14 homelessness organisations shortlisted for £1.6m Spark 2010 prize
Howard Lake | 28 September 2010 | News
Fourteen business ideas, including bike recycling and restoring antique furniture, have been chosen to compete in the Spark social enterprise competition.
The finalists will pitch their business ideas to a panel of leading entrepreneurs from The TREES Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, BT Global Services, Places for People, Big Issue Invest, Willmott Dixon Construction and Department for Communities and Local Government at an event in Leicester on November 9 and 10.
The best organisations will win a share of a £1.6 million investment fund comprising cash, loans and business support. All fourteen finalists will receive coaching to help them develop their social enterprises to help more homeless people into training, volunteering and jobs.
Seven enterprises in this year’s shortlist are involved in recycling, with the others operating in the areas of local food production, market research, property maintenance and social letting.
John Montague, CEO of The TREES Group, said: “Spark is much more than a competition or a grant application. It is a cross-sector collaboration that brings together leading organisations and social enterprises from the public, private and third sector to work together to build sustainable solutions to homelessness.”
www.sparkchallenge.org
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.