The Trading Up pilot project is designed to pilot a comprehensive, targeted business growth service to social economy organisations from grant dependence to income generating. The service will offer a range of development of the intervention package.
Expert advice: The core work of Trading Up is the provision of 3600 hours of expert and specific business advice and skills training to circa 100 organisations. This consists of in-depth hands-on coaching on site combined with substantial desk top preparation in addition to the provision of aftercare electronically, by phone and in person.
Injection of accelerator capital support: This will be applied during the work with the expected 100 organisations and will be used where small injections of capital will maximise trading potential in conjunction with the development of an organisations business skills capability.
8 events: This will include 4 ‘rare breed dinner’ intensive networking events (by invitation only) and 4 seminars on finance, business development skills and marketing
Beneficiary companies: Social economy organisations that are:
wanting to start new trading activity
already active but wanting to diversify into new trading areas
want to improve and innovate their business development and trading; and
organisations which are further from market readiness, but with ambition to move in this direction
From April to July the Trading up pilot has worked with 60 social enterprises, 30 of which have been new start ups.The work has taken place in 11 local authority areas and the pilot ahs referrals in 2 additional councils where work will start in the autumn.
Meetings have taken place with strategic partners.As well as CVSs, Communities Scotland officers and other members of the Equal DP, this has crucially been to set up formal joint working arrangements with the Local Social Economy Partnerships.The pilot have have met with LSEP representatives from the Borders, Fife, Lanarkshire, Perthshire, Angus, Dundee, Midlothian, West Lothian, and Clackmannan
Arrangements are in place for 4 “rare breed” networking events, and one network has been set up with another one planned. The project has contributed to ‘Making the Links’, an event organised by Clacks LSEP, a joint Tayside LSEP event and offered loan finance advice at the Midlothian Voluntary Action funding day
The pilot has undertaken two well-attended training courses and another (on ‘Ideas Generation’) is booked and Accelerator capital has funded one group to have an away day to review their organisation.
