Social Entrepreneurs Ireland (SEI) supports people who have innovative ideas to tackle social problems.
Since it was set up in 2004, the privately funded not for profit organisation has supported more than 600 social entrepreneurs, providing more than €15 million in direct funding and pro-bono supports.
If you have an idea to drive positive social change, the organisation has just launched a national call for applications to its Impact Programme.
Five places are available on this nine-month accelerator programme which is designed to support high-potential social entrepreneurs to help them to bring their organisation to the next level, with a view to becoming even more impactful, effective, scalable and sustainable.
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Participants receive one to one support, coaching and consultancy in areas such as leadership development, communications, governance, strategic planning, fund raising and resilience. They also get €20,000 in unrestricted funding, as well as opportunities to leverage more funds.
Awardees will join Ireland’s largest community of social entrepreneurs working across the country to solve Ireland’s social and environmental problems.
Accelerating social change
“Our vision is accelerated social change through the power of people. We look to find the best social entrepreneurs who are solving social problems across Ireland,” says Social Entrepreneurs Ireland CEO Tim Griffiths.
“They can’t do it alone. They need assistance from organisations like us, which we in turn can’t provide without the support of corporate partners such as DCC plc, who are the supporters of our national call, and property company Kennedy Wilson, which supports our impact programme.”
Once selected, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland works with participants to establish their individual goals before working out a road map to help them get there.
“Even though there are five people on the programme, each is participating in a programme that is tailored just for them,” explains Griffiths.
Donal Murphy, chief executive of DCC plc, the international sales, marketing and support services group, which is supporting Social Entrepreneurs Ireland’s national call for applications, adds: “Over the past twelve years, the team at DCC plc have personally and professionally seen the incredible power and community of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland. The impact of social entrepreneurship to champion and drive solutions to solve Ireland’s social problems is transformative.”
Helping Education for Sustainability succeed
Susan Adams had the idea for her social enterprise, Education for Sustainability, when she realised her children were not learning enough about climate change and the environment at school.
As a conservation management expert who previously worked with Dublin Zoo, she decided to rectify the situation herself, developing an eight-week programme for primary and secondary school children, plus the teacher training to deliver it.
The programme, which is child-led, sees school children identify environmental issues and develop solutions themselves. It has resulted in everything from eliminating plastic bottle usage to building biodiversity gardens and organising clothes swaps.
“I always wanted to make an impact and when I became aware of the gaping hole in terms of climate and ecological literacy in the national curriculum, for me it was a call to action,” says Adams.
“I just want people to care about the environment and they won’t care unless they understand.”
She set up Education for Sustainability in 2017 and worked on it by herself for the first few years. She credits Social Entrepreneurs Ireland with dramatically accelerated her progress.
“A social enterprise is a business that is focused on solving a problem. Before Social Entrepreneurs Ireland I didn’t know what I was supposed to be. I was operating as a sole trader. By 2021 I had transitioned into a social enterprise in order to scale it,” says Adams.
The Impact Programme helped her put the foundations in place for growth. Today Education for Sustainability employs five people and is active in 261 schools, with 569 teachers having been trained as part of its services. “Once a teacher is trained, they then continue to train more students next year,” she explains.
Working with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland helped her hone her business model, which relies on a mix of corporate sponsorship and government funding.
“To sustain we need core funding from government. We need the government to give funding for climate literacy, just as they do for the arts or for STEM subjects. This is a space they are not funding, despite the fact that we are in a crisis,” says Adams.
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland provided Adams not just with money but with practical help in areas such as human resources and digital marketing.
“When you start the impact programme, the first thing they ask you is where are your gaps, what do you need, so that we can develop a programme around you. Because it is tailored to you, you are not dragged into workshops that don’t suit you. That matters because when you are a social entrepreneur, time is crucial,” says Adams.
“There is no way on earth I would have gotten where I’ve gotten today without Social Entrepreneurs Ireland.”
It could be you
Many of the country’s best known social enterprises have come through the impact programme, including food waste company, Positive Carbon; literacy innovator, DCode Dyslexia; urban planting specialist, Pocket Forests; and national autism organisation, AsIAm.
“We meet the social entrepreneur where they are at. We support them - we don’t direct them - to help them become the best they can,” says Griffiths.
What it looks for in candidates during the selection process is entrepreneurial spark. “It’s people who are passionate about the issues they want to address. Often, but not always, they will have lived experience of it, which brings an understanding of what is wrong and what needs to be done to fix it,” says Tim Griffiths.
“They have a solutions focus, a drive to make a difference, and are not prepared to take no for an answer.”
The organisation doesn’t have to be a not for profit, he points out. As long as it aims to solve a social problem, it can be for profit too. “We are business model agnostic,” he explains.
But there is a reason why social entrepreneurs need special supports.
“They have all the same challenges as standard entrepreneurs, from human resources to supply chain management, but on top of that they have an additional layer of complexity in terms of having to be true to their mission, which is a more challenging environment to operate in,” he explains.
“The reason we do this is because we believe these people can make a difference if given the right supports. Personally I have huge admiration for them. They are incredibly inspirational people.”
Applications for the impact programme remain open until midnight on Wednesday 24th April 2024. See socialentrepreneurs.ie for more