Topic outline

  • General


  • Welcome

    • Apply now to be in the final round of Start Up School. Applications close on 15 November 2021.

      Our Start Up Schools give you an opportunity to develop your business planning skills.  

      Social businesses trade in order to make communities better places to live and work. They generate income and aim to make a profit but also have social, community and environmental benefits.

      The programme helps people leading social businesses to develop their planning skills. We’ll look at products, pricing and promotion as well as developing a clear vision for growth.

      The Social Business Start Up Schools are open now open to the wider HIE area, not just Eilean Siar, Wester Ross, Easter Ross & Sutherland. Start Up School will be delivered entirely online.



      Who is it for?

      This programme is for people starting and developing social businesses. This includes privately owned businesses with a community focus and enterprising third sector organisations within the wider Highlands and Islands area.

      This is a programme specifically designed for individuals to remotely attend, all or any of the programmes.


      Programme Details
      Use this webinar-based programme to develop your idea or social business start-up. Refine your idea and business plan through 6 individual bookable coaching sessions. Grow your network through monthly peer support networking sessions.  

      This programme is a fully-funded initiative supported by Highland and Islands Enterprise.

      • Work 1:1 with a highly experienced local social business leader on your specific goals, aspirations and challenges
      • Workshops on key issues around social business
      • Networking supporting each other in business planning
      • Gain new tools and insights to increase your performance and effectiveness
      • Develop different and fresh perspectives to help you meet challenges and realise opportunities
      • Receive helpful feedback and guidance to build your confidence and capacity as a social business leader


      [The sessions have] helped shift my modest and quite unambitious goal at the start of the coaching programme to a wider ‘what am I actually doing with my career and life’ mode during the process. That was quite mindblowing in a fabulous way. 

       

      Programme Structure 

      Once matched with a locally based business coach, participants access at least 8 individual, 50-minute coaching sessions to use until the end of March 2022.

      Participants will gain immediate access to participate in the following facilitator-led social enterprise focused sessions.

      • Session 1: November 5, 2021, 1.30pm - 3.00pm. Imagining your Enterprise 1 by Helen Denny
      • Session 2: November 19, 2021, 1.30pm - 3.00pm. Imagining your Enterprise 2 by Helen Denny
      • Session 3: November 26, 2021, 1.30pm - 3.00pm. Imagining your Enterprise 3 by Helen Denny

      Starting in November, monthly morning networking sessions will be held.

      Further workshops will be delivered from December to March. Topics include: Project Management, Marketing, and Stakeholder Engagement.

      Programme Fee 

      This programme is fully funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise enabling learners to access this programme free of charge.


      Facilitators/Coaches

      Both the one to one coaching sessions and the peer mentoring groups will be facilitated by Social Enterprise Academy facilitators who have a wide and varied experience of Social Enterprise organisations within the specific geographic area.

       Sign up 

      For More Information Please Contact:

      Alexander Bruns, Programme Officer | alexander@socialenterprise.academy