Cutting Through The Nonsense

It was lovely having Sue Harris, founder and CEO of New-U on this podcast. Sue is a wonderfully humble and modest human being who has quietly worked relentlessly over the last decade to provide opportunities to young people in their shop in Castle Quarter in Norwich.  She describes it as a shop that happens to be a charity, with the emphasis on providing good work experiences.  This is instead of...

We covered a lot of ground in our thirty minutes, not least our time both being shaped by working in the Youth Offending Service (YOS) and the impact this had on us and our approach to youth work.  Both founding organisations because we thought we had some better ideas is not unfamiliar to social enterprise founders.   What is less familiar is the journey Simon went on to get his MA at Cambridge U...

In this second conversation with Matt Parfill, CEO and founder of Grace Enterprises, we explored in more detail his and his organisation’s approach to alternative finance or in this case, social investment.   It feels like Matt is clear that whilst it's flexible and more equitable in terms of the power dynamic (you CAN call some of the shots), it's also not for the faint hearted.  Matt is...

Choosing the right business model for the world today. Listento Catherine share her bold decisions - from constituting a mental health organisation as a Company Limited by Guarantee to being forced to make the seemingly perverse decision not to do the very thing that makes an organisation sustainable - to take paying customers.   The life of a CEO of a social enterprise is full of tradeoffs and in...

How to pivot in a world of shrinking traditional funding. What a consultant observes in the charity and social enterprise sector. The importance (or not) of walking the walk as a third sector leader who moves into consultancy. In this podcast with Jodie Marshall from Mantle, Jodie shares her extraordinary story of developing a social enterprise barely out of her teens and how her desire to create...

Moving into new geographies is one way of finding it. Developing into a new area for a relatively small or young social enterprise can often appear unachievable or just too risky. In this podcast with Christy Acton from Standing Tall, Christy tells us how they approach moving into new geographies with their mission to provide good jobs and safe homes to get and keep people off the street - a place...

Focusing on the needs of the business and ensuring, as a social enterprise, that the business achieves on its own merits, are just some of Matt’s many achievements. In this podcast Matt talks us through the businesses that sit under Grace Enterprises and his commitment to creating viable commercial entities - that at the same time change lives. ‘Biscuits that change lives’ is perhaps an easy sell,...

It’s never too soon to think about sustainability. Restrictedincome is, well, very restricting and can make an organisation bend in ways that don’t play to its strengths So looking ahead as a young organisation, whilst scary, can be exciting, motivating and invigorating. In this podcast Chantelle Tyrrell, CEO of Social Moments inNorfolk, looks ahead to diversifying income for reasons of sustainabi...

This is the first podcast from Rebecca White of Hasler-White Inclusive Facilitation kindly hosted by Future Radio. Every episode, Rebecca, with her own stories of founding and running a successful social enterprise, will be interviewing guests to bring hope, ideas and inspiration to people running charities and social enterprises locally.  Episode 1 features Lucy Parish, formerly of The Feed CIC,...