Social Enterprise Support Fund

Aims/priorities:

The Social Enterprise Support Fund provides essential financial support to help social enterprises in England to rebuild and grow their income from trading, following the impact of COVID-19.

The Social Enterprise Support Fund is focused on social enterprises supporting people facing increased social and economic challenges as a result of COVID-19. We will support them in evolving and growing sustainable community services, in the face of ongoing disruption from COVID-19.

Who can apply?

The fund is only available to you if the majority of the people and/or organisations you support through your social enterprise live and/or are based in England.

At least one year old

Your social enterprise must have been incorporated for at least 12 months (i.e. registered with Companies House, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or the Charity Commission).

An incorporated social purpose organisation with an asset lock

Your social enterprise must be incorporated. It may be a charitable company, a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO), a Community Interest Company (CIC) or a Community Benefit Society (CBS/Registered Society).

It may also be a company limited by guarantee (CLG), a company limited by shares (CLS), a co-operative society, or other registered society, if, within its governing document, it has:

a clear social purpose, such as an Objects or Social Purpose clause

a restriction on distribution of profits, to the extent that at least 51% of surpluses are reinvested for its social purpose

an ‘asset lock‘, which is a restriction on the distribution of assets

Annual income between £20,000 and £1.8 million

This is your income, either in your last financial year or the previous financial year (pre-COVID-19). (Please note that loans, including COVID-19 related loans, do not count as income.) In exceptional circumstances, we may consider organisations that have recently started and have had £20,000 income in the last 12 months (rather than the last financial year).

Substantially reliant on income from trading

Your social enterprise must be substantially reliant on income from trading to deliver social impact. By ‘income from trading’, we mean both sales of goods and/or services and delivery of contracts to supply goods or services. We will prioritise social enterprises where income has previously come mostly through trading, and which need support to rebuild trading income to enable you to deliver your social impact.

Financially resilient

We must be confident that with our support, your social enterprise will survive at least the next 12 months. If you have a negative balance on your balance sheet, or significant debts, you will need to explain how you will continue to trade.

Dual authority bank account

This means that at least two unrelated people are required to release payments. You don’t have to have this now, but must have this in place before receiving the grant.

Grant amount:

You can apply for grants from £10,000 to £100,000. Most grants will be between £10,000 and £50,000.

Application process:

Click here for an online application form available from Thursday 25 November.

Please also be ready to attach the required documents:

Your most recent annual accounts; your last two statutory accounts before COVID-19 – required
Management accounts for the period up to at least September 30, 2021 (unless your statutory accounts cover this period) - required
A cashflow statement – only required for applications over £50,000; otherwise, include if available

The following documents are not required, but we encourage you to include them if you have them, to help us assess your application: