New scheme to help causes battle against cuts
In a bid to combat the effects of significant public sector spending cuts on good causes a new campaign has been launched to increase the amount of inter-trading within the sector.
The Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs (ISE) has launched the “Shop for Change” campaign, part of a wider initiative supported by Be Birmingham.
The scheme aims to make it easier for social enterprises and trading voluntary and community organisations in Birmingham to buy business goods and services from each other. It involves finding out about and raising awareness of what is already on offer as well as supporting start ups to fill any gaps.
More than 100 guests attended the launch event earlier this month and their organisations signed the pledge to put social enterprises at the top of their shopping list.
The campaign comes after research found that 83 per cent of charities derived between 20 per cent and 100 per cent of their income from the public sector.
“They are going to need to find alternative customers if they are to survive so it seemed to us to be an obvious step for them to look first in their own backyard and increase the amount of business they are doing with each other,” said Sarah Crawley, ISE chief executive.
To download a copy of the survey Shop for Change: An Analysis of Trends in Social Enterprise Markets visit www.shopforchange.info.
