September 2015 – Knowledge Bank

Section/Subsection / Title / Link / Description
Starting up – How to start a social enterprise
Social Enterprise Media for Start Ups / Witness Sessions: Social Entrepreneur Web Series / / Social Entrepreneur TV’s new series 'Witness Sessions’ features social entrepreneurs giving testimony about what it’s really like to start and grow social organisations.
Starting up – Articles and Reports / Mind Mapping Your Start-up for Success [Infographic] / / To help you decide if you are ready for what it takes to be a successful start-up, this useful infographic walks you through each of the many questions you need to ask yourself when seriously considering starting up.
Investment readiness: one-size-doesn't-fit-all / / What does investment readiness really mean? Sarah Chu, investment associate at Numbers4Good, decodes the jargon and offers helpful tips and advice for enterprises considering taking on social investment.
Growing a Social Enterprise
Scaling your Social Enterprise / Introduction to Social Replication / / This guide to Social Replication, by the International Centre for Social Franchising, defines the term and discusses how, if done correctly, replication can not only solve a social problem on a large scale, but also lead to improved financial efficiency, data collection and innovation.
Finance and Equity / Completing your Awards for All application / / Big Lottery explores the most common mistakes applicants make when applying for small grant funding, and how to avoid them.
Business Toolkit for Growing Social Enterprises / Selling and marketing your social enterprise / / Some tips from the School of Social Entrepreneurs to help get your sales and marketing for your social enterprise up and running.
Social Enterprise Knowledge Vault
Big Data and Analytics / How charities are using data to do good / / Sarah Handley is a senior consultant at New Philanthropy Capital. In this article she explains how the proper use of data can help charities prove their effectiveness.
Social Enterprise Policy / Good pensions:
Introducing social pension funds to the UK / / This paper explores why and how social pension funds should be introduced in the UK. It considers the introduction of a social pension fund that retail savers could invest in as part of their defined contribution pension fund scheme to help kick-start a new social impact segment of the UK pensions market. This builds on a recommendation made by the UK Advisory
Board of the Social Impact Investment Taskforce, established under the UK’s presidency of the
G8.
Social Enterprise News and Media / State
of Social
Enterprise
Survey 2015 / / This report presents the findings of the State of Social Enterprise Survey 2015 – the largest, most rigorous and most representative survey of social enterprises in the UK. Its results are taken from 1,159 telephone and online interviews withsenior figures in social enterprises.
7 Steps of a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign / / IshitaGanguly, Digital Marketing Strategist at TechShu, goes through 7 innovative ways a small business can crowdfund their unborn but great business ideas.
Think Global
Trade Social - How business with a social purpose can deliver more sustainable development / / This report by the British Council, Social Enterprise UK and the World Bank explains why trade, investment and business activity are our most powerful drivers of economic and social change. As such, it explains why social enterprise must play an important role if we are to reduce inequality and make progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which set the world’s development agenda to 2030.
Social Enterprise Benchmarking / Social Enterprise in Scotland: Census 2015 / / This new report explores the size, scale and scope of social enterprise in Scotland. This full report, the first of its kind, is designed to inform the business community, the public, media and policy makers, in order to grow and develop social enterprise across Scotland.