In a rare moment of forward planning, sometime ago I marked in my diary that today was one week until Brexit. I had a cracker of a newsletter lined up (you’ll have to trust me on that); we may have been hurtling out of the EU but Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You was going to be the tonic needed to bring the country together again (again, you’ll just have to believe me). But once again our politicians have managed to mess everything up and so you’ll just have to make do with this for now. Don’t blame me, blame that mob in Westminster trying to do their best to ruin the country.

There’s a lot of good stuff in here this week, enjoy…

@davemcglashan

Tick tock

The deadline for our Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland programme is next Wednesday (27th) at midday. On offer is a grant and a free SSE learning programme and there are three levels available: start up, trade up and scale up. You’ve still got time to get the application submitted…

Further details here

Through the keyhole

If you’re interested in seeing what the blinds in my loft look like you should check out our Fundraising, Business Development and Partnerships webinar from earlier this week, which saw Zoe Amar and Mandy Johnson discussing some of the key issues charities face when fundraising online. We also hosted an excellent webinar with Jim Bowes, CEO of Manifesto Digital, sharing his thoughts on organisational change.

We’ve got two further webinars scheduled next week: you can sign up to those and find details of the previous recordings here.

A change will do you good

Paul Hamlyn Foundation have opened the Act For Change fund, a £3.6 million partnership for organisations supporting young people working for change. Grants of between grants of between £20,000 and £100,000 are available to organisations with an annual income ranging from £25,000 to £5 million.

All the details you need are here

A-MAZE-ing

Now this is a pretty cool opportunity; Maze-X is a new impact accelerator based in Lisbon and inviting 10 ‘impact tech-based’ to apply for a three month programme which starts in May. You’ll receive a 7,500 EUR stipend  (which will be the equivalent of about £3,000,000 in the post Brexit economy), access to corporate pilot opportunities and support from a network of expert mentors and a dedicated team.

You need to apply by 25th March

Oo ah India

Portugal not exotic enough for you? Impact Journey are launching a social enterprise accelerator in India for UK students, graduates and young professionals. There are two and four week programmes available and they are looking for individuals who want to learn more about the social enterprise space in India whilst also providing the opportunity to work on their own personal development, develop their skills, gain work experience and immerse themselves in a new culture.

One place is up for grabs for free as part of a competition they are running.

Details here 

Third time’s a charm

It’s a good week for fans of accelerator programmes, because here’s third one: The Collective London Accelerator is a free twelve week programme for social entrepreneurs who build connected communities in London. It’s open to social entrepreneurs operating in one of the following areas: health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability, economic opportunity or social intergration.

Applications are open until April 17th

Open to all

My colleagues have been busy putting fingers to keyboard and blogging on the subject of inclusivity. First up, learning manager Nils Bucknell has written about how we have adapted the recuritment process for applicant to our Fellowship programme in London to help us discover entrepreneurial traits in a more inclusive way.

Next up, our network manager Emily Vermont has put together a great blog about how organisationa can be more inclusive when recruiting new members of staff. It’s packed full of useful tools and resources.

The only way is…

Social enterprise, according to the Essex Social Enterprise Network. They are hosting a free event in Chelmsford on April 24th at Anglia Ruskin University. It’s an opporturnity to meet other social enterprises, hear from exciting speakers and think about what you want from the network in the next 12 months…

Sign up here

Exposé

Also free and also in April is the 2019 Enactus UK National Expo, a chance for a select group of business, student and academic leaders from across the country to gather together to showcase how entrepreneurial action and shared innovation is transforming lives and creating a better future. The event runs in London on 8th and 9th April and keynote speakers include social entrepreneur Liam Black and Ceila Hodson of Hey Girls.

The deadline to register is today

Posts vacant

A couple of jobs that could be of interest:

SSE Felllow Jerry During is looking for a part time Specialist Money Coach (Team Supervisor) for his organisation Money A+E, a social enterprise that provides simple and accessible money advice and education to people in need. The role is based in London and they are looking for an experienced specialist money adviser / case worker with at least two years’ experience. More info here.

Expert Impact are looking for a Head of Communication & Community to help take their mentoring programme for social entrepreneurs international. Expert Impact are based in Holborn, London but they ‘enthusiastically support remote and
flexible working.’ More info here.

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What’s on at SSE:

• Developing a Fundraising Strategy, London, 2nd April
• Fundraising from Trusts and Foundations, London, 3rd April
• Sources of Funding for Chairities and Social Enterprises, London, 18th April
• Unlocking Social Investement, London, 10th May
• 3 Day Intensive Start Up, Cornwall, starts 13th May

Every now and again I’ll be ‘working’ on Twitter and a certain type of article will appear in my news feed. ‘Waking Up Early Really Is the Secret To Being Successful‘ is one example from earlier this week. ‘7 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Do Before Going To Bed‘ is another. Every time, I’ll think ‘could be useful for the newsletter’, knowing it wont be but I’ll have a quick look.

Careful assessment has taught me that these articles are generally written by lunatics. Take the example of getting up at 5am. By chance, I was up at 5am on Wednesday because my son needed to blow his nose (apparently this requires my help. I don’t actually contribute anything but he thinks that I am vital to the process). Because I was now wide awake I thought I might as well not bother going back to bed. What happened? By 8.30am I was exhausted, by midday I’d had about nine cups of coffee and by 4pm I was practically hallucinating.

So that’s why those types of articles don’t feature in this newsletter. But plenty of others do, so let’s crack on with the news…

@davemcglashan

Ta da

We’ve opened applications to our Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme. We can help you at all stages: whether you have just an idea, you’re already up-and-running, or you’re ready to scale. On offer is a grant and a twelve month learning programme, available at various locations in England and Scotland. The deadline to apply is Wednesday 27th March.

Everything you need to know is here

Masterchef

Calling all social enterprise caterers: training organisation Happy are looking for innovative and inspiring catering outfits to provide lunches to participants on their courses. They are based in Aldgate, London and you’d be providing lunches to about 160 people per week. The annual contract value is about £45k. They are open to food suggestions but would like to avoid sandwiches.

Contact [email protected] if you’d like further information.

Wish you were here

Looking for a midweek break in April? Let me draw your attention to the City of Dreaming Spires and my hometown, Oxford. Located less than an hour from London and Birmingham, Oxford offers a whole host of reasons to visit: the world class museums, the best pubs in the country (to anyone who disagrees I’m happy to kill some time and debate you on Twitter) and, for the foodies among you, some of the finest kebab vans in the land. If you happen to book your stay between 9th and 12th April 2019 you can also attend Marmalade, the informal, dynamic, free and open-access fringe event to the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

It’s always well worth attending. You can find out more here.

To Hull and back

Founder of social enterprise Droppoint and all round good egg Christian Purcell is organising a social enterprise fayre in Hull on April 3rd. They are looking for social enterprises to sell their good at a pop up market and support organisations to host stalls with details of the services they offer.

Details of the event are here and if you’d like to take part drop Chris an email at [email protected]

News of Note(s)

A lovely bit of coverage for SSE Fellow Molly Mathieson and her organisation New Note Orchestra, the only orchestra in the world to specifically seek out members who are in recovery from addiction. Conductor Conall Gleeson was recently the winner in the Community or Educational Project category at the the British Composer Awards.

Read more here

Ooh look an available grant

Smallwood Trust are providing grants to projects which enable women on low incomes to access new skills, training, confidence building and employment opportunities. Grants of roughly £10,000 – £15,000 are available to charities, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations.

Deadline to apply is 4th March

Live it

The charity sector loves a bandwagon. ‘Place based’ was very much the talk of 2018, but we have an early runner for 2019: lived experience (which was also very hot in about 2013). Following Community Fund’s Leaders with Lived Experience programme from the other week is Catch 22’s ‘Incubate, Accelerate and Amplify’ offering. It’s a two year programme of support for social entrepreneurs with lived and learnt experience of the problems they are tackling.

It’s aimed at early-stage ventures and in year one you’ll receive a salary of £30k, co-working space and guidance from Catch 22.

Further details available here

Role with it

Loads of jobs this week including several opportunities to come and work at SSE

SSE Dartington have a number of roles available, including a Learning Manager, a Marketing Coordinator, and a Programme Administrator. You can find out more on their rather lovely new website.

At SSE HQ in London we’re looking for a Director of Operations & Finance, a Development Manager, a PA to the Chief Executive and Managing Director. We’re also looking for  for some support in our programmes and learning team between now and September to support the delivery of our learning programmes. All the details available here.

Friends of SSE TrustLaw are looking for a Programme Manager based at Canary Wharf. TrustLaw provide probono legal support to charities and social enterprises and you’ll be leading the growth strategy for the UK and Northern Europe region. Further details here.

Social enterprise estate agency Patchwork are looking for both a sales & lettings negotiator and a voluntary advisory board member, both based in the Surrey Quays / Canada Water part of London. You can find out more here.

Dan needs you

Finally, University of Suffolk student Daniel Anderson has asked if we can help him find people to interview for his Msc. If you are a social entrepreneur helping people affected by natural disasters, civil war, or humanitarian crisis he’d love to hear from you – you can contact him at [email protected].

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What’s on at SSE:

• Finding New Customers And Making More Sales, London, 27th Feb
• Social Replication and Scaling, London, starts 28th Feb
• Negotiation Skills Training, London, 6th March
• How to Network Successfully, London, 13th Mar
• Measuring Social Impact, London, 19th +20th Mar

I found out this week that I am very unlikely to ever win the Academy Award for Best Director. I’m probably not even going to be in the running for one of the more niche technical Oscars like Best Cinematography or Best Visual Effects. How did I find this out? Well, this week we held an event for SSE and yours truly was responsible for filming and streaming it online.

You can see the results here. I’m not sure that it will be appearing on Netflix anytime soon. Still, it was an excellent event and thank you to all those who came.

On with this week’s news…

@davemcglashan

Quick Change

If you are an SSE Fellow and you are reading this right now you need to do me a favour. We’ve sent a slightly different version of this newsletter to SSE Fellows with some slightly tailored news from the SSE network. If you are a Fellow, you need to update your profile and let us know so that you can receive the Fellows edition.

Gone in 60 Seconds

Today is the deadline to apply to our Third Sector Digital Leaders course. To apply, register your interest to attend in either Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool or London and I’ll send an application form over to you. It’s not a long form so you’ve got plenty of time to get it back to me by 5pm, when I’m leaving the office for a pint.

You can find the course here

Hackers

Additionally, our school in Yorkshire and the North East are launching ‘Digital Socents’, a new initiative bringing together the tech start-up community and social entrepreneurs. They’ll be launching in Leeds on Monday 18th March with an ‘Art of Possible’ workshop, exploring how social enterprise and charities can think digitally and incorporate digital solutions that can really help scale and drive impact.

The event takes place at Cospace North Platform (right next to Leeds station) between 5.30pm and 8.30pm and it’s only a fiver to go along. You even get your dinner included with the ticket.

Find our more 

An Education

Officially the deadline to apply for Cambridge Judge Business School’s Social Venture Incubator was yesterday but we’ve done a deal on the sly and readers of Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You can have a little longer and get an application in over the weekend. On offer is six months of structured support, including monthly training days and regular meetings with an advisor. Your social enterprise can be at any stage of its development.

Find out more here

(The school also have a few remaining places on their Social Venture Weekend which takes place on March 1st. It’s aimed at emerging social entrepreneurs or those looking to refine their venture’s business plan).

Written in the Wind

A couple of new blogs from our friends over at Good Finance. First, our head of comms Sophie has drawn from some of our students and written a guest post on ‘How to Fall in Love with Leadership Again‘.

Next up, Emily Parrett of Good Finance has written ‘Impact Matters‘, looking at why it’s important to invest time and resource into measuring social impact. (Read it, think ‘gosh, that does sound important’ and then book yourself onto our Measuring Social Impact course.)

The English Patient

I think the Allen Lane Foundation speak for us all when they write that they are ‘particularly concerned about divisions in communities that occurred around the 2016 Referendum and subsequently’. And good on them they want to try to do something about it; they’ve launched a new Social Cohesion Programme. They’ll be supporting ‘community-led grassroots groups and organisations which have a focus of work being at a very local/community level’.

Find out more

Splash

If you are in Leeds over the next couple of weeks and looking for something to do then check out ‘The Human Aquarium’, a brand new exhibition from SSE Fellow Lucy Meredith. It runs from 15th – 28th February at the St John’s Centre in Leeds City Centre and is designed to take you on the journey experienced by sea animals from their capture, to training, to performing in man-made tanks and pools.

Take a look here

Trading Places

A whole load of jobs this week if you’re looking to make a move:

Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship have two open positions. They are looking for an Associate Director for Programmes (£47,263 – £54,765) to be be jointly responsible for the overall direction and strategic development of the Centre. Deadline to apply is 20th Feb. They are also searching for a Systems Change Research Fellow ( £40,792 to £48,677) to ‘contribute to the development of a multi-disciplinary mixed methods approach for research on systems change in theory and in practice and will have primary responsibility for specific projects within the overall initiative’. Deadline to apply is 1st March.

In Rochdale, UP CIC have two vacancies: a Business and Development Manager (£27k) and a Training Co-ordinator (£22k). UP supports the work of WHAG, a charity providing domestic abuse support to women and men and homelessness support to women. You can find details of both vacancies here.

In Cambridge, Wintercomfort are looking for a Business Manager (£37,907) to manage and develop two of their social enterprises. Wintercomfort is the only day centre for the homeless in the city of Cambridge and their social enterprises create opportunities for training, volunteering, work experience and employment for service users. Applications close on 4th March.

Night at the Museum

A new £7 million partnership social investment loan fund is available to charities, social enterprises and community businesses seeking to acquire, reuse or redevelop buildings which are of historic or architectural importance. The Heritage Impact Fund will offer loans from £25,000 to £500,000 for up to three years to develop sustainable heritage at the very heart of vibrant local economies.

More details here

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is brilliant. Burnham and Weston Energy, a CIC solar farm in Wick Farm, Somerset, have realised enough profit from their energy generation to establish the Burnham and Weston Energy Sunshine Fund. They’ll be offering grants of up to £2500 to community projects across the Somerset coastline. If you’re in the area and interested in applying the deadline is April 20th.

Further details here

The Social Network

A week or so ago I got a notification that it was ten years since I signed up to Twitter. Back in 2009 it was certainly a more enjoyable platform, with far less of the anger, trolling and shouting at one another. So it was good last week to see Lightful’s Reclaim Social campaign last week, sharing thousands of more positive messages designed to reclaim social media for good.

Some of the highlights are available here

Shaun of the Dead

I couldn’t find a film title with ‘Haringey’ in the title but Shaun of the Dead was set there so that will have to do. Anyhow, we’re running another taster session for our Linklaters – Future Comunities Programme next Thursday (21st Feb) between 6pm and 8.30pm at Green Rooms, Wood Green.

The free programme will support passionate people in Haringey who believe that they can make a difference by setting up an organisation that can help their community for the better.

Further details here

To paraphrase Donald Tusk somewhat, I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those that send their ill children to nursery, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.

Too cut to the chase: via my son I’ve managed to contract hand, foot and mouth disease which is nothing to do with cows but it does make you feel really rather tired so this is a much shorter edition than usual. If you’ve sent something over the last couple of days and it’s not here I’ll include it next week.

@davemcglashan

Linklaters – Future Comunities Programme

We are looking for passionate people in Haringey who believe that they can make a difference by setting up an organisation that can help their community for the better. We welcome people with all abilities, from all walks of life. It’s a free programme, offering seven evening sessions over ten weeks and a grant of £500.

If you know anyone in Haringey who might be interested please send them our way. Anyone who is interested in taking part in the course needs to attend a recruitment session at Shine, 89-91 Turnpike Lane, next Wednesday between 4pm and 6.30pm.

Further details here

Training and Employing People with Lived Experience – Enterprise Development Programme

Homeless Link are running a free event on March 1st for social enterprises and charities thay aim to train and employ people with lived experience of homelessness. It’s free to attend and will include presentations from social enterprises who have experienced this first-hand including Recycling Lives (run by SSE Fellow Alasdair Jackson), Connection Crew & Winter Comfort.

Delegates will also hear from Social Investment Business, and learn about The Enterprise Development Programme and how it can help their organisation. You even get a free lunch, provided by social enterprise Fat Macy’s.

Book a place here

Funding

People’s Postcode Lottery have opened applications to their community grants fund. The deadline to apply is Febraury 20th.

Find out more here

Jobs

• IFDAS, Independence from Drugs and Alcohol Scotland, is a relatively new organisation in Ayrshire which is offering Scotland a ground breaking new way to tackle these types of addictions.The charity is looking for its first Chief Executive (£50k). Apply here by 24th Feb.
• Also looking for a CEO are Paper Arts, a social enterprise set-up 4 years ago in Bristol to support young aspiring creatives to develop meaningful careers. The role pays £27-£29k and you need to apply by February 15th. A job description is available here.  They are also recruiting part-time Marketing & Partnerships manager (£20-£23k) which closes on Monday. JD available here.
• Good Things Foundation, the UK’s leading digital and social inclusion charity, are recruiting a Chief Operating Officer (£56-80k). The role is based in Sheffield and you need to apply by February 24th.

Social Enterprise Festival

City University London are running a Social Enterprise Festival in London on 26th + 27th Feburary. It’s completely free to take part.

Find out more here

And finally…

Some news that cheered me up yesterday as I was feeling under the weather – SSE Fellow Caroline Morgan and her social enterprise Local Food Links were crowned Scale Up Buinsess of the Year at the south west region FSB Small Business awards. A well deserved prize!

Find out more about Local Food Links on their website. 

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What’s on at SSE:

• Writing Successful Bids, London, 13th Feb (sold out, other dates available)
• Finding New Customers And Making More Sales, London, 27th Feb
• Social Replication and Scaling, London, starts 28th Feb
• Negotiation Skills Training, London, 6th March
• How to Network Successfully, London, 13th Mar
• Measuring Social Impact, London, 19th +20th Mar

Alright, I’ll admit it. This newsletter has been occasionally used to poke fun at our chief executive Alastair Wilson. Mocking the management is one of the main reasons that I bother to write it to be honest. Anyway, I’ve been away for a week (Centreparcs, highly recommend it. Enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would) and in an interesting turn of events have come back to a new line manager at SSE: our chief executive Alastair Wilson. Ooooooooooooh.

After doing a detailed SWOT analysis over the first half of this week, however, I have decided that this is an opportunity more than a threat. Readers of Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You now have a direct link into the mind of our CEO and all the wisdom that it contains. The quality of content in this newsletter will certainly differ in the future.

Enjoy this week’s news, there’s some great stuff going on. If you want to help share it then please click on either the Twitter or Facebook button below. That way I can impress my new line manager with things like engagement and sign up rate and other numbers that sound really clever.

@davemcglashan

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