Homelessness charities and social enterprises compete for £500k prize fund
Howard Lake | 14 March 2008 | News
Fifteen homelessness charities and social enterprises have been chosen to compete in the Spark social enterprise competition in May according to junior housing minister Iain Write.
The 15 will pitch their business ideas to a panel of leading entrepreneurs including Nigel Kershaw, Big Issue Invest chief executive, at an event in May. The best organisations will win a share of a £500,000 prize funded by communities and local government, mentoring and a two-day ‘enterprise makeover’. All finalists will receive coaching from Eastside Consulting to help develop their ideas to help more homeless people into training, volunteering and jobs.
The competition was launched in December 2007 to challenge the homelessness sector to go beyond standard homeless services such as providing food and accommodation and to offer more training and employment opportunities for homeless people.
The finalists are Acumen Community Enterprise Development Trust, Travelling Light, Bikeworks, Brent Homeless User Group, Brighton Housing Trust, Chester and District Housing Trust, Gilead Foundations, Noah Enterprise, Novas Scarman Group, Plymouth Access to Housing, Stride, Shekinah Mission, Streetshine, The Salvation Army and The Society of St James’ social enterprise Jamie’s Computers.
www.sparkchallenge.org
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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.