Is your community organisation led by local people for the benefit of the local community? This free programme from the SSE is offering grants and expert support.
The Community Business Trade Up Programme delivered by the School for Social Entrepreneurs, in partnership with Power to Change, is designed to give you the head-space, support network and funding needed to develop or diversify your income from trading. You’ll become a stronger, more sustainable community business as a result of this free programme.
Over the course of the programme (12 days over 12 months) you’ll get:
- Up to £5,000 Match Trading grant.
- A community business peer mentor.
- An opportunity to learn from experts and also meet regularly with other people running organisations like yours.
- You’ll also benefit from SSE’s practical learning style and Action Learning approach.
They welcome applications from all community businesses, and are particularly keen to support community business who meet any of these criteria:
- Led by a board or team who are mostly from racialised and minoritised communities
- Led by a board or team who are mostly young people (aged 16-35)
- Located in and giving support to very deprived or disadvantaged local communities
- This include many areas of Southwark – for more information, please see our deprivation map.
You can find more details about the programme, including how to apply, on the SSE website. Deadline for applications is 26 June.
Information sessions
Ahead of the deadline they are holding a number of free information sessions to explain what’s involved and answer your questions.
These take place on:
- 17 May (10-11am)
- 6 June (6-7pm)
- 20 June (2-3pm).
You can register for your free place for any of those dates via the button below, or via the Eventbrite website.
