The Black and Minoritised Communities Enterprise Development Programme (BMCEDP) will contribute to one of the key delivery objectives within The Ubele Initiative’s new five year strategy. As part of this strategy, we will establish the first ever National Strategic Alliance, the aim of which is to support Community Wealth Building within Black and Minoritised communities.
The second round for BMCEDP applications will open in Spring 2022.
On the 30th of November 2021, the twelve BMCEDP cohorts from the first round were sent their offer letters from the Social Investment Business (SIB), inviting them to fulfil the grant conditions for release of payment one. As soon as they reply, satisfying the conditions for the first payment, they can start working on their new projects with the support of The Ubele Initiative and Access – The Foundation for Social Investment. We will host a welcome and induction event in January 2022 to introduce the new cohorts to the funders and those responsible for creating this opportunity.
The plan for 2022, is to roll out the full breadth of the Support Package which will include individual business guidance and support to the successful applicants. We will schedule business webinars and seminars, provide business coaching and peer to peer support for 12 months. The successful applicants will be learning how to trade and how to develop current trading skills to create surplus income within their organisations. This surplus will help to release the dependence on grants for doing the necessary work in the community to support vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
We have an exciting mix of people and projects from Bristol, Plymouth, Torbay, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Manchester and London. The Black and Minoritised communities represented are building businesses in areas such as community cafes, health services, youth enterprise, facilities hire, education and consultancy. We are looking forward to hosting these organisations, and facilitating their growth and development as traders.
It is an exciting challenge for all involved in shifting the culture of grant dependency to one of creating surplus through trade. There will be a transition in the understanding and implementation of technical business skills, a shift in perspective and thought processes. People can remain heart centred about wanting to see changes to inequalities in society whilst also operating with business principles, one does not cancel out the other. Profits is not a dirty word; surplus is not a better word it means the same thing. Some people will be challenged in developing the kind of attitude, passion, and responsiveness required, in meeting the expectations of the business world. Those expectations could be quite different sometimes, from expectations for service delivery and responsiveness within the charitable sector. So, there is work to do in upskilling, supporting, nurturing, caring, and looking after our new cohorts.
We're resourced and fully prepared to nurture the growth of these organisations on this enterprise development programme. We will be supporting the progression at each stage of the process, looking at evidence of progress at each stage; and in each quarter, payments will be awarded on progression.
We have a robust team of consultants to deliver on our support package. BMCEDP is a three-year programme, and we are building our database of consultants as an ongoing activity. Anyone interested or who wants to find out more in the first instance, please send a CV and bio and/or expression of interest to edm@ubele.org
Yvonne Witter MA, Black and Minoritised Communities Enterprise Development Programme Manager yvonne.witter@ubele.org
