EES – SW Sustainable Business Development Project
Social Enterprise Works won a contract in January 2007 to deliver business support to four Development Education Centres (DEC’s). DEC’s support schools to introduce the global dimension into the curriculum).
The project, called the EES – SW Business Development Project, was funded by the department for international development with the aim of encouraging DEC’s in the South West to develop sustainable income streams. The DEC’s were from Devon, Wiltshire Somerset and Gloucestershire.
Over the 9-month project, Social Enterprise Works delivered a programme of support consisting of a combination of training and mutual learning sessions which brought together participants from the four organisations to learn about market research, promotion, business planning, financial systems and costing services, and bespoke one to one support for each organisation.
Participating organisations made good use of the project to review and improve capacity and ways of working and to plan and develop some interesting products and services, including an innovative educational website called sustainable scrap science (see www.sustainablescrapscience.org), a directory of sustainable development support available to schools in the South West and a programme of high quality training for teachers about delivering the global dimension to schools.
As part of the project, Social Enterprise Works developed a 10-point plan to help other similar organisations develop sustainable income streams.
