Capacity-building grants and business aid are available to charities and social enterprises working in the homelessness, youth, mental health, and equality sectors to help them make the transition to new enterprises or to grow existing ones.
The Enterprise Development Programme is a five-year, £40 million initiative that is funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment and managed by a coalition of partners, including Social Investment Business, Homeless Link, Equally Ours, the Association of Mental Health Providers, and the Centre for Youth Impact.
The programme provides business and financial support to charities and social enterprises in England that are thinking of exploring new enterprise models and require financial or business support to make the transition, with the ultimate aim of taking on social investment in the future. Following a successful one-year pilot, which focused on organisations in the homelessness and youth sectors, the programme is now being extended, with further sectors to be added each year until at least 2024.
It is currently open to applications from not-for-profit organisations in England working in the following areas:
Successful applicants will be given the opportunity to work with the programme partners to ascertain what they need to progress their ideas and build the resilience of their organisation. Individual packages of financial and business support are available, which could include any or all of the following:
The first deadline for expressions of interest is for the Youth sector on 13 February 2020.