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Reflecting rising living costs in our awards for social entrepreneurs

Reflecting rising living costs in our awards for social entrepreneurs

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UnLtd employee

UnLtd position

The cost-of-living and energy crises are hitting social entrepreneurs hard. Earlier this month, Social Enterprise UK reported that 4,000 social enterprises are at risk of closure this winter, due to spiralling costs, at a time when the needs of the communities you service are rapidly increasing.

On the back of the pandemic, the toll on you, as founders is significant. We know that many of you will be facing very difficult decisions in the months ahead - between paying staff or paying bills, between deciding to pivot to survive, or to limit your operations or even to close completely. We recognise the energy, determination and resilience you will be drawing on right now to keep your vision alive and make thoughtful choices.

We are determined to flex and adjust our financial and non-financial support to make it as useful and relevant as possible. Alongside our strong technical knowledge to support you to lead a more impactful, equitable and resilient organisation, we bring a personal approach that centres your wellbeing and lived experiences to support you to find and amplify your voice as a social leader.

As a reminder, you can expect a tailored package of support for all award winners, made up of:

  • A dedicated support manager: Someone to coach, mentor and support you to achieve your goals
  • Mentors and pro bono support: Expert advice and mentoring through our generous community of business professionals, corporate partners, lawyers and social entrepreneurs who volunteer their skills and expertise
  • Workshops and learning: Through our regular workshops and support you will be able to learn about different aspects of running a social business

How we are responding

We have collected feedback from current award winners to understand how the crisis is affecting you, and challenges you anticipate in the year ahead.

Thank you to all who shared your perspectives and experiences with us. Based on your insight, we have taken some immediate action, and are working on some longer- term changes.

Immediate action

We have increased the value of our financial awards. Our ‘Starting Up Award’ available to social entrepreneurs starting up has increased from £5k to up to £8k, and our ‘Scaling Up Award’ for social entrepreneurs to shore up and scale up their impact and sustainability, has increased from £15k to up to £18k. We know this will be a welcome change. In addition, we are exploring ways to introduce more flexibility into our financial awards in the short-term, as we did during the pandemic, recognising the spiralling costs you are facing.

We are adjusting the non-financial support we provide, to focus on areas that you have said are critical right now, specifically we are exploring how we increase peer-to-peer calls and connections so that you can understand how others are responding to the crisis, and build collaborations.

We’re also developing resources to support your wellbeing and improve your financial resilience, so that you can better demonstrate the significant social and economic value that you are creating, and so we can support you to end well, when necessary.

We’re continuing to actively develop our support offer and make sure it is providing you with the support that will best serve you right now. If you are a current award winner, you will hear about these changes from your support manager

Longer-term changes

We have reflected on the lessons we’ve learned about our support, who it works for and where we need to do better. We are committed to meeting our ambitions of providing market-leading support to all social entrepreneurs, and as a result we are undertaking a wholesale review of our financial and non-financial support. You can read more about the ongoing work here.

We are working with other support organisations to make a case for more money to be made available to social entrepreneurs, and for that money to be distributed equitably. We know that equitable access to finance will be critical to the long-term recovery in communities and will continue to campaign for that. For example, you may have seen some of our campaign work on ""dormant assets"" which is an opportunity to bring £500m into the sector over the next decade.

Image description: two people in conversation in a community cafe, with hot drinks on the table. Image credit: Nina Emett-Foto