Get Mentoring offering support to Social Enterprises
Thriving, well run social enterprises are now in every city, town and village delivering commercial success alongside social value. These include grass roots community projects and major healthcare, IT, education and training providers and green energy schemes. There is a saying: where social enterprises profit, society profits.
From just a few thousand such organisations in the 1990s there are an estimated 62,000 social enterprises now contributing around £24bn to the UK economy according to the latest Cabinet Office figures.
Nowadays, social enterprises can play a key role in helping grow a new generation of successful business people from all sectors and Blue Orchid are seeking their expertise to support other new social enterprises through mentoring.
We’ve just been appointed by the national ‘Get Mentoring’ project to recruit hundreds of North West business figures to share their valuable experience and knowledge with those starting or growing their own business.
By definition social enterprises are not driven by a need to reward shareholders with dividends, they are efficient, effective and profitable businesses with a declared social purpose of improving our society.
The benefits of ‘Get Mentoring’ are two-way - businesses get valuable support from individuals who have the knowledge and experience from people that are willing to share with them, whilst mentors are able to give something back, enhancing their own skills and professional development.
Giving just an hour a month, which is the minimum commitment, can go a long way in unlocking talent and helping the next generation of businesses grow.
• Free day-long training workshops are running until the end of March in Liverpool and Manchester and successful attendees will receive a certificate of recognition from the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI).
Those who attend the training can register for free with the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) and be listed on www.mentorsme.co.uk, a national website which connects mentors with businesses.
For more information visit www.theblueorchid.co.uk/mentoring or ring the Blue Orchid mentoring team on 0151 284 7728. For more details about the national project go to www.getmentoring.org
