Social enterprise

Action Hampshire has had the privilege of supporting over 300 social entrepreneurs to set up and scale up their businesses; businesses that use their commercial strategies to address the social and environmental challenges faced by us all. Or to put it more simply, we support social entrepreneurs to change lives (literally!) and what could be better than supporting someone change the world for the better! 

We believe there is nothing Social Enterprises can’t do and, in most cases, they can do it better.

Social Enterprises in the UK are outperforming their mainstream SME counterparts in nearly every area of business and turnover growth, job creation, innovation, and impact. They exist in almost every sector, from consumer goods, healthcare, community energy, banking, restaurants, even chocolate! So, by updating our definition of business success to include aligning our business actions with our human values and making positive societal and environmental outcomes into our practices, one thing’s for sure: we all win!

Our philosophy

Social entrepreneurs, like all entrepreneurs, are not distinguished by their ideas they are distinguished by what they do about those ideas. Social entrepreneurs aim to run successful businesses, but the business is really just a means to a greater end – the end being to bring about positive social change.

To give Social Enterprises the strongest chance of success in the commercial marketplace, we offer training and advice to new and aspiring social entrepreneurs, enabling them to set up and run successful, profitable businesses.

To achieve this, we focus on these key areas:

• The business model
• The business leader
• Funding and opportunities to generate income through trading
• Providing access to a network
• Opportunities to take part in bespoke training
• Introduction to business mentors

Our track record

We have been proudly running the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) Hampshire programmes for 12 years. 

The pandemic has brought existing social and environmental challenges into sharp relief – those of the climate emergency and the vast inequalities of health, wealth and opportunity. Our newest Fellows that graduated this year in October 2021 are addressing some of these most urgent social needs of the day including:

• Connecting communities through the outdoors to improve mental and physical health challenges to people of all ages
• Providing low-cost, zero-carbon delivery services
• Tackling food waste
• Supporting older people
• Empowering survivors of trauma
• Creating employment pathways and jobs

Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme

The programme is for people in the early stages of setting up a social enterprise, charity or social impact project. The course is a transformational experience that will push, challenge and support you. It will give you the confidence and skills to create the impact you’re aiming for. The Start-Up programme helps you to get a new social enterprise up and running.

You’ll learn about how to:

• Set up your organisation, using a suitable legal structure
• Make money and develop your business model
• Manage finances
• Develop your impact and purpose
• Keep a work/life balance
• Build networks
• Do marketing and social media
• Build confidence in your leadership skills

You’ll need even greater resilience, skills and networks to survive and thrive in these challenging times. We’ll make sure the learning on this programme is adapted to meet your needs. 

Inspiring Enterprise project

Between 2017 and 2020, we delivered the Inspiring Enterprise project, in partnership with Surrey Community Action, the University of Winchester, WSX Enterprise and Fredericks Foundation. This was a free training programme that helped unemployed people develop the ideas, confidence and skills they needed to become self-employed, create a social enterprise, or move into training or employment.

The Inspiring Enterprise project was part of the Building Better Opportunities programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and the European Social Fund. The project aimed to bring together skills, expertise and experience to make sure that everyone received help that was right for them.

The programme offered tailored and bespoke training to support participants needs; covering the following:

• ‘Is it for Me’ sessions to explore what is involved with becoming self-employed and to find out more about social enterprise
• Workshops and training sessions
• 1:1 mentoring sessions
• Supportive peer-to-peer networking

During the project:

• 300 training sessions were delivered
• 96 participants attended the programme
• 74% of participants successfully completed the programme with a positive result
• 63% of participants became employed
• 11% of participants moved into education or training Case studies from some of our participants: Ashlene Millard, K&C at Basingstoke Refuge, Billy Stevenson and Jason Otieno (*NB* these link to the WSX IE website, but Keith put them together!)

Community Business

Between 2018 and 2020, we supported 35 community businesses through the SSE partnership with Power to Change and delivered the community business trade-up programme.

Community businesses are locally rooted, community-led, trade for community benefit and make life better for local people. From pubs to libraries; shops to bakeries; swimming pools to solar farms; community businesses are creating great products and services, providing employment and training and transforming lives.

• Estimated 9000 community businesses in England
• 69% work within the 30% most deprived areas
• 85% aim to reduce social isolation
• 82% promote community cohesion

The community business trade-up programme provided practical skills and knowledge to help community businesses to focus on growing income from trading, to improve impact and sustainability.

Programme benefits:

• Grow a stronger, more sustainable community business or project
• Recover and rebuild your income from trading and sales
• Benefit from time to reflect and map out next steps
• Improve your leadership and business skills
• Build a local support network of other people running similar organisations

Examples of community businesses we’ve supported include those in our 2019-20 yearbook here

Enterprise4Change

Working in partnership with Community Action Isle of Wight we gave introductions to social enterprise to promote the idea of social enterprise/community business on the Isle of Wight.

This comprised of a bespoke programme delivery of three workshops that cover the building blocks for new social entrepreneurs - entrepreneurial skills, idea generation; values, vision and mission, marketing and social impact; and business planning and finance.

Youth enterprise

We have delivered Young Entrepreneurs Programme to schools, colleges and universities, enabling young people to develop their confidence, resilience and business skills necessary to be a successful social entrepreneur and the vision, values and ethics needed to set up a social enterprise.

Modules included: business planning; leadership and people management; finance; mission, vision and goal setting; marketing, branding and advertising; pitching your idea. The programme finished with an awards ceremony to which local businesses, parents, press and others were invited. Young people presented their enterprise ideas and celebrated their achievements on the course.

Here is some of the feedback we received from students about the programme:

“This programme gave me a lot more ideas on how to start and has inspired me to see that it doesn’t matter how small things start because it could grow big.”

“This course has taught me how to work in steps to create the foundations of my enterprise and how to plan it all out when I start working on it from home.”

“The programme has taught me lots of skills and I would recommend it to other people.”

ImpactSE – Social Enterprise Hub

To help you and your social enterprise thrive - wherever you are on your startup or growth journey - we have launched ImpactSE! Action Hampshire, in partnership with Incuhive, have created the hub for the next cohort of change-makers.

Our first site is based at Westgate Chambers in Staple Gardens, Winchester however, our vision is to roll out across various sites in Hampshire.

ImpactSE social enterprise incubation hub is set up for you to network, share knowledge and turn ideas into reality! Providing first-rate, bespoke support and mentoring programmes, as well as space to work and collaborate with like-minded entrepreneurs, you can access:

• Marketing and social media support
• Business development advice
• Support with sourcing funding streams
• Bid writing and competitive tendering
• Hands on back office IT support
• Access to HR Support and leadership coaching
• Opportunities to expand the network around your business
• Ideas for creating a road to Net Zero business
• Flexible, collaborative & convenient office space
• Registered postal address services.

Interested in finding out more? Please get in touch!