Year: 2021

Groundwork joins the Enterprise Development Programme as Environment Sector Partner

25th May 2021

The Enterprise Development Programme (EDP) is expanding. Community charity, Groundwork is joining the partnership to support charities and social enterprises operating in the environment sector. 

The EDP is developed and funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment and managed by Social Investment Business (SIB). It provides a broad range of support for charities and social enterprises working in certain sectors in England, helping them to work up an idea for trading and expand or upscale their existing business or enterprise model.

Groundwork will work closely alongside the chosen environmental organisations, supporting them to become more financially and environmentally sustainable. These organisations will work collaboratively with Groundwork to develop a package of support to help them on their enterprise journey, with support including an enabler network, mentoring, group-based learning opportunities, training and support on applying for grants. 

Examples of eligible trading models are broad and could include; selling woodland products or produce from land management projects, selling services such as training or awareness courses, producing and selling a Standard Mark, or setting up an online retail or physical charity shop. 

Funds generated by charities and social enterprises from trading can complement grant funding, act as a source of core funding or be reinvested back into organisations for further growth.

Stage 1 applications for environmental organisations in England will open on Tuesday 15 June with a deadline of Tuesday 13 July.

Since relaunching following its pilot in January 2020, the EDP programme has supported over 80 organisations across the Equality, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth sectors with tailored support packages, which have included learning programmes and grants. 

EDP’s current sector themes cover Black and Minoritised Communities, Equality, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth, with sector partners the Ubele Initiative, Equally Ours, Homeless Link, The Association of Mental Health Providers, and The Centre for Youth Impact.

Seb Elsworth, Chief Executive of Access – The Foundation for Social Investment – said: “Charities and social enterprises operating in the environment sector are improving communities and supporting people right around the country. Building more resilient business models is key to them being able to deliver more of this impact, and for many earned income can play a bigger role. We are delighted that Groundwork are joining the Enterprise Development partnership to embed support for enterprise in the environmental sector.”

Graham Duxbury, Groundwork’s UK Chief Executive, said: “We are very pleased to be joining the Enterprise Development Programme partnership. We hope that by supporting environmental organisations in securing more sustainable and resilient futures, we can help communities thrive.”

Deborah Smart, Director of Grants at Social Investment Business, said: “We’re delighted that the Enterprise Development Programme is expanding to be able to support organisations operating in the Environment sector. The addition of Groundwork UK as a new sector partner will help environmentally-focused organisations to grow their enterprise activity and increase their impact.”

How to apply

Stage 1 application for the Environment sector for EDP will open on 15 June, with a deadline 4 weeks later on 13 July. Stage 2 applications will close on 10 August. You can read more about the eligibility criteria here. 

In the meantime, you can find out more about EDP and the application process here.

-Ends

For further information, please contact:

Miranda Love

Marketing and Communications Lead

Social Investment Business

Miranda.love@sibgroup.org.uk

Notes to Editors

About Access

Access – The Foundation for Social Investment works to make charities and social enterprises in England more financially resilient and self-reliant, so that they can sustain or increase their impact.

Access does this by supporting the development of enterprise activity to grow and diversify income and improving access to the social investment which can help stimulate that enterprise activity.

Set up in 2015, Access was endowed with £60m by the Government to support more organisations to access social investment. It also runs the Growth Fund, a blended finance programme supporting small scale lending to the sector, on behalf of the National Lottery Community Fund and Big Society Capital.

www.access-socialinvestment.org.uk

About Social Investment Business

Social Investment Business provides finance to create fairer communities and improve people’s lives. They do this by providing the money and support they need directly, partnering to support them effectively and, using their knowledge to inform their own work and influence others.

Since 2004, SIB has deployed and managed over £400m of loans and grants into over 2,000 organisations and enabled almost 1,000 more to get dedicated support through programmes.

www.sibgroup.org.uk

About Groundwork 

Groundwork is a charity working locally and nationally to transform lives in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities. We’re passionate about creating a future where every neighbourhood is vibrant and green, every community is strong and able to shape its own destiny and no one is held back by their background or circumstances. 

We help people gain confidence and skills, get into training and work, protect and improve green spaces, lead more active lives and overcome significant challenges such as poverty, isolation, low skills and poor health. www.groundwork.org.uk

The Ubele Initiative join the Enterprise Development Programme as Black and Minoritised Communities Sector Partner

5th May 2021

Two black women stand in front of a market stall for the social enterprise Breadline London - which aims to support families to raise themselves out of the cycle of poverty through financial education, training, practical workshops, and business opportunities.

The Enterprise Development Programme (EDP) is expanding to be able to support charities and social enterprises operating in the Black and Minoritised Communities sector.

The EDP is led by a partnership of national infrastructure bodies seeking to support the development of enterprise models in charities and social enterprises working in certain thematic sectors. It has been developed and is funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment. Social Investment Business (SIB) provide a management role for the overall programme. EDP’s current sector themes cover Equality, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth, with sector partners Equally Ours, Homeless Link, The Association of Mental Health Providers, and The Centre for Youth Impact.

The Ubele Initiative will be joining the programme as the Black and Minoritised Communities sector partner. The Black and Minoritised Communities Enterprise Development Programme (BMEDP) will contribute to one of the key delivery objectives within The Ubele Initiative’s new three-year strategic plan. As part of this plan, they will establish the first ever National Strategic Alliance, the aim of which is to support Community Wealth Building within Black and Minoritised communities. The BMEDP will be led by Ubele and hosted within the National Strategic Alliance. The Strategic Alliance is still at an early stage of development. However, once established and fully operational it will consist of up to 12 Black and Minoritised regional infrastructure alongside key local anchor organisations across England, with the South West, London and Yorkshire and Humber already confirmed.

The Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter shed light on deep rooted social and economic structural inequalities which disproportionately impact on Black and Minoritised communities. It surfaced the need to challenge institutional racism which is still in place across the UK. Furthermore, existing large-scale gaps in service provision have been exacerbated by a lack of support and under-investment in support for Black and Minoritised Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) infrastructure arrangements over many years. Although national, regional and local recovery strategies have begun to set out plans for addressing some of these inequalities through a mission driven approach, there is an urgent need for targeted strategic interventions over a period of years.

The EDP provides a broad range of support, helping organisations to establish new enterprise models, or grow existing ones. It offers a combination of cohort-based peer learning opportunities, training, direct advice and support, as well as grants to research or test out new ideas, to launch new enterprises or grow existing ones.


Since relaunching following its pilot in January 2020, the programme has supported over 80 organisations across the Equality, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth sectors with tailored support packages, which have included learning programmes and grants. 

Seb Elsworth, Chief Executive of Access – The Foundation for Social Investment – said: “We have learned from our work over the last five years that developing viable enterprise models in charities and social enterprises is a key way to build resilience. It is also a precondition of being able to utilise social investment. We are delighted to be working with The Ubele Initiative and a range of partners to further expand the EDP to the Black and Minoritised Communities sector, both to directly support dozens of organisations and to help strengthen the vital infrastructure for the sector in the longer term.”

Yvonne Field, Founder and Director of The Ubele Initiative, said: 

“The Ubele Initiative started ten years ago as a community-led intervention. Since then we have worked intentionally and collaboratively to give voice and support to the needs and concerns of Black and Minoritised communities across the country.

The Black and Minoritised Communities Enterprise Development Programme (BMEDP) is a necessary response to an urgent need for longer term strategic enterprise-led interventions to the Black and Minoritised VCSE sector. 

We are pleased to strengthen our partnership with Access and Social Investment Business through BMEDP, and use the programme to support the creation of the first ever National Strategic Alliance to support Community Wealth Building within Black and Minoritised communities.” 

Deborah Smart, Director of Grants at Social Investment Business, said: “At Social Investment Business, our strategy involves providing the finance that organisations need to create fairer communities. We know that COVID-19 has exacerbated existing inequalities between and within communities across the UK – particularly for black and minoritised communities. We are pleased therefore to be expanding our partnership with Access on the Enterprise Development Programme to include the Black and Minoritised Communities sector and strengthening our existing partnership with The Ubele Initiative. We look forward to supporting the enterprise activity of charities and social enterprises working in the black and minoritized communities sector.”

How to apply

Stage 1 application for BMEDP will open on 1 June 2021, with a deadline 4 weeks later on 29 June. Stage 2 applications will then remain open for a further 3 weeks, closing on 20 July. You can find the eligibility criteria here. 

You can find out more about EDP and the application process here.

-Ends


For further information, please contact:

Access – The Foundation for Social Investment
Ana Van Bilsen Irias
Programme Manager
ana.vanbilsen@access-si.org.uk

Social Investment Business
Miranda Love
Marketing and Communications Lead
Miranda.love@sibgroup.org.uk

The Ubele Initiative
Anita Duda
Communications Manager
anita.duda@ubele.org


Notes to Editors

About Access

Access – The Foundation for Social Investment works to make charities and social enterprises in England more financially resilient and self-reliant, so that they can sustain or increase their impact.

Access does this by supporting the development of enterprise activity to grow and diversify income, and improving access to the social investment which can help stimulate that enterprise activity.

Set up in 2015, Access was endowed with £60m by the Government to support more organisations to access social investment. Access also provides grant into blended finance programmes to enable social investment providers to offer more of the sort of finance the sector most needs. 

www.access-socialinvestment.org.uk

 About Social Investment Business

Social Investment Business provides finance to create fairer communities and improve people’s lives. They do this by providing the money and support they need directly, partnering to support them effectively and, using their knowledge to inform their own work and influence others.

Since 2004, SIB has deployed and managed over £400m of loans and grants into over 2,000 organisations and enabled almost 1,000 more to get dedicated support through programmes.

www.sibgroup.org.uk

About The Ubele Initiative

The Ubele Initiative (Ubele) derives its name from the Swahili word meaning ‘The Future’. Ubele is an African Diaspora led intergenerational social enterprise founded in 2014, to build more sustainable communities across the UK.

They support a wide range of communities, most notably Black and minoritised community organisations and groups, with their community assets (people and physical spaces), through social action, community enterprise development and next-generation leadership initiatives. Ubele’s approach includes facilitating group learning and bringing together a culturally diverse and intergenerational group of community activists and changemakers. 

www.ubele.org

Enterprise Development Programme supports social enterprise to gain accreditation

16th Mar 2021


Originally published via Social Enterprise Mark on 12/3/21.

Second Shot Coffee, a social enterprise that trains, employs, and supports people affected by homelessness, has met recognised standards of good practice to be awarded the Social Enterprise Mark.

The Social Enterprise Mark is an externally assessed accreditation, which provides an independent guarantee that an organisation has met sector-agreed criteria and is operating as a genuine social enterprise, committed to creating positive social change.

Second Shot Coffee was supported to apply for accreditation through the Enterprise Development Programme, which aims to support charities and social enterprises to become more financially resilient by developing new enterprise models, or by growing existing ones.

The Enterprise Development Programme (EDP) is funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment and delivered by a coalition of national partners, including Homeless Link, which is the delivery partner for the homelessness sector. As part of the programme, Homeless Link worked with Julius Ibrahim, founder of Second Shot Coffee, to identify which support could help them grow their enterprise activity to become more financially sustainable.

Murphy Hopkins-Hubbard, Enterprise Development Manager at Homeless Link, suggested to Julius that accreditation may be beneficial for Second Shot Coffee and the EDP grant supported him to apply for the Social Enterprise Mark. After an independent assessment process to ensure the organisation met the sector-agreed criteria, which defines what it means to be a social enterprise, Second Shot Coffee was awarded the Social Enterprise Mark in early February 2021.

Murphy Hopkins-Hubbard

Murphy said: “We have worked with 20 homelessness organisations this year as part of the Enterprise Development Programme and each of them has undergone diagnostic consultations to understand what support would be most valuable. It’s so exciting to see Julius’s work with developing Second Shot Coffee recognised through the Social Enterprise Mark. We hope to find this accreditation boosts the credibility of the organisation as well as boost opportunities for partnerships.”

Second Shot Coffee was set up to tackle negative misconceptions and lack of understanding around homelessness. By providing employment and training to individuals that have been failed by society, it aims to eliminate these perceptions and bring people closer together, and in doing so improve the long-term life outcomes and wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness.

Julius Ibrahim

On being awarded the Social Enterprise Mark, Julius Ibrahim said “Creating meaningful impact has been at the core of Second Shot Coffee since we opened in 2016. It’s amazing to now have the Social Enterprise Mark to underpin that dedication and to highlight the work we do. Going forward we’re excited to grow within the community and work with new partners to shout about the importance of social businesses as we progress on to the next phase of the Second Shot story.”

To find out more about Second Shot Coffee click here.

Originally published via Social Enterprise Mark on 12/3/21.

Resources from Enterprise training partner The School For Social Entrepreneurs

22nd Feb 2021

Unrealistically clean soup kitchen full of models


The School for Social Entepreneurs is an Enterprise learning partner, and has been involved with EDP since the pilot programme. Below are several links to blogs, case studies and articles involving EDP case studies:

HOMELESSNESS

Three ideas: How homelessness charities can increase income The School for Social Entrepreneurs (the-sse.org)

YOUTH

Richard Marsh, Manchester Youth Zone The School for Social Entrepreneurs (the-sse.org)

Case Study

Steven Platts, Groundswell The School for Social Entrepreneurs (the-sse.org)

Match Trading

Match Trading spreads – and could significantly boost earned income | The Social Enterprise Magazine – Pioneers Post

Barons Court Project – a peek inside their experience within the Enterprise Development Programme

12th Jan 2021

Barons Court Project is a day centre in Hammersmith and Fulham for people who are homeless and/or living with mental health conditions.

Our funding has largely been reliant on contributions from Trusts and Foundations, along with some local authority grants as well. Over the past few years, we have experimented with diversifying our funding streams by establishing a Friend’s Scheme, Corporate Donations, In Kind Sponsorship as well as running some successful fundraising events. The idea of establishing an inhouse social enterprise started to become increasingly appealing to us as a way of becoming more financially independent.

Before we joined the Enterprise Development Programme, we had run trials of different ideas for social enterprise projects, including selling greetings cards designed by service users or dinner clubs run by service users. We found that they not only offered the potential to diversify our income streams, but they also helped to build awareness of our work and gave new opportunities to our service users to feel empowered, develop new skill sets and contribute to our work in a rewarding way. The local community bought into the ideas we had trialled, but we knew we would need support to make a real success of
these initiatives, and we felt that what the EDP offered would be of real benefit to our organisation at that stage.

Being part of the EDP meant receiving the input of other organisations with more experience in managing social enterprises, training from experts in the field, and financial support to invest in and expand our initiative. It also meant that we would have the opportunity to share what he had learnt from others, and to work together to turn our ideas into a programme of social enterprise projects which would be a significant and consistent source of income and engagement with the community.

Since our launch in June 2020, our social enterprise Home(less)Made has grown from strength to strength. We have managed to establish a loyal and fond customer base, many of whom are repeat customers. Our sales have increased by an average of 55% on a month-to-month basis, and our profit margins are consistent and healthy. The Christmas period saw us sell an incredible 980 Christmas Cards. This growth is a real testament to the incredible artwork Guan and Lui have produced.
Practicing art has given them an escape from the daily challenges of being homeless, whilst also giving them a sense of meaning and purpose in their day to day lives. The confidence that Guan and Lui receive from selling their artwork is the essence of the positive impact we make at Home(less)Made. Recognition and validation are so important for them and incredibly rewarding for us to witness.

Our growth and sales so far, along with the support we’ve received from the EDP, has allowed us to invest in the development of a brand identity which we’re really proud of and will be sharing soon, along with a full revamp of our website and social media presence. With 50% of all profits made going to Guan and Lui, Home(less)Made aims to create a platform of opportunity for guests to become more financially independent, enabling them to build the lives they deserve. Luis and Guan have formed a close and supportive friendship through their shared experience with Home(less) Made. With the support of
The Barons Court Project, Guan and Lui have begun to move forward and see a promising future again.