The Wheel Among Organisations Receiving Funding for Delivery of Social Enterprise Supports

Mr Michael Ring TD, Minister for Rural and Community Development, today (Tuesday 10 December) announced the allocation of over €725,000 to 13 organisations for the provision of training and mentoring for social enterprises throughout Ireland.

This is following the announcement yesterday of a separate €1m for social enterprises, via small capital grants, with support from the Dormant Account Fund.

The money announced today, which comes from the Dormant Accounts Fund, will support the delivery of tailored training for social enterprises, which is one of the key policy commitments in the National Social Enterprise Policy for Ireland.

The Wheel (Rotha) was among the recipients of the funds announced today, being awarded 49,058 Euro for the delivering of training and mentoring supports across Ireland.

Social Enterprises are businesses whose core objective is to achieve a social, societal, or environmental impact. Like other businesses, social enterprises pursue their objectives by trading in goods and services on an ongoing basis. However, surpluses generated by social enterprises are re-invested into achieving the core social objectives.

Announcing the successful applicants, Minister Ring said:

“I am delighted to be in a position today to announce the allocation of €727,000 to 13 organisations to pilot this training and mentoring initiative.

“It is estimated that over 400 individual participants from a wide variety of social enterprises will benefit from these supports over the next year. This will build their capacity in areas such as business planning, leadership, governance, financial planning and digital innovation.

“One of the key messages which my Department has consistently heard from social enterprises is that they want more access to training and mentoring to help them strengthen their business model and improve their capacity to achieve their social, environmental and economic objectives.”

“I announced a call for proposals in September from organisations that have a track record in providing these types of supports to meet the needs of social enterprises. There was a high level of interest in the call for proposals, with 46 applications received.”

In July of this year Minister Ring launched the first “National Social Enterprise Policy” for Ireland. It commits to growing and strengthening social enterprises and specifically to ‘provide tailored training for social enterprises in areas such as business planning, mentoring, leadership, governance, capacity building, financial planning and digital innovation, to help them to improve their business potential as well as leadership and governance skills.’ This funding will support the delivery of that commitment.

Social enterprises frequently work to support disadvantaged groups such as the long-term unemployed, people with disabilities, travellers, etc., or to address issues such as food poverty, social housing, or environmental matters.

The Minister continued:

“The funding I am announcing today is being provided through the Dormant Accounts Fund.

“My Department also supports social enterprises under the Dormant Accounts Fund through the Small Capital Grants Scheme which I announced on 9th December with €1 million in funding for 124 social enterprises, as well as through the Social Enterprise Development Fund established by Social Innovation Fund Ireland.

“My Department also supports social enterprises through a number of other programmes including SICAP, LEADER, and the Community Services Programme.”

Full details of the organisations receiving funding under the pilot Training and Mentoring scheme for Social Enterprises are available here on the gov.ie website.