The Bike Hub reposted this
I spent most of my adult life in the private business sector. I felt that I understood business and it was a good place to focus my energy. Out of lack of knowledge, I perceived social enterprises as a little bit "too kumbaya". One needs financial muscle to introduce social development, or so I thought. While not clear to many, private businesses can have massive social impact, if the culture is right - The Tata Group's work in India being a great example of that. I always was inspired by social transformation through business. So where was the actual need for #socialenterprise? Sure, charities made sense, but businesses without shareholders? The Bike Hub, my first experience with Social enterprises, evolved into being a SocEnt rather than being created to be one. We operate with the ambition of a for-profit business, but social impact is our core objective, with core values being #integration, #inclusion and #sustainability. Our tagline is "Social good through bikes". Until 2023, our income was 80% traded income and 20% made up of grants and sponsorship. It is my understanding that this ratio is unusual for social enterprises - the opposite being the norm. We always behaved more like a for-profit from a commercial viewpoint. In fact, we could be a registered for-profit and operate exactly in the same way, the main difference being that by having no shareholders and being a non-profit by definition in the formation documents (a.k.a. The Constitution), we "walk the talk" by default. Our values are set in stone. With an incredible group of partners, volunteers, friends and staff, our social impact has been surprisingly effective so far, reaching near five thousand people and growing in impact and revenue between 50% and 100% per year. 2025 will be transformational for The Bike Hub. We have just been awarded a significant grant by Rethink Ireland, as described in the post below. This will catapult us into the next phase of development in key operational areas: research and training services. Inclusion, job creation and #circulareconomy are key focus area in this new project. Watch this space as we announce the next steps.
In partnership with a private donor, we are excited to announce our 8 awardees from strand 1 of the Entrepreneurship Impact Fund 🎉 This €3 million three-year fund is supporting the 8 innovative social organisations to achieve higher levels of impact by scaling their innovations and reaching their next stage of growth! 🚀 Ireland faces continuing critical social issues across health, education, equality, and the green transition sectors. One of the key problems confronting social innovations is the difficulty of scaling their operations and social impact. Insufficient funding in terms of both scale and duration to align with their aspirations, as well as a shortage of suitable capacity-building supports are key main barriers. The Entrepreneurship Impact Fund’s Strand 1 will address these challenges by providing multi-year funding and targeted support in the areas of scaling, investment and procurement readiness, organisational resilience, leadership, impact measurement, and financial sustainability 💪 Our 8 innovative and change-making projects awarded under strand 1 of the Entrepreneurship Impact Fund will drive social change with greater impact, increased scale and long-term sustainability through individual and collective solutions in the areas of green transition and enhanced social inclusion, accessibility and equality - achieving transformative social impact in communities across Ireland 🌟 The organisations awarded under the fund are: Accelerating Change Together, The Bike Hub, Habitat for Humanity Ireland, No Barriers Foundation, Parents Plus, Property Marking, Refill Ireland Project Clg, The Great Care Co-op Congratulations to all of the awardees! 🎉 To learn more about the Fund and the projects visit our website https://lnkd.in/dke2s4f2 Lynda Stopford James O Neill Stephen McManus James McConville Jenny Williams Johnny Loughrey Aoife Smith #SocialInnovation #SocialInclusion #SocialImpact #ScalingImpact #ImpactMeasurement