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With a vision for a world in which where you start out in life does not determine where you end up, successful lawyer and social entrepreneur, Claudine Adeyemi, is blazing a trail for others to reach their full potential. Following on from her UK Social Entrepreneur Index nominee Q&A and her subsequent entry as one of our ‘Ten of the Best’, Ashleigh Smith caught up with Claudine to delve deeper into her journey. You left home at 16 and overcame so many obstacles to become a lawyer. How did you achieve that? “My mom passed away when I was quite young. So I always had this whole thing of wanting to make her proud. That helped keep me focused when I could've gone off the rails a little bit. The second thing is I'm quite goals driven. I was 11 when I decided to be a lawyer. Because I had this goal set, not achieving it just doesn't align very well with my personality. I guess having this ultimate goal that I wanted to achieve in life also kept me going. “Then the third thing was I had some support from Kids Company, which has now folded. Having individuals around me who believed in me and thought that I could achieve meant that they helped push me to stay focused and get where I need to be, including some of my teachers at school. Weirdly, that's also part of the reason why I do what I do. I know that most people in my situation aren't necessarily as academic as I was or as focused. Because I was quite clear on I wanted to achieve, I worked really hard and for the most part got straight A-grades. It made it easier for them to back me and give me the support that I needed.” When you became a lawyer, what became your next goal that you set for yourself? “That's a really interesting one. I definitely reached a crossroads where I was kind of like, ‘Whoa, I've actually achieved my life's dream. What on earth do I do now?’ “I just ended up taking each day and trying to be the best at what I was doing, learning my craft, speaking out over law and really immersed myself into that experience. “I'm quite ambitious. So I guess I naturally was following the standard path that people think you're supposed to follow, but simultaneously realising that I had this duty to give back to young people. Particularly the ones that come from a similar background and had a similar journey to me. Making sure that they had a platform of support and people around them that can support them. “So wanting desperately to make sure that I was giving back in that way is what led me to set up The Student Development Co. CIC. I ended up being someone who wore quite a lot of different hats. I reached a point where I realised that I did want to have an impact in the world and I wanted to make sure that my legacy after I'm gone is that I helped people. The ambition is to help loads of people, but ultimately if I did something that helps just one person that would be totally worth it. “That became something that I was quite passionate about and it found many different outlets. So The Student Development Co. was a very explicit way of doing that, but that also extended to mentoring students in my own spare time outside of the student development, supporting people internally like junior colleagues... just any way that I could help people, I would do that. And then part and parcel of that was trying to bring about change in terms of structures and policies and perceptions – particularly around diversity inclusion in the workplace.” And then you went on to launch Career Ear in 2018. How have you handled the growth of the company? Have you found it challenging? “Yeah, I think if you're running a business and you don't face challenges, then you're probably doing something wrong. It's just about enjoying the journey. I've always been someone that enjoys being challenged by the work that I do. This most certainly is, across a lot of different areas! “It's just about solving the problems as and when they arise and trying to think strategically about what problems might come up. And really learning from mistakes and being open to failing, being comfortable with that and sitting with that comfort and learning from those experiences. “I think pretty early on I was lucky, because I learned some lessons from The Student Development Co that I am using now with Career Ear. It was driven by volunteers, so particularly around how to motivate people; how to garner support and get people involved in what I'm doing in there. And getting excited about what we're doing, which helps dramatically, thinking about Career Ear as well. As we raise investment and try to bring on paid employees, it obviously makes it easier to attract people here. But I think increasingly, wanting to be doing work that has a purpose and that they believe in has helped. So I specifically set out to work with young people, because that's what we're all about, creating opportunity. “I wanted The Student Development Co. to be driven by young people as well. We had young people working with us and volunteering with us. And we tried to support them in their own career development journeys personally. So you know, having check-ins with them, reviewing applications, helping them with CVs and whatever else I could do to help or putting them in touch with people in my network. And then from a personal development perspective, really trying to rope them into opportunities that arose through being involved with what we're doing. So if there were particular events where I thought ‘actually there might be people that would be useful for them to connect with’, I invited them to things that I knew would take them out of their comfort zone, increasing their confidence by networking, which worked really, really well. “And we mentored quite a few of them out of the organisation, which was sad, but necessary. I think if you're going to lead, you should 100% be supporting those individuals to be the best that they can be. And that might not be within your organisation. “We always made sure that they were volunteering in a capacity that they were excited about. We would have a conversation about what they were wanting out of their career and tried to create a role around that ambition. If they wanted to go into journalism, we’d get them involved in the news. They want to go into marketing, getting them involved with that kind of thing. It worked quite well, because it then meant that they were actually doing something they wanted to rather than just for the kind of sake of it.” You have said that you want to help millions of young people across the UK and overseas. Have you branched out internationally yet, or is that planned for the future? “Yeah, definitely, it’s in the plans for the future, hopefully late next year. We're currently at the stage of raising a round of investments that we can use to scale up.” How did you feel about being recognised in the UK Social Entrepreneur Index as one of the ‘10 of the best’ that were chosen by the judges? Surprised. It's incredibly humbling. I think for me, I've had a number of issues with the social entrepreneur title. I think straddling the pure entrepreneur space but also wanting to deliver impact is quite difficult. I think the terminology in the space is quite challenging as well, so for example ‘social enterprise’, there's not a definition that everyone accepts. “I guess it's about trying to change perceptions and how people look at all these things. I am super passionate about being able to demonstrate that you can be a completely pure for profit business that also is driven by impact and can deliver that. “I think from my perspective, being included in the list and the events is really amazing, because it's kind of validating that there are other people that think this is an important message to get out to everyone; that you can do this, and that more businesses should be set up this way. That's quite important for us.” Claudine’s personal experience, business growth and drive to move forward have seen her recognised as one of the 2019 UK Social Entrepreneur Index’s ‘Ten of the Best’. To find out more about the Index and see the others recognised, head over to the website. Keep an eye out for even more in-depth interviews with some of our other social entrepreneurs. Announced earlier this year, the UK Social Entrepreneur Index is a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes. Out of the 29 entrepreneurs who made it into the Index, we’ve highlighted our ‘Ten of the Best’ and are bringing you a more in-depth look at some of their business journeys and lives as social entrepreneurs.

At 17-years-old, Jemma Phibbs and her co-founder, James Lloyd, were driven to help their school to improve its reputation and financial position. From this small acorn of a project, School Space has grown into a mighty oak, now employing 80 people - a feat that Jemma says is her biggest joy. With international ambitions for their social enterprise that benefits schools and communities, we caught up with Jemma about their journey and future plans. What led to you founding School Space and what was your journey before that? “We started the company when we were 17, so we were at school. Myself and my co-founder were on the leadership head girl and boy team and our school went into special measures, which was quite a shock to the system. It gave the school a bad reputation in the local community. “The stories of the school budget cuts were just starting while we were organising a lot of events for the school. We were finding that not only were we bringing people into the school and it was giving the school a good name - because people were seeing all the lovely facilities in a positive light - but it was also allowing the school to make a bit of money. “We started renting out the school in the evenings and very quickly that became a small business with our school and one down the road, to make the school money and to also rehabilitate its reputation, which is where more of the social side came in. “Then for three years while I was at university and my co-founder had their jobs, we ran the business. We grew it to a small turnover but it was more of a project at that stage. Then four years ago we decided to make the leap that some entrepreneurs make right at the start, which is to make it my full-time job.” How did you decide that a social enterprise was the best legal form when establishing your business? “We were under 17 so we had to form a company limited by guarantee. There's quite a lot of grass roots social enterprises in Oxford, which is where we started, so we learnt about it and decided to put in a social mission log. This meant that we could still raise private investment, which is important for us to develop the technology side of the business, but we could also maintain our social mission. “We chose to do that with the guidance of Unltd. They help social enterprises and we went on one of their training programmes. “The tool ‘Purposely’ was set up by Unltd and supported by the government's digital strategy and it allows social entrepreneurs to look through all the different options for legal structures. I think if I was to do it again I would use that tool to work out how we were going to measure our social purpose.” Are there any other resources that you would recommend to anyone thinking about starting a social enterprise? “The Oxford Social Enterprise Partnership (OSEP) and Unltd, who do a lot of free courses for social entrepreneurs and have accelerator programmes and grants that you can apply for. “Also, the Impact Hub, coworking spaces for social businesses - there’s three of them in London - even if you don’t want to pay for a desk they have an affiliate membership that allows you to attend all of their events, including investment readiness workshops, and where you can learn about failure and hear stories, which I think is really important.” Personally, what have been the highs and lows of your journey as a social enterprise? “I think the highs for me personally are being able to lead a team. Being able to provide jobs for local people, and knowing that they use that money to invest in their kids or to invest in their own lives and they love their work, is definitely the highlight for me. “I get so over-emotional sometimes. We have a community messaging portal and sometimes our team members will post things like ‘I love working for School Space’ and that kind of thing always sets me off because that’s what I’m most proud of. I never thought that by the time I was 25 we’d have a team of 80, all of whom have jobs because of the work we’ve done - I’m really proud of that. “Lows are probably also the team. When you feel like you can’t support someone to be the best in their role and it doesn’t work out for whatever reason. Or also interpersonal relationships which are such a bedrock of business; whether it’s with your co-founder or stakeholders, when it goes wrong it’s very personal as a founder. I think as a social entrepreneur particularly, if we’re not providing the best service to our schools, that’s really hard. It’s all about people for me.” How are you measuring your impact? “I’m a big believer in doing it the simplest way first, so we measure money that goes back to schools, which at the moment is totalling just over £250,000. “The second is the number of community users that come through our doors, which is currently 70,000 to 80,000 a month. “At the moment we are looking at the next layer of impact, measuring how schools improve before and after working with us, whether it’s their reputation in the local community, customer satisfaction, or the amount of their time that has been relieved by our work.” Where do you see yourself as a social entrepreneur and School Space in the next five years? “For me, it’s about furthering our social aims, trying to make money for schools - I want to make at least £10m for the education sector. I want to revolutionise the way that schools engage with their local community and being able to do that on a national and even international level, is something that I’m really going to be driving the business towards achieving over the next five years. “I also think that it’s really important that the business becomes sustainable without me at that time; I would really like to build the business into a highly sustainable organisation with an amazing leadership that I can see surviving into the future without me needing to be there to guide it. And I think that’s a really important aim to have, because until we do that we’re basically going to be dependent on me and it needs to become bigger than me and my co-founder.” Do you have goals to spread it across the country? “Yeah, we started the business in Oxford and whilst urban schools can make a lot more money with what we do, rural schools can sometimes need it more. I’d like to try to get to a level of scale that benefits all schools. “Part of the reason we raise investment for our technology is so that we become slightly more lean, improve our margins and extend our impact to further schools, which now wouldn’t be profitable for us or sustainable, so it’s definitely part of our aims to become nationwide and international. “I think there are other countries that could benefit from this that are going to go through the same school cuts that we’ve had here. But for us, it’s about making sure we do that in the right way and we reach out to schools when we know that we can offer them something sustainable, so particularly investing in the technology is a key focus for us in order to do that.” When people book the rooms, what are the most popular events that are held in them? “It’s an interesting one, because people think “events” like weddings or meetings but it’s not - it’s local community groups, 90% regular classes, people that come week-in-week-out to use the facilities. “Often they’re sporting, we get a lot of crazy sports – we’ve got a Quidditch group using one of our facilities, pogo-ing, Swedish fit, basketball – so you really get to learn some niche sports doing this job. “But then we also have a lot of supplementary education. We have language schools, drama groups, a lot of kids’ education, summer camps, activity camps, coding class, that kind of thing. And we also have lots of religious groups. So it’s actually quite a diverse network of hyper-local community markets, not what people often think of when they think of events; it’s space hire.” It’s such an interesting and inspiring business. Is there anything you’d like to say to anyone thinking about becoming a social entrepreneur? “Ask for advice, ask for help. I think if I hadn’t spent most of the first five or six years doing nothing but asking for help I would never have gotten to where I am now. I’ve never met an entrepreneur that isn’t willing to give their time to speak to people who are where they were two or five years ago, even three months ago, because that’s how fast things move. “And I think you need a support network because you don’t have them within your own company in the way that you do anywhere else and you should get that from other entrepreneurs. I’m very lucky to have a lot of friends that are other entrepreneurs that I’ve met through programmes.” And having James there as your co-founder, how does that help? Do you support each other? “It’s a lot less lonely but I think we have a desire to impress each other and improve, so you can’t offload in the same way you would a friend. So it’s really important to have a network around you because they are your peers, and you don’t have any others in your company. So for me it’s as basic as asking for advice and support because if you don’t take care of yourself first, you can’t benefit the organisation in the way that you need to.” What did your inclusion in the Social Entrepreneur Index mean to you? “I think it’s really great to be amongst such good company. There are some really great entrepreneurs that I recognised and I was happy to be included with them. I also think that as an entrepreneur you never stop and take stock of your achievements; people always say to me celebrate the moment because it’s so difficult to look back and think ‘we did that and that was great’. So, things like this are really important to the entrepreneur community to give that accolade and that time to allow for success. It’s very rare that entrepreneurs get that opportunity, so thank you.” Jemma’s personal experience, business growth and drive to move forward have seen her recognised as one of the 2019 UK Social Entrepreneur Index’s ‘Ten of the Best’. To find out more about the Index and see the others recognised, head over to the website. Keep an eye out for even more in-depth interviews with some of our other social entrepreneurs. Announced earlier this year, the UK Social Entrepreneur Index is a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes. Out of the 29 entrepreneurs who made it into the Index, we’ve highlighted our ‘Ten of the Best’ and are bringing you a more in-depth look at some of their business journeys and lives as social entrepreneurs.

Spotting the missing element of teachers’ motivation in the ‘garden’ of education in his native India, Sharath Jeevan founded STiR Education to reignite the love of teaching. Now impacting the lives of six million children across India and Uganda, the STiR team have ambitions to reach 300 million by 2030. Following on from his UK Social Entrepreneur Index nominee Q&A and his subsequent entry as one of our ‘Ten of the Best’, we caught up with Sharath to delve deeper into his journey. From your background in working with GlobalGiving and Teachers Teaching Leaders, and working in schools in the UK that were in quite deprived areas, what inspired you to take that overseas as STiR? “I was born in India and always kept strong roots there. So I visit frequently and still have a lot of family over there as well. And I was just frustrated by this story that the Indian government had built a million free government schools across the country, which was remarkable in many ways. But it was also sad that the kids were not learning, and it really felt like... If you think about a garden, where the government had built the physical garden of access to education; they were building better and better technical seeds and reading programs, teacher training and new assessment techniques. But the bit that was missing was the soil. And by that I mean the motivational soil. Teachers had basically fallen out of love with teaching, and it felt that was the elephant in the room, and that no one was really addressing that problem. “We were trying to work more and more around it by finding better technical solutions, but weren't trying to really get the soil fertile. That was in India which I knew well, but also found this was a similar issue in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, around the world. And so India was the first place we started, but the vision has always been to create a global movement that really tries to address this challenge of intrinsic motivation among teachers, officials and also of course learners, so kids really want to learn and become lifelong learners.” How did you have to adapt your method and your approach for Uganda? “We launched our work in Uganda in just two years. We'd only been in India for about a year-and-a-half, and some people thought we were crazy, perhaps rightly so. But I think for us, it was really important to learn early on whether we had a model that would apply in many different contexts. “The actual core model is very similar in both geographies. The teachers are meeting up every month for a couple of hours (a bit like a Toastmasters or microfinance group). They’re going through a structured process where they improve their teaching, but also actually drive those ideas of autonomy, mastery and purpose that create intrinsic motivation. “But what's been different is how you plug that model into a government system. And our approach is always that government should be running this from day one. It's not something we do and hand over; it's a government-owned approach, and obviously the structures of districts, how ministries work, are very different in both countries. That's where we've learned to adapt and customise the model. “Uganda has been more challenging in some regards, but also more exciting as we've been able to use slightly lower-resource settings to make the model work and use what's already there in the system.” So it's given you the confidence and a platform to take your expansion even further as well? “Yes, we're looking right now to one more country in Asia. It's most likely to be Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, and also a really fascinating place at the moment because of fast growth. There's a real chance to lift millions of Indonesian young people out of poverty. But education is key to that promise, and I think motivation is coming up as the big issue. It's not a money issue, it's a motivation issue. “In Africa, we're looking at Ethiopia next, where again, there’s really exciting government reforms. The country's opening up. A really impressive set of changes and reforms in the education space are being planned. But we know that motivation is going to be a key part of that as well.” And by 2025 you’re looking to get to impact 80 million children? “Yes, we're now at about six million children. “Our goal is, in countries like Indonesia and Ethiopia, we're looking longer-term at countries like Egypt and Brazil, we want to create hubs in the major parts of the emerging world, where those countries can become training sites for other neighboring countries. So obviously India for South Asia, Indonesia for Southeast Asia, etc. That's very much the model. We'd like to actually get this to 300 million children by 2030, which is when the UN Sustainable Development Goals are finished this round. That's what the world committed to in terms of education. “There are about 800 million children who are affected by this problem. They're in school but not engaging in learning, so we want to get to just under half of those kids. And because the costs are so low ... It costs now about 30-35p per child in India to run this approach, we don't think costs will be the barrier. It's more about ‘can we demonstrate the model at scale and get strong government buy-in to really make it a universal part of children's lives?’” How have you dealt with the challenge of growing from your initial 25 teachers in 2012? “Now we're 200,000. Yeah, it’s definitely been challenging. So many mistakes were made along the way, and I think part of the real fun of being a social entrepreneur is that we've been able to make mistakes and had very forgiving, supportive donors and partners who have been on the journey with us. We have learned some painful lessons along the way for sure, but each time we've tried to apply that lesson as quickly as possible and get better and better. So I think we're learning how to manage scale much better now. “I think what's key is that although the scale of what we do has increased 10,000 times over seven years, we as an organisation have maybe grown about six or seven times in terms of our own organisational team and budget. We're trying to stay as lean as possible. “Helping our partner governments drive the running of this model, so they do the heavy lifting of implementation, means we can stay relatively nimble, lean, agile, and keep a very high staff quality.” How do you ensure that the schemes that you're setting up in India and in Uganda have a lasting impact? “We've always been very committed to rigorous evidence, but the challenge with that stuff is that it takes two or three years to figure out what's happening before you can change something. So we've moved to a much faster big data approach using tech. Using an app now, every month, our team surveys a sample of schools and network meetings and then district meetings. We've created some pretty robust rubrics for measuring the quality of what's going on, and also it is actually happening on the ground. That now gets fed into the app every month. It gets shared within our teams so they can discuss it and look at what's going well or where to improve. “It gets shared back with the district governments every month as well, and they use that data to refine the following month's priorities. Every three months we meet with the national or state government and share that data as well. So again, it's really trying to create a model for continuous improvement. “There will always be challenges and quality is always something that needs to keep increasing, but it’s questioning, ‘how do we set the data up in a way that we know what's going on, everyone feels engaged and motivated, then they want to improve things in the system as a result?’” How do you feel about being selected as one of the ‘ten of the best’ in the UK Social Entrepreneur Index 2019? “It's really great to see the Index happen. I mean, the UK really is a hub of social innovation. Some of our funders are from the US, and there's a really strong ecosystem of support for social entrepreneurship there. I think there's a lot we can learn from them in terms of just celebrating it. “More and more young people go straight into this as a first or second career, which is really exciting. That wasn't an easy option when I was coming into this, so anything we can do to raise the profile of the field is important. I think that increasingly, the government and the policy worlds locally are more open to innovation. “And I think especially if you're doing anything around basic services in developing countries like education or health, if you can learn to work with governments and partner with them closely from the beginning, scale really can happen - quite realistically actually - without having to fundraise huge, huge amounts of money as well. “I think that openness in the policy environment is really exciting at the moment. I think we're craving new ideas, new ways of thinking. So it's a great, a very fertile time for the space overall. “I was really impressed by the diversity of the people included in the index, but also in the schemes and the businesses; there's everything from tea to education to healthcare. It's fantastic. And there's some people who started their social enterprise when they were 17 years old, and some people who started it in their 50s. It's an amazing, amazing sector.” Sharath’s personal experience, business growth and drive to move forward have seen him recognised as one of the 2019 UK Social Entrepreneur Index’s ‘Ten of the Best’. To find out more about the Index and see the others recognised, head over to the website. Keep an eye out for even more in-depth interviews with some of our other social entrepreneurs. Announced earlier this year, the UK Social Entrepreneur Index is a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes. Out of the 29 entrepreneurs who made it into the Index, we’ve highlighted our ‘Ten of the Best’ and are bringing you a more in-depth look at some of their business journeys and lives as social entrepreneurs.

In the last two years, Cumbria Health on Call (CHoC) has witnessed a growth in its range of healthcare services to the county which will continue to expand over the coming three years. Originally set up to provide Cumbria with out of hours primary healthcare services, CHoC’s services have extended to offering extended access appointments and day time services, such as the running of the Glenridding Health Centre. The social enterprise now provides healthcare to the Cumbrian community during 68% of the total week and runs 14 clinical sites around the county, covering a population of approximately 528,000. This has resulted in CHoC’s staff numbers growing by a third in the past 2 years. With its plan for continued growth in services in the county, CHoC has launched an innovative recruitment effort aimed at attracting clinicians around the UK and overseas to the county. CHoC hopes that by launching the engaging campaign, it will encourage an influx of top medical talent to the area. The campaign includes a short film showcasing CHoC’s current team with the county’s stunning scenery and lifestyle opportunities. The launch of the film marks the start of the CHoC’s HR team attending a series of clinical recruitment fairs across the UK and in UK universities. The recruitment effort will be ongoing and will be aimed at the UK’s GPs, nurse practitioners and pharmacists, encouraging them to consider Cumbria as a place to work whilst highlighting the unique flexibility and work-life balance CHoC can provide to clinicians. Susan Blakemore, chief executive of CHoC said; “2019 has been a fantastic year so far for CHoC and has seen us reach our 10 year milestone, which shows just how vital our services are to the county. “The breadth of our service has grown significantly over the last few years and will continue to do so to ensure that we are effectively supporting the Cumbrian health economy. “Over the next three years we would like to ensure that we are working with our partners in preventative healthcare, tackling health inequalities in the county, helping in the coordination of day time services within primary care, supporting early discharge programmes and introducing mental health expertise. I want to ensure that as do this, we do so in line with the CHoC values of being clinically focused, responsive, organised and always working to the highest standards. “A big part of that will be ensuring we continue to recruit the right clinicians with the right skills. I’m extremely excited to be launching this recruitment campaign and hope that it will attract top clinical talent to the organisation which will not only ensure we have more clinicians to serve the county but will also result in a continued improvement in the quality of Cumbrian healthcare. “Our new campaign will encourage clinicians to consider Cumbria as a place of work and see that CHoC will be able to offer a challenging, rewarding and flexible clinical career - all whilst having a work-life balance in a county that is brimming with leisure activities for all ages, stunning countryside and brilliant communities.”

Leading Warwickshire restaurant, The Butchers Social and Birmingham’s very own Social Enterprise Café, Evolve have been revealed as part of this year's Small Business 100 line-up; a campaign dedicated to showcasing one hundred of the UK’s trailblazing independent businesses. The announcement of the #SmallBiz100 kicks off the countdown to Small Business Saturday, taking place on December 7; a day dedicated to supporting small businesses and encouraging consumers to shop local. Since the Small Business 100 launched back in 2013, Midlands’ businesses have consistently featured within the #SmallBiz100. It’s no surprise when the region has worked hard to create a culture that is all about celebrating independents, inspiring people to want to shop local. There has been a real resurgence amongst small independent retailers over the last 10 years, that has positioned the Midlands as a thriving hub for independent retail. 2019 sees over a dozen Midlands businesses hand-selected as part of this year’s #SmallBiz100. Making their debuts are stand-out finalists Evolve and The Butchers Social. Evolve is a Midlands based social enterprise that provides young people who have faced barriers into employment with training and job opportunities, and The Butchers Social is one of the region’s leading independent restaurants, loved by locals and destination foodies alike. Taking about the Small Business 100, Chef-Owner of The Butcher’s Social, Mike Bullard comments: “Surviving against the marketing moguls, huge budgets and ubiquitous presence of the food franchises dominating UK high street is tough, but incentives like Small Biz 100 provide an amazing platform to profile businesses like TBS. Being an independent restaurant means consistently fighting against chain restaurants, with small businesses under increasing pressure to go above and beyond to offer amazing customer experience and a completely unique offering.” He adds: “Being part of Small Biz 100 is a huge achievement for The Butchers Social. As a small business that prides itself on offering heart, soul and a big personality to match, our ethos is all about embodying what being a small business is all about in the current climate.” Small Business Saturday is the UK’s leading campaign for celebrating small businesses and last year saw over £812 million spent on Small Business Saturday. In the 100 days running up to Small Business Saturday on 7 December, the campaign will spotlight one small business per day.

The Community Business Trade Up Programme, run by the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), in partnership with Power to Change, will open for applications from Tuesday 17 September until Wednesday 27 November 2019. The programme supports the leaders of community businesses with: A fully-funded learning programme (12 learning days, spread over nine months)A Match Trading™ grant of up to £10,000A community of supportive peers The learning programme will help the leaders of community businesses to develop the skills, strengths and networks they need to increase their impact, with a focus on increasing their sales and income from trading. It will run from April to December 2020, and there are places for 80 community business leaders across England who will learn in groups of 10. The programme is delivered by the School for Social Entrepreneurs at seven locations across England. The Match Trading grant, created by SSE, is a new type of grant funding that pound-for-pound matches an increase in income from trading. By rewarding sales growth, Match Trading incentivises social organisations to develop their trading base, so they can build stronger futures. The first cohort of the Community Business Trade Up Programme achieved a typical 92% increase in income from trading. Alastair Wilson, CEO of School for Social Entrepreneurs, said: “We’re delighted to partner with Power to Change for a third year, so we can jointly support a further 80 community business in England to grow. Community businesses strengthen local economies and enrich the fabric of society. But running them can be challenging. We’ll help community business leaders develop the skills, strengths and networks they need to improve their sustainability and impact, with the support of Match Trading grants and a learning approach we’ve refined over 21 years.” Jenny Sansom, programmes manager at Power to Change, said: “This programme will give a really important step up for relatively new community businesses and help them to focus on their trading activities and long-term sustainability. The first cohort of this kind of funding enjoyed a 92% increase in trading, which is a huge impact. I’m delighted to be opening up this programme for a new group of community businesses.” The Community Business Trade Up programme has already supported more than 200 community business leaders since 2017. Community businesses from across England can find out more and apply now until 27 November 2019. Power to Change and SSE will be hosting a free webinar about the programme on Friday 4 October at 11am.

BECO., the social enterprise soap brand is taking a new approach to business, calling on competitors and UK employers to take a stand when it comes to recruitment. With 80% of BECO.’s workforce visually impaired, disabled or disadvantaged, BECO. wants to show big corporations the value and skillset in every person by encouraging employers to follow suit and see workability, not disability. 1 in 5 people living in the UK are disabled and an estimated 48% are unemployed – that’s over one million job-seekers looking for opportunities and a disability unemployment gap of 30% (only 52% of disabled are employed vs 82% of the general working population). BECO. is on a mission to change that. BECO. founding charity, CLARITY & Co., has supported the employment of people with disabilities for 165 years and today sees BECO. launch an employment drive calling on employers to #STEALOURSTAFF and help close the disability unemployment gap. BECO.’s campaign highlights their staff in the hope that those who want to, will go on to secure jobs outside of the organisation and free up opportunities for new staff in need of employment. Staff profiles will take over the brand’s packaging in key retailers Waitrose and Sainsbury’s and on the BECO. website giving consumers and would-be employers the chance to get to know the talented workforce behind the brand. How you can help make a difference Help BECO. share the suds Keep buying BECO. soap for your homes and offices. Everyone can create real and sustainable change, just by washing their hands. Every bar of soap and bottle of handwash BECO. sell helps to provide real jobs for people with disabilities. If every person in the UK switched to BECO. soaps, the brand could create 45,000 new jobs for people with disabilities. Make a new hire. You won’t regret it. Whoever you are looking for and whatever the skill, the BECO. team boast some of the most passionate staff you’ll come across, many with decades of experience. Take a look at BECO.’s employees and their CVs on beco.co.uk/stealourstaff. Camilla Marcus-Dew, head of sustainable growth at CLARITY & Co., said: “We want to give people who want to work, the opportunity to work. It’s as simple as that. Some of our staff at BECO. have been at the organisation for more than 30 years, and as much as we love our team and their loyalty, we want to help them and others to have further opportunities. "We want to show that as a society we can close the disability unemployment gap. On average, there are over 250 applications for any corporate role in the UK, so it’s hard to stand out. "The only way we were going to make a difference was to go big and reach the millions of supermarket shoppers through the CVs on our products and calling on big corporations to make a stand and change their hiring policies. We need people to start acting and living their values, not just talking about it.” Michael is a team leader at BECO. He said: “I wish other organisations would give people like us a chance. There are so many disabled people unemployed and I’m sure there are plenty of big companies that can do more to help.” BECO. is available nationwide at Boots, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, selected Co-op stores and the Ethical Superstore.

Dr Asha Patel grew up above her parent’s corner shop in Barnsley and worked in it throughout her childhood and by the age of 18 she was at the helm of her family business. When she graduated from University as a qualified psychologist, she wanted to bring together her business experience and clinical knowledge to help others whilst building a sustainable business model. In 2016 she founded Innovating Minds, and now works within schools across three local authorities, helping students and staff improve their emotional and mental health through education, training and employment. Her team of clinical psychologists work from an early intervention model, delivering specialist accessible psychological support within education and the community. We spoke to Asha about how she got started, her business journey and how she manages the rapid growth Innovating Minds has experienced. Tell us about how Innovating Minds works with schools. “One of the services we offer is going into educational settings with a clinician and supporting schools to adopt a ‘whole school approach’ to mental health. We work with their senior leadership teams to look at their systems and policies and see how they can change the environment from a punitive approach to a more therapeutic approach, so everybody’s mental health is supported. It’s not targeting those who have got a diagnosis of mental health difficulties, it's creating a system that includes everybody – students and staff”. What challenges are you currently facing? “One of the challenges we're currently facing is that, due to high demand, we need to digitally transform our service to reach more national and potentially international schools. One of the barriers for schools is the cost - digitising our service it will make it more affordable for them and they will be able to access extra materials at affordable costs, which in turn will enable us to reach more schools as well.” Can you tell us a little bit more about the recognition Innovating Minds gained from OFSTED? “One of my first contracts was a school in People's Academy that had been a failing school for years. There were high levels of behavioural incidents and students leaving the school, and there was, unfortunately, a student committed suicide just before we were commissioned to go in”. “By training the senior leadership in our services, we were able to significantly reduce behavioural incidents with a 90% decrease in high risk behaviours. HR expenditure and staff turnover both reduced. Then OFSTED came in and assessed the school and it received ‘good’ across the board, and the mental health approach was mentioned in their report.” “It was great for us because one of our initial anxieties was that if OFSTED didn't recognise us, then schools probably won't do it, because it's not a priority. It was daring for the headteacher to do what they did at the risk of OFSTED. Now, the headteacher is working across the academy supporting mental health wellbeing and using the tools she implemented from our services to other schools and academies.” How has the business grown? “We're currently working across forty schools in three local authorities - Staffordshire, Birmingham and Hammersmith and Fulham. We also run a lot of conferences which reach many teachers in training. From 2016 up to August 2017 it was just me running the business – there’s now thirteen of us. So, growth has been very rapid!” Did this pose any challenges for you? “These days the challenge is no longer trying to sell our services but coping with demand. Currently, we can't recruit fast enough and there are not enough skills within the workforce. This is particularly difficult as we are geographically spread. I'm finding people that gravitate to work with us want close contact with me and the core team, which is difficult to give when you're in Birmingham and they are in London. There's an element of people leaning on you emotionally, but you've got to do your day to day job which has been quite demanding. “Trusting your team is important as well - you're used to doing everything yourself, and doing it in a very particular way, then suddenly you must let go of some things and that's quite hard to do. You end up having to find your role all over again.” What about your personal journey to becoming a social entrepreneur? “From the age of 12 I was involved in my Dad's family business. My parents came over from India and built up their business, starting with a shop which we lived above. At first, I was the one who counted the cash, then my Dad got a warehouse and I began teaching his staff how to use the computer systems. By the age of 18 I was running the business monthly so my parents could go on holiday. I learnt a lot about systems and working with staff. From a really young age I've always been involved in and enjoyed business, but I didn't like how crude it was - it's often all about the bottom line and profit.” “When I qualified as a psychologist, I wanted to bring my clinical skills and business skills together. I wanted to run a business, but one in which the more money you make, the more good you do in society. That's why being a social enterprise fitted well for me. When I set it up there were lots of people interested and wanting to invest. We set up as limited by shares to ensure we kept the doors open for investment. This set up also enabled me to not become grant reliant. When I looked at what was happening in the market, I realised there was quite a lot of organisations and social enterprises that were reliant on the grant income, which is not sustainable as a business model, whereas limited by shares actually limits how much grant you can get.” Tell us more about the School for Social Entrepreneurs programme that you attended. “The School for Social Entrepreneurs programme gave the organisation credibility. The peer support around you and the network you become involved in presented opportunities. I'd already started trading but once I was on the programme it gave me structure in terms of other business aspects such as finance and HR.” What are the long-term plans for Innovating Minds? Are you looking to grow the company more? Would you want to get to a point where you can take a step back? “My goal is for the company to outgrow me. I want to grow it to a point and give it to somebody else to take it to the next stage. I'm looking at digitisation now which will take at least 5 years. What we've done up to now is test the concept face-to-face and we've developed a marketing strategy - now we're trying to transfer that over to a digital format – which is like setting up a new business! We’re doing this to expand reach, make it more affordable and to scale the business. There’s been an increase in mental health issues in schools and it’s the right time in terms of market - there's over 23,000 schools and we're only pitched in 40.” What has been the most rewarding moment for you as a social entrepreneur? “Growing the team has been one of the toughest bits - I didn't realise how lonely it was until I was coming into the office and people were there. Particularly when you're feeling quite low yourself or you're a bit drained, it's the team that are rooting for and growing Innovating Minds. Also with our profits, we support children of domestic abuse through a programme that I've developed. When I sit in the office, I can hear the conversations that are taking place and I hear the mothers talking about the impact it's had on the children so that's been rewarding. The other rewarding aspect is that I personally invested £7,500 into Innovating Minds and calculated that the money had turned into £1 million, which I never thought could happen when I was setting up.” What would you say have been your most challenging times? “I've just been through one probably, sometimes you're absorbed in your business and you can't switch off. That's been really challenging because everything keeps going but you're not necessarily enjoying it and sometimes thinking it would be easier to have a 9-5 job. When we initially set up it was an emotional roller coaster for me because I was constantly getting knocked back. It would take me a couple of weeks to recover from these knock backs but now I emotionally distance myself. The hardest thing is work life balance, because you're addicted to it, especially when new projects come on board. I think what's hard is the more work you put in the more rewarding things come your way as well, so it keeps enforcing working more.” What keeps you going when you do feel like that? “I have a mentor with the accelerator, and I take two days out of the business every month and that seems to help prevent me getting into that state of burnout. I‘ve noticed when I don’t take those days, because I can't cram them in anywhere else, that’s when burnout happens.” Asha’s personal experience, business growth and drive to move forward have seen her awarded as one of the UK Social Entrepreneur Index’s ‘Ten of the Best’. To find out more about the Index and see the others recognised, head over to the website. Keep an eye out for even more in-depth interviews with our other social entrepreneurs. Announced earlier this year, the UK Social Entrepreneur Index is a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes. Out of the 29 entrepreneurs who made it into the Index, we’ve highlighted our ‘Ten of the Best’ and are bringing you a more in-depth look at their business journeys and lives as social entrepreneurs.

A series of free workshops are being held across Caerphilly County Borough with the aim of addressing the digital skills shortage by providing education and training in coding, creative media, business admin and event management. Funded through the Caerphilly Regeneration Fund, the workshops have been held in Bargoed, Ystrad Mynach, Risca and Newbridge, with further courses to be delivered in Blackwood and Ynysddu. They are open to anyone aged 16 and older and are designed to teach people the skills that will help them feel more comfortable in a digital world, upskilling and improving opportunities for work. Alun Prosser, director of GoConnect, the social enterprise which is running the projects, said the workshops aim to improve digital skills across the County Borough: “A government report on digital skills estimates that 35 per-cent of current jobs in the UK could be lost to automation in the next two decades. Add to this, the countless other reports that suggest that the UK as a whole just isn’t ready for the changes to the workplace that rapidly advancing tech will bring. “This is a trend that will strongly be felt in grassroots communities such as Caerphilly, but here we have the ability to make a difference and hopefully set an example. We asked local businesses about the skills and attributes they were looking for in staff and associates, and digital literacy was the top response. “Having a familiarity and understanding of the tech involved in skills such as coding, graphic design, web design and social media management is going to mean that individuals can keep pace with digital advancement. That can have a huge impact on a person’s life, from feeling confident with new and rapidly changing technology, through to upskilling and employability.” The programme has been well received and has placed a strong emphasis on engaging individuals who have typically struggled with access to training, education and work experience opportunities. Some of the learners from the programme have become digital champions, and are now actually helping to deliver further community workshops, gaining valuable experience. One such individual is 22-year-old Josh Davies. Josh recently left university and moved back home to Maesycwmmer, where he struggled to find employment that matched his skills in audio production. He was referred to Go Digital through the Bargoed Job Centre, where it quickly became clear he had a range of skills that would benefit similar schemes, and so Josh became a Digital Champion, supporting GoConnect on other projects. Josh said: “I really struggled to find opportunities in south Wales. My experience was in audio production and radio, and all the jobs I could find were in London or other larger cities outside of Wales. I felt like I was going to have to leave to find the job I wanted. Thankfully, my universal credit advisor at the jobcentre told me about GoConnect and the workshops they were running so I got in touch and attended the Bargoed event. “I eventually started working with GoConnect, and now use the skills I gained on the workshops to help with their community projects. I’m helping them teach others about podcasting, which is one of the fastest-growing mediums right now, so to be working in a field I love and helping upskill others in the Valleys is something I just thought was impossible six months ago.”

The Larder Cook School in West Lothian, which has increased the number of young people trained in food and hospitality skills from 80 to 200 in the last 12 months, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to train 80 additional youngsters a year and increase staff numbers from 21 to 23. The social enterprise, which has received ongoing support from Business Gateway West Lothian, was founded by Angela Moohan in 2010, a former community development manager for over 25 years, to help change and enhance young people’s lives by supporting them to build confidence and develop skills for work from as young as 11 years old. Working closely with schools and the council through various programmes, including Developing Young Workforce (DYW), The Larder Cook School’s ethos is to provide a nurturing learning environment, through cooking, to help youngsters reach their full potential with skills that are transferable in jobs across all sectors. Following the opening of its East Calder Café Bistro and two satellite cafes in Armadale and Fauldhouse in 2018, the social enterprise has supported and trained an additional 15 school aged youngsters in both sites and created 12 new jobs across all three community locations. The aim of the crowdfunding campaign is to raise £20k to help fund a second training kitchen, costing a total of £75k, at its head office in Brucefield Industrial Estate, to accommodate the training of an additional 80 young people a year and provide more SQA qualifications for youngsters from the age of 11 and also employ two new members of staff. Support from Business Gateway West Lothian includes 121 assistance to develop their business model and its sustainability, access to research services and marketing consultancy and training which has allowed the business to develop a strategic plan which has secured external funding. Angela said: “At The Larder Cook School our key focus is on ensuring every young person gets the chance to enjoy a positive education experience in a setting that meets their learning needs through cooking, which helps them to build confidence and learn new skills. “We provide an environment that is supportive and nurturing, where young people can get their first taste of academic success and reach their full potential. “Now with over 45% of our staff being graduates of our training programmes, our goal is to increase this year-on-year and help so many more youngsters in the community get off to a good start in life with a job they enjoy and feel fulfilled and rewarded in, which our new second training kitchen will allow us to do. “We are hugely grateful to all of the support we’ve received from Business Gateway West Lothian from strategic leadership to social media marketing, which has really given us the confidence to continue to grow and help even more youngsters in the community.” Cathy Muldoon, Executive Councillor for Development and Transport, said: “We are delighted to support a local social enterprise like The Larder Cook School, who deliver important training opportunities for many young people in West Lothian. “Their expansion plans will enable them to support even more local young people to develop their skills.” Business Gateway West Lothian provides expert support and guidance to new and existing businesses, including free advice from experienced business advisers to help start-ups and growth businesses planning to expand or find new ways of doing business. Free resources include local workshops and seminars covering everything from marketing and finance to HR and ecommerce.

The purpose of social value in public procurement is to maximise the reach of public expenditure by ensuring that local communities, economies, and the environment benefit in some way from any given contract. What constitutes as ‘social value’? There are a wide range of actions relating to a variety of societal, economic and environmental issues that come under the banner of social value. Among the most common is the requirement for contractors to provide support to local economies and tackle issues such as unemployment via the provision of apprenticeships, work experience, training opportunities and the promotion of local recruitment and SMEs. Other prominent areas include support for third sector organisations through sponsorship and donations, a focus on ensuring robust ethical standards in supply chains, engaging with local communities through educational initiatives in partnership with schools and other public services, and participating in environmental conservation and sustainability projects. What is the purpose of these requirements? The requirements for social value were introduced as part of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 and marked a major evolution in public procurement. In part, the aim was to address a perception that taxpayers were often not benefiting in any tangible way from public spending in their local area. While cost continues to be the largest single metric in the award of public contracts, social value considerations can be scored with a weighting of up to 20%. Buyer & supplier challenges Whilst social value requirements were introduced some time ago, it’s only relatively recently that social value has truly taken hold and become perhaps the leading topic of discussion and area of innovation in the public sector. In terms of what buyers are expecting from suppliers, existing social or environmental actions are unlikely to satisfy. Buyers should: Identify their own specific socio-economic and environmental priorities Establish how to reflect these priorities in their procurements in the most impactful way Fairly and efficiently evaluate social value aspects of tender submissions from suppliers Suppliers should try to offer a package of assistance specific to the socio-economic or environmental needs of the local area. Some examples might include: Tackling an issue like high unemployment – and youth unemployment in particular – is a common and effective way for buyers to maximise the impact of their spending and for suppliers to demonstrate their social value credentials. Supporting or sponsoring existing community initiatives and charitable organisations, or even the creation of new projects or entities. Demonstrating any improvement on recognised ethical standards such as health & safety, worker’s rights, and environmental awareness. Want to know more? For guidance on how to approach social value when bidding for public sector contracts, you can access a recording of our webinar session here.

Lucy Findlay, founding managing director of Social Enterprise Mark CIC and supporter of the Social Entrepreneur Index, offers her advice to help you get your social enterprise off the ground and flourishing. I was delighted to be involved in judging applications for the inaugural Social Entrepreneur Index earlier this year – it’s always great to see more people join the social enterprise community, committed to running their businesses for the good of people and planet. I know it can be a daunting prospect for those just starting their journey into social enterprise, so as a ‘seasoned campaigner’, I wanted to offer some advice to start you off on the right track. Clarify your business proposition – regardless of how virtuous your social mission is, if you don’t have a viable business proposition behind it then it will be hard to create social value that is sustainable in the long-term. Do your research on the market you are entering and be clear from the outset on what it is that your business will deliver, and to who. Defining who your customers are is very important – you can then involve them in the development of your product/service offering to be sure it meets their needs. Be clear about what it is you are trying to change – you will need to be able to clearly articulate what issue(s) you are addressing and what changes you aim to make. This will make it easier for you to communicate your mission to your stakeholders (customers, employees, partners, local communities etc), and will help you to measure the impact you are having. We routinely ask our Mark holders to demonstrate how they are working to meet their social objectives and realise this isn’t an easy task for most. We have developed a set of social impact questions, which are designed to help social enterprises think about the social impact they create, and to communicate this clearly and succinctly. Get advice and support – build relationships with those who support your mission and share your vision – create a network of allies who can offer advice and point you in the right direction. Take advantage of the advice and guidance that is available for new social enterprises just starting up, such as the packages provided by UnLtd. Also, learn from the experiences of others – checking out the Social Entrepreneur Index Ambassadors is a good starting point, as they have a wealth of experience and insights. In our mission to support social enterprises at all stages to work towards credible sector-agreed standards of good practice, we have recently introduced an entry-level accreditation for aspiring social enterprises. This enables new social enterprises to prove their commitment to social enterprise principles from the outset, and get started on the pathway to social enterprise excellence. Applicants will receive tailored support throughout their social enterprise journey, initially enabling them to understand how they can meet the good practice criteria defined by the Social Enterprise Mark, which will hopefully provide useful considerations for future development. For example, we offer tailored support to enable you to get started on measuring and articulating your social impact. To find out more please get in touch – you can call our helpline on 0345 504 6536 or can register your interest here.