SEEDBED’s Growth Stage remains open, offering a great opportunity for social ventures to grow and benefit from an affordable loan fund and bespoke support programme.
The Growth Stage runs until November 2016 and offers support with market development, brand development, growth management, contract readiness and exit strategy. With a variety of teaching methods from masterclasses, regular 1:2:1 time with a business coach and business review panels, the Growth Stage marks a step up in your business development. The SEEDBED team can work out an individual support package which works with your social venture’s needs and requirements.
Community Interest Company, Eat That Frog is one of the latest social enterprises to have received support from the SEEDBED programme. Launched by Sean Westlake the venture is about motivation, inspired by Mark Twain’s words: “Eat a live frog every morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.” Eat That Frog works with people of all ages facing barriers in their life supporting them to overcome or cope and helping them gain and sustain paid employment.
Founder Sean Westlake says: “In order to further our social venture we were looking for a programme that offered a combination of support and loan finance to help us progress.
“SEEDBED has helped us to set out exactly what we needed to grow and achieve our goals. The guidance from the team helped us to understand our unique selling points which enabled us to create a business proposal to grow our venture.
“Since then we have grown rapidly, launching a new ethical recruitment agency, opening four new centres and taking on 12 new members of staff.”
If you’re interested in applying to the programme, call 01803 847066 to arrange for a call back and find out more about the loan fund and available support.