Another National Award for StartUp Croydon!

The announcement that we are winners of this year’s NEN awards, nominated under the heading of “Enterprise Engagement Organisation 2017”, is a tremendous accolade, adding yet another achievement to the last 12 months that has included participating in the Croydon Business Excellence Awards to “Finalists” stage (in the category of Best Charity/Social Enterprise) and, achieving accreditation as a Good Employer for Croydon.

Whilst a fair percentage of our engagement activity involves promoting our services in traditional printed materials, media advertising  and through a mix of social media, PPC and monthly newsletters, we have increased our online engagement this year and have included news blogs and Facebook ads.

Our Business Development Executive is always making new contacts and in the last year alone, she attended around 80 events across 17 different networking  platforms, as well as appearing at banks – as a pop-up business advice hub, festivals and other local locations.

Yet we also do not forget that a lot of business and recommendations are made through networking and face-to-face opportunities and we have engaged with our audience through attending business support events, organising our own business advice sessions and days, acting as funding partners for award schemes, and hosting/sponsoring other organisations.

Our Chairman, David Robinson, commented:

”This has been another hugely successful year for StartUp Croydon.  The Enterprise Engagement award is testament to our efforts within the Croydon business community to extend our reach, in order to provide support and advice to whomever may need it.  I would like to congratulate the team on all of their achievements during 2017”.

Through this range of engaging events and opportunities we have had a 12% year on year increase in take up and attendance on our three day new business courses and managed to maintain a 95% occupancy rate for our offices.  Most of all we’ve been able to engage with our local community and spread the message about our charity and the work that we do in innovative, fun and exciting ways.