Voice09 is your chance to enjoy the largest interactive exhibition of its kind in the UK, showcasing the best of social enterprise and providing educational and networking opportunities, as well as free business advice.
It will also give you the chance to participate in a number of seminars addressing pressing issues and hear a range of prominent speakers including national & international experts on social enterprise and senior politicians.
Voice is being run in partnership with regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, and the Social Enterprise Coalition is proud to be hosting the event in Birmingham for the first time.
Whether a seasoned social entrepreneur or new to social enterprise, Voice09 is a must-attend event!
Please visit http://www.voice09.org for more details
This year's Enterprise Week had been announced to run 12-18 November.
Last year 1,410 organisations led 3,184 events attended by 448,000 people. The week is part of the Make Your Mark campaign - inspiring young people to turn their ideas into reality. Enterprise Week provides a great opportunity to showcase what your organisation does all year round to encourage an enterprise culture, or alternatively to launch something new. And last year Social Enterprise was a major feature.
For a free action pack, please email andrew@enterpriseweek.org or see EnterpriseWeek.org for the full story.
The Community Interest Company Regulator is hiring more staff to deal with a flood of enquiries as she anticipates the number of CICs swelling to 3,000 by summer 2010.
Julie Court, acting CIC Regulator, estimates that at least 700 CICs will register each year for the next three years and is taking on a third case manager to deal with the workload.
'The diversity and number of social enterprises choosing the Community Interest Company legal form is very encouraging,' she said. 'It was estimated that we would have a take up of 100 to 300 each year, whereas we already have over 1,000 in less than two years and project that it should grow to more than 3,000 in its fifth year.'
See Social Enterprise Magazine for the full story.
Funding to ensure a voice for black, Asian and minority ethnic communities in social enterprise has been announced as part of a £3m Cabinet Office package to develop the sector over three years.
The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) will undertake a lead role in engaging and integrating BME social enterprise. This will include identifying and working with partner organisations to ensure the BME community is heard and helping BME networks tap into the sector for support and best practice.
See Social Enterprise Magazine for the full story.
Bebo, the UK's leading online social network, and UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, have announced a major partnership that could 'unleash the energies' and ideas of social entrepreneurship to millions of new supporters.
The aim is to use the phenomenon of online social networking as an agent for positive social change by allowing Bebo's more than 8 million UK users - and 30 million worldwide - to choose projects each month that they believe are deserving of financial support.
See Social Enterprise Magazine for the full story.
Third sector minister Ed Miliband has announced that a consortium headed by the Social Enterprise Coalition will deliver the government's programme to create ambassadors for social enterprise.
The consortium connects key players from across the social enterprise movement with leading agencies in media relations, training and innovation to deliver the ambassadors programme, which will be funded by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office.
See Social Enterprise Magazine for the full story.
A new step-by-step guide to calculating social returns on investment has been launched by think tank the New Economics Foundation.
The guide, launched at the Social Enterprise Research conference at London Southbank University, is intended to allow sector organisations to demonstrate and quantify their wider social value when applying for grants and bidding for contracts.
See the Third Sector for the full story.
Mainstream business support services need to be tailored specifically for social enterprises, according to a report commissioned by the English regional development agencies and the Office of the Third Sector.
The document, produced by research agency Rocket Science, calls for regional development agencies to be more sensitive to the particular needs and motivations of social enterprises and highlights the need for proactive specialist support to be provided at the pre-start phase.
See the Third Sector for the full story.
Sector groups have welcomed the appointment of former Home Secretary David Blunkett to oversee the development of voluntary sector policy for the Labour Party's next manifesto.
Chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition, Jonathan Bland, said Blunkett had been a supporter of social enterprise for 'quite a while', and had attended the launch of community interest companies two years ago. He said: 'It is good to have someone who is a capable and seasoned operator to develop policy that puts social enterprise at the heart of economic policy going forward."
See the Third Sector for the full story.
Third sector organisations are set to benefit from an increased funding pot, as the Futurebuilders fund now has access to an additional £25m.
The government backed fund, which offers support and investment to third sector organisations to deliver better public services, is to have access to an additional £25m from the Cabinet Office, bringing the fund total to £150m.
See Future Builders for the full story.
The Wall St Journal in New York has published a controvertial article questioning the viability of the Social Enterprise model in the US. "Few if any of the businesses set up by nonprofits are truly self-sustaining" the article quotes, going on to claim that 'overemphasis on creating a viable business can detract from an organization's social mission.'
See The Wall St Journal for the full story.
Capacitybuilders will unveil plans for new provisions to support social enterprises in July.
The proposals, which will form part of a strategy for the delivery of the ChangeUp programme, are expected to focus on a three-year funding programme for enterprises, starting in 2008. The project will be reviewed in May 2009.
See Third Sector for the full story.
65-year-old Catholic priest Monsignor Daniel McHugh has lauched KYRA, a social enterprise offering leadership training in deprived areas of the West Midlands. 'People do find it difficult to understand why a priest would be involved in something like this,' says McHugh. 'It's often a difficult link to make – but not an impossible one. I believe the Church needs to run social projects using a social enterprise or community enterprise model.'
See Growth Business for the full story.
A prison health care contract has been awarded to a social enterprise for the first time, it was announced yesterday.
Secure Healthcare has taken over responsibility for all health services at the UK's largest prison, HMP Wandsworth in South London
See Community Care for the full story.
The Slough Creative Academy, Edinburgh Science Triangle and The Paper Trail, Apsley, are just three of the twelve places announced today as shining examples of the UK's enterprise spirit, with the publication of the list of regional winners of the DTI's Enterprising Britain 2007 competition.
The competition, which launched in January, is a key part of the Government's drive to increase entrepreneurship in the UK, and identifies areas of enterprise excellence: those places that have created jobs, forged links in communities, and improved the local climate for businesses and residents.
See the eGov monitor for the full story.
Phil Hope, MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, is the replacement for Ed Miliband as minister for the third sector in the Cabinet Office.
He has been minister for skills at the Department for Education and Skills for the last two years and was a youth policy adviser for the NCVO before entering Parliament.
See the Third Sector for the full story.
The Scottish Executive has announced proposals to boost the role of social enterprises in public service delivery through a three-year action plan, which will include funding from a Scottish investment fund.
John Swinney, cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable growth, said the executive was also reviewing the £18m Futurebuilders Scotland programme, with a view to introducing a new 'successor programme'.
See the Third Sector for the full story.
Plunkett Foundation Chief Executive James Money-Kyrle and Projects Manager Jennifer Heim recently visited the London headquarters of the Big Lottery Fund to submit Plunkett's bid for £10 million to invest in local food initiatives throughout England as part of a five year portfolio programme.
Plunkett is leading a partnership comprising Co-operativesUK, the Soil Association, FoodLinksUK, CPRE and Country Markets Ltd, and the proposed portfolio programme aims to reconnect links between food producers and consumers by means of community enterprise.
See the Plunkett website for the full story.
The Office of the Third Sector has announced that seven organisations from the social enterprise movement will share £3m over three years to help ensure the sector's voice is heard by policy-makers.
That figure represents an increase of £600,000 on the £2.4m mooted when the programme was announced in the Government's Social Enterprise Action Plan last November.
See Third Sector and Care and Health for the full story.
The use of third sector organisations in public sector delivery is a form of 'soft privatisation' that could lead to a return to pre-1945 welfare provision, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union. A report commissioned by the union claims that there is insufficient capacity in the sector to deliver services.
See Third Sector for the full story.
Ethical banking expert Triodos has pioneered a new system of loans that will allow charities and social enterprises to repeatedly take out and pay back loans up to a fixed amount within a fixed time period.
The revolving credit facility, sometimes known as an 'evergreen' system, has been used before in commercial markets but has not previously been applied in the third sector.
The size of the loan is confidential, but it has been agreed for a five-year period. Oakus can draw down any amount up to the full sum, and will pay interest only while the loan is in use.
See Third Sector for the full story.
Uday Thakkar of Red Ochre who facilitated the recent SESEN/Steering Group stakeholder away day has made an offer for free social enterprise workshops. "If any of the Social Enterprise Networks that you are working with want to raise their profile or to get their programmes operational and require assistance we are happy to oblige."
We are prepared to deliver workshops, 2 half days or one – one day, on relevant topics, or a one day clinic for social enterprises on a pro bono basis. We would expect our travel expenses to be covered. This offer is probably most appropriate for the networks that are at an early stage of development themselves. Please do ask around to ascertain if there is any interest in this".
If you are interested, please contact Uday Thakkar at Red Ochre on 020 7785 6295 /07767-422362 or email uday@redochre.org.uk
A healthcare provider in Hull has become the thousandth business to set up as a Community Interest Company since the establishment of the new legal structure for social enterprises less than two years ago. City Healthcare Partnership, one of the Government's pathfinder projects for social enterprise in the healthcare sector, is being established by staff from Hull Primary Care Trust and aims to provide all primary and community health services across the city.
See Third Sector for the full story.
A consortium headed by the Social Enterprise Coalition has been chosen to deliver a new Government programme to raise the profile of social enterprise by creating at least 20 ambassadors for the sector, third sector minister Ed Miliband has announced.
See Third Sector for the full story.
The Big Lottery Fund has confirmed that it will "reprofile" £120m of its planned UK programmes over the coming year in order to meet its contribution to funding the 2012 Olympics.
See Third Sector for the full story.
The Social Enterprise Coalition has become a core group member of the Governance Hub. The move marks a broadening of focus for the hub, which has previously focused mainly on the needs of charities. Until now the hubs partners have been groups that support charities, including Acevo, Volunteering England, the NCVO and Navca.
See Third Sector for the full story.
Active encouragement by the Department of Health's Social Enterprise Unit and the Office of the Third Sector means that Primary Care Trusts in the UK are increasingly looking to the third sector for the delivery of health and other services. Financed by the Department of Health, Social Enterprise London's Enterprising Health Project is ensuring that supply and demand for services delivered in the South East match up.
Prior to hosting several 'meet the commissioner' events as well as a series of free training courses in how best to tender for PCT contracts, they are conducting a survey into the size and scope of social enterprise health service delivery in London and the South East.
The results of this research will be used to inform and promote the sector as a key delivery agent to Primary Care Trusts in the South East. It will also provide the basis of a wider needs assessment to ensure that social enterprises are provided with the skills and knowledge they need to take advantage of these new opportunities.
If you are a social enterprise already under contract to a Primary Care Trust, or are planning to do so in future, please take 5 minutes to complete the survey.
According to research by Social Enterprises London, Social Enterprises could benefit from Olympic contracts worth up to £500m. The report estimates this could be made up of £160m of fair-trade produce, £150m of property development and £90m of waste and recycling services, along with other contracts in the areas of transport, medical services and community engagement advice.
However, the report warns that social enterprises do need to move quickly to position themselves to be capable of taking full advantage of the opportunites.
See Third Sector for the full story.