Profits For Purpose
At BrightSparks we know all about social enterprise (we are one for starters!) and we believe that social enterprise in all its many forms is one of the most important ways of improving the world that we live in.
What is a Social Enterprise?
For most of history, organisations were founded upon one of two business models: a commercial enterprise to maximise financial returns, or a not-for-profit or charity to maximise social and environmental returns. However, over time, the way companies and not-for-profit's do business has transformed.
With growing social awareness among consumers, a greater sense of accountability among businesses and tighter government regulations, a newer continuum of business models has emerged. These models include everything from social enterprises to social purpose businesses.
A social purpose business uses entrepreneurial principles to organise, mobilise and manage a for-profit business that has a social mission at its core and the goals of creating both economic and social value.
Our Services
We love working with social entrepreneurs to help them set up and grow. We also love collaborating with other social enterprise organisations to enhance and compliment their services. We are also always looking for opportunities to establish our own new social enterprise projects that support people to improve their lives. As such, we have a number of social enterprise services and projects that we offer including:
Training
Our Introduction to Social Enterprise Start Up training course is designed to give participants the basic knowledge they need to start their journey as social community entrepreneurs. You will learn what social entrepreneurship is all about, the eight steps to building a social enterprise from scratch, the different social enterprise business models, business planning, marketing your business, and how to grow your business.
We also offer other training courses in Bidding, Tendering and Fundraising, Website Development, Business Planning, and Procurement and Supply Chain Management that are all aimed at social enterprises.
Business Development Support
Our sister company Bright Bid is a business development agency that works with individuals and organisations that operate for social good.
Bright Bid provides a range of business development services that support these individuals and organisations to start up and grow, so that they can help more people.
For example, we help organisations like charities, care providers, schools, universities and social entrepreneurs with things like business planning, coaching, mentoring, bid writing, marketing, consultancy, research, evaluation and training services.
Social Enterprise Projects
From time-to-time we establish new social enterprise businesses and projects that compliment our existing range of services offered through BrightSparks and Bright Bid.
For example, BrightSparks recently supported a local social entrepreneur called Vinnie to take over a formerly local authority owned Skatepark that was about to be closed down. To stop this happening BrightSparks teamed up with the social entrepreneur to run the site as a social enterprise that supports local young people to engage in positive activities and stay out of antisocial behaviour. Check out the blog below to find out more about the the Zoo Skatepark in York.
We are always looking to collaborate with other social enterprises to start up new social enterprise businesses in different areas. For example, we work closely with a York based social enterprise called Social Vision and its founder Joe. We are collaborating on a project to establish a Social Enterprise Academy in York, designed to engage more people in social enterprise start up.
If you would like to collaborate with us on a social enterprise project...
Check out some of our social enterprise projects
Social Enterprise Projects