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Thinking of Starting a Social Enterprise?

By Dave Lane on 16 March, 2017 in Blog, News

School for Social Entrepreneurs (Midlands) open for applications!

If you’re thinking or starting a social enterprise then look no further. Our friends over at the School for Social Entrepreneurs (Midlands) are recruiting for their next cohort now. If you’re successful you get onto one of the best action learning programmes currently available for social entrepreneurs and we may even see you at one of the sessions.

Here’s a taste of what’s on offer and how to find out more!

The School for Social Entrepreneurs in the Midlands will support 40 social entrepreneurs through the Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Start Up Programme 2017 supported by Big Lottery Fund.

The programme provides free support for a year:

A grant of up to £3,000
A learning programme comprising 15 days over 12 months
Mentoring
A community of people starting up social and environmental projects

Find out more by attending one of their 2 hour Information events:

Leicester – 23 March from 5:30pm – Book here
Coventry – 28 March from 6:00pm – Book here
Birmingham #1 – 30 March from 5:30pm – Book here
Nottingham – 6th April from 5:30pm – Book here
Birmingham #2 – 11th April from 5:30pm – Book here
Wolverhampton – 12th April from 6:30pm – Book here

The deadline for applications is 26 April 2017.

“The SSE Midlands Start Up Programme is part of a UK-wide programme that will support 300 social entrepreneurs for a year. This is the sixth year of this programme, and 99% of our students would recommend our programme.”

GBSLEP Board Recruitment

By Dave Lane on 14 November, 2016 in Blog, News

Greater Birmingham calls for young person to join LEP Board

Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership to appoint new ‘young’ Non-Executive Director
Appointment to be voice of young people in the area

Last week the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) opened applications for a new Non-Executive Director (NED) that will represent and inspire young people across the region.

The GBSLEP is the first LEP in the UK to create a youth representative role on its Board, reflecting the area’s uniquely youthful profile. Birmingham is one of the youngest and most diverse cities in Europe – 40% of its population are aged under 25. Across the wider region, 38% of the population are aged between 18 – 30.

The GBSLEP is looking for a confident, enthusiastic self-starter aged 18-30 with a passion for the region and its growth. The new Director will play a key role in driving forward the LEP’s ambitious Strategic Economic Plan across its three ‘Pillars’ of Business, People and Place.

The voluntary three-year role, will take up two to three days a month and, alongside Board duties the appointed young person will help to design and deliver the approach for recruiting young people to sit on each of the LEP’s sub-boards.

The successful individual will join 19 other Non-Executive Directors on the LEP Board from across the private, public and educational sectors, and will lead on representing the views of young people across every aspect of the LEP’s agenda.

This opportunity comes at an exciting time for Greater Birmingham and the GBSLEP. Key indicators such as job creation, economic output, foreign direct investment and business start-ups show that the region’s economy is growing.

Download the candidate brief – candidate-brief-gbslep-ned-for-young-people-final

If you would like more information on the role please contact: gbslep@birmingham.gov.uk.

GBSLEP Consultation on their Strategic Economic Plan 2016-2030 Open

By Dave Lane on 29 July, 2016 in Blog, News

As a business support organisation specialising in supporting Social Enterprises to develop and grow and being based in the west Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) area we have been interested in the developments of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) for some time.

Many of you will have noticed recently that its growth hub website is now reasonably well populated and growth funding is available for business in the area (not social enterprises – likely because there are a number of specialised social enterprise development funds around) to scale up and grow. So things are starting to move along.

However, we noted today that the GBSLEP Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) 2016-2030 (draft consultation version) “A greater Birmingham for a Greater Britain” is now published and the GBSLEP are interested in your comments on the plan. So we thought at the very least you’d want to read it and if you have comments please do send it through either by email or post to:

Comments on the SEP and our approach are welcomed by email and by post before the consultation closes on Friday 9th September 2016.

gbslep@birmingham.gov.uk

SEP Consultation
GBSLEP Executive
Ground Floor, Baskerville House
Centenary Square, Broad Street
Birmingham B1 2ND

Solihull’s VCSE is Ready for Success

By Dave Lane on 20 July, 2016 in Blog, News

VCSE organisations working in Solihull are celebrating their achievements on Development in Social Enterprise’s Ready for Success project. The project followed our successful Community Enterprise for Success programmes of support for local VCSE organisations and has been funded by Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council’s transformation directorate.

The Ready for Success project is part of “Solihull Together for Better Lives” which aims to transform social care and health services to increase choice, control and independence by ensuring health and social care services meet current and future needs. 23 organisations took part in the bespoke programme of support designed to ensure organisations were prepared for future commissioning and procurement of services (tender ready).

In March 2016 organisations attended and awards ceremony to recognise their achievements and saw the formal launch of the Health and Wellbeing Networking Directory. Karen Murphy, Assistant Director, Public Health and Commissioning thanked the group for engaging with the six month business development programme. Karen continued “We know that the process of commissioning and procurement can cause anxiety for smaller local organisations, and not be a pleasant experience if ill prepared. Procurement practices have traditionally tended to favour big organisations and we hope programmes like this will go some way towards levelling the playing field. We are committed to investing in our local providers and this piece of work has flagged up learning for us too, things we can do better. Above all, we see you as our partners and thank you for the work you do.”

David Lane, Chief Executive at Development in Social Enterprise said: “Since last October we have worked closely with organisations delivering a wide range of services including advice and guidance, advocacy, mental health, recovery support, and therapeutic indoor and outdoor activities. There was a genuine desire amongst the group to identify and address development areas, explore business opportunities and build relationships with one another for the benefit of service users.”

Business Development Manager – Job- Solihull

By Dave Lane on 20 April, 2016 in Blog, News

SoLO Life Opportunities “Embracing Disability, Empowering Lives”

Business Development Manager. An exciting new opportunity has arisen within SoLO for the right person to join our Senior Management Team – are you that person? We are looking for an enthusiastic, confident, high achieving individual with marketing and bid writing experience at a senior level.

But we want more than this! The right candidate would need to have a passion for ensuring that people with a learning disability are given an equal chance in life. He or she would have experience in managing teams of people and have the ability to inspire, motivate and direct the current marketing and fundraising team. He or she would need to demonstrate evidence of successful fundraising and bid writing with an understanding of how the voluntary sector works.

If appointed, you would become part of an exciting new programme of development, have the satisfaction of working in an environment which makes a difference to people’s lives and gain significant job satisfaction.

This appointment is subject to enhanced DBS clearance.

The post is a one year funded post, part time initially, starting at 25-30 hours a week (with opportunity to grow to full time and permanent), salary £18.18 an hour

For further information please contact Janet Down on 0121 779 3865 or by email Janet@solihullsolo.org alternatively you can view the vacancy and download an application form from our website at www.solihullsolo.org

Due to nature of funding, the deadline for applications is 2^nd May, 2016

Interviews will be held on 5^th or 6^th May.

Power to Change Guidance

By Dave Lane on 5 April, 2016 in News

A quick update for those of you who aim to grow your community businesses and to follow up on a post ( a few weeks ago) about the £10m fund.

Power to Change has now released the funding guidance to apply for the fund which will potentially provide up to 75% of the development costs with a ceiling application of £300,000.

Please note this is a fund that has strict criteria and is aiming to fund sustainable community business development so do check the criteria carefully. In previous rounds only 5% of applications were awarded and a very high proportion were not awarded based on the organisation not meeting the basic community business criteria.

You can download their guidance here http://www.thepowertochange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Community-Business-Fund-applicant-guidance.pdf

Is CIO the Way to Go?

By Dave Lane on 2 April, 2016 in News

We’re moving a step closer to making it simple for charities to convert to a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation), as the Cabinet Office has recently opened a consultation on the process (details below).

Charities may be able to convert to a CIO as (soon) as the 1st October 2016, the provisional timetable being:

charitable companies with an annual income greater than £500,000 convert to CIO status by 1 October 2016
those with an annual income of between £250,000 and £500,000 in December 2016
those with incomes of between £100,000 and £250,000 in February 2017
between £25,000 to £100,000 in April 2017
those with lower incomes of less than £25,000 in July 2017.

For some this will be welcome news, as it has taken some time to get to this point. Those supporting the sector’s development may remember that we were discussing the possibility and the then “new” legislation for a CIC and CIO back in the very early 2000s.

The CIC became available for social enterprises in 2005 and it was thought the CIO would follow swiftly, but it finally became available in 2013 and now the Charity Commission has reported that around half of the applications to form a new charity are using the CIO model.

The CIO model has been welcomed, prior to that, Charities needed to register with Companies House as well as the Charity Commission in order to become a limited liability legal entity. They therefore had two structures and needed to report to two regulators, the CIO streamlined this being a limited structure only reporting to the Charity Commission.

If you would like to comment on the consultation then you can do this by Respondents to the consultation can submit a response or an enquiry via email to charities-act@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. For further information on how to respond, click here.

EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards closing date looming – Friday!

By Dave Lane on 9 March, 2016 in Blog, News

Our friend Melanie over at Social Investment Business dropped us a line to remind us that the entrepreneur of the year awards close on Friday.

Having worked in our region for Social Enterprise West Midlands she knows the spirit and passion of social entrepreneurs here and wouldn’t it be great if someone local won!

So if you know someone, or you think it could be you, why don’t you zap over to the website and apply… nothing ventured, nothing gained… someone once said!

So this is a last reminder entries close on Friday so there is still time to apply http://www.ey.com/UK/en/About-us/Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneur-Of-The-Year

Good luck!

£10m fund to open in April

By Dave Lane on 5 March, 2016 in Blog, News

If you need £50,000 to £300,000 to support your community business to develop and grow then you’ll be pleased to know that the Power to Change £1om grant programme is opening a new funding round on 26th April 2016.

A few pointers:

Power to change is for community business rooted in the community with community ownership (check eligibility here) and in previous rounds it only funded 5% of applicants and more than two thirds of applications dd not meet their criteria. Funding will rarely exceed 75% of overall development costs.

Power to change is expecting this round will be highly competitive and is having further rounds in July and October. the fund expects to award relatively equal acorss each round.

Key dates to note:

5 April: Full criteria will be published on the Power to Change Website the grants helpline will open to help you with your application and any questions you have about eligibility.
19 April: They will host a free Q&A webinar about the programme.
26 April – 1 June: First application window
July 2016: Second funding round opens
October 2016: Third funding round opens

To register your interest then click here

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