

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does not discriminate against the youth who wish to join. Therefore, every youth has an equal
chance of getting the life skill training.
Challenges for implementation
The youth programme faces the financial challenge during the implementation stage. The
operations of the Knoll project do not result in income from the activities. Therefore, the
project lacks money to finance the various operations such as paying salaries and funding
entrepreneurs. The project depends on donations from corporates, well-wishers and the
government. However, the donations do not come easily since the donors only give after
financing all the personal projects. Therefore, the project has to wait for a long time before
getting the funds. The delays cause challenges when beginning the project (Gordon, 2013).
The lack of information in the target group also causes challenges during the implementation
(Gurviez Patricia, 2013). The youth do not have adequate information about the operations of
the project leading to reluctance to join. Furthermore, the target group lack patience and
motivation to go through the learning process due to the lack of financial incentives during
the period. The youth require the programme to offer a stipend to the trainees, which causes a
huge challenge to the programme. Therefore, the Knoll group has to undertake much
persuasion before beginning the operations to ensure that the youth show up willingly for the
training.
Moreover, both the local and national governments cause challenges to implementation due
to the many legal procedures set (Bessant John, 2012). The programme has to register and
apply for licences in many government departments. The licences take much time before
processing, which causes further delay in implementation. The government also requires the
fulfilment of very many obligations that increase the expenses. Therefore, the Knoll youth
programme fails to launch immediately as intended due to the problems in meeting the set
procedures.

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Conclusion
The Knoll youth development will empower the youth and the society at large by imparting
skills and knowledge to the community. The programme will also enable the youth to identify
the resources within the society and exploit in a way that creates income. Furthermore, the
group will reduce the social vices arising from unemployment.
Moreover, the group should increase the sources of donations to ensure that the programme
launches smoothly. Knoll group should look for activities that generate income to prevent
overreliance on the donors. Furthermore, the group should ensure adequate training to
empower the youth to identify and exploit scarce resources.

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