Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday this week, the Eastside team and partners managed a fantastic investment event for 15 social enterprises and 5 aspiring entrepreneurs in the field of homelessness.
Spark, for those who don’t yet know, is a pioneering investment programme that engages cross-sector leaders to allocate cash of £640,000 and in-kind prizes worth a further £1 million to organisations building social enterprises that tackle homelessness.
But Spark is about much more than the prize money. It is about the people, the passion, the connections, and real business partnerships that are created by bringing together leaders from across different sectors to talk to each other and engage.
Highpoint in Leicester provided the perfect backdrop for this engagement and as a flagship social enterprise for The TREES group, not only understands the impact social business can have but in their service, gave every single participant a truly high-end conference and venue experience (thank you Alison and Rachel!).
Our investment panel – consisting of John Montague, TREES group, Val Hibbert from the Department of Communities and Local Government, Kate Welch of Acumen, Nigel Kershaw of Big Issue Invest, Steve Mather from Places for People, Douglas Johnson-Poengsen of BT, and Philip Wright of PricewaterhouseCoopers - spoke highly of the passion and belief behind the 15 Spark winners’ business ideas.
For the first time, we also selected a number of aspiring entrepreneurs – individuals that have themselves experienced homelessness – to join the Spark programme. These ‘Sparklers’ brought a whole load of colour, vibrancy and inspiration to everyone that was attending. It’s great to find out they also found huge value in taking part, as Michael Goodison of Comedius wrote today: “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I don't know how to explain how I am still feeling right now. I know its a cliché, but it still seems surreal. I am still feeling the rush of adrenalin.”
With Spark prize allocation announced on July 8th, we look forward to being able to report further on the journies of all the participants from across the programme, and encourage you to sign up to the newsletter. There are no doubt many exciting partnerships and places that these social enterprises will go in the future, so watch this space!
Written by Rachel Edmunds, Marketing & Communications Manager
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