Launching Social Good in Croydon

After many months of preparation and recruitment, StartUp Croydon’s delivery of the SEEK social enterprise project has got underway with the first cohort of budding social entrepreneurs attending an intensive six day course held in Weatherill House and pitching to a panel of judges for a place on the main programme starting in July.

This project has received funding under the Building Better Opportunities Programme which is jointly funded by the Big Lottery Fund and the European Social Fund and attracted a lot of interest with a wide range of ideas and enterprises to tackle social issues in Croydon; these include young offenders, engaging young people in their local community, providing work opportunities for people on the autism spectrum and projects to provide work for older people and intergenerational workshops and activities.

The Launch Pad course, was co-written and delivered by StartUp Croydon and the SEEK project partners – The Platform, University of Chichester, UnLtd and Croydon Council and included sessions on introduction to social enterprise, defining the social issues and how to build a viable business model.

The next phase of the programme starts with a week long StartUp Academy in Brighton complemented by monthly workshops, action learning sets, mentoring and startup funding to help the social entrepreneurs build a strong foundation from which to build their enterprise and achieve their social mission.

As this is a three year programme, StartUp Croydon will be starting to recruit for the 2018 programme in November 2017; further details will be available on our website at www.startupcroydon.co.uk.

Stay tuned for further updates on the social entrepreneurs and their startup journey.