The Social Enterprise Support Fund, which provides grants between £10,000 and £100,000 to help social enterprises rebuild from COVID-19, has now reopened. This year’s fund is targeted at social enterprises supporting people facing social and economic challenges as a result of the pandemic and aims to help grow organisation’s trading incomes.
The Social Enterprise Support Fund has been made possible thanks to The National Lottery Community Fund. Five social enterprise support agencies (Big Issue Invest, The Key Fund, Resonance, the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) and UnLtd) have joined forces to deliver the fund and aim to support 500 enterprises with the money.
Eligibility
This year’s fund has been designed to reach the most marginalised communities and to promote inclusion. It aims to support social enterprises that are helping communities affected by COVID-19 to recover, and to help social enterprises themselves to recover and rebuild their trading.
For any West Lancashire-based social enterprises to be eligible they must:
- Have an annual income between £20,000 – £1.8m in either of the last two financial years.
- Be at least one year old.
- Have most of its beneficiaries in England.
- Be an incorporated social purpose organisation with an asset lock.
- Be financially resilient.
- Be reliant on income from trading.
Support and tips for completing your application
If you are considering applying for this year’s fund, one of last year’s successful applicants Chukumeka Maxwell, founder of Action To Prevent Suicide CIC, introduces a video about the applying to SESF and this year’s guidance.
Webinars
Their are also free webinars to help find out more about the fund, with a focus on the criteria and key priorities that assessors will be looking for.
You need to register to attend a webinar via the links below.