Under the slogan “second chance for people and boards”, the social start up RUFFBOARDS produces uniquely designed, high-end longboards by upcycling used snowboards in a highly integrative production process: Employing ex-offenders in the manufacturing process, social impact is maximized.
Relapse figures in Austria resemble those in most other countries with around 40% committing another crime offense; among the 14-17-year-olds this figure is even higher with close to 70%. The first production round has been produced in cooperation with the association NEUSTART offering re-socialisation aid to ex-offenders – in the long term, however, RUFFBOARDS wants to employ the ex-offenders directly.
Combining ecological and social consciousness, Ruffboard found a gap in the market, appealing to the LOHAs segment (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability). In her presentation, Melanie Ruff describes RUFFBOARD’s concept but also the obstacles that she and her co-founder Simone Melda had to face during the prototyping phase. For as Peter Ramsden explained in his keynote address, social innovators need to be prepared to test and adjust their ideas “20 times if necessary”.
When it was clear that they needed to outsource their production, they decided to add a social component to their ecological consciousness. The first idea was to foster women in technical work. Their ideal cooperation partner for this was a production company led by a woman – which they couldn’t find. Their next choice was to have their longboards produced by a socially disadvantaged group. The choice fell on former prisoners, who, as explains Melanie, “are probably the disadvantaged group with the smallest lobby”. Ruffboards first tried to have their boards produced directly in prison workshops. But the right partner for this could not be found and they had to find a new solution. The result was that they now produce with ex-offenders in cooperation with NEUSTART, an organisation with more than 50-year experience with the integration of ex-offenders. However, the plan is to directly employ more than 50 ex-offenders until 2016.
RUFFBOARDS was among the finalists of the European Social Innovation Competition: http://socialinnovationcompetition.eu/410/