The Business and Investment Readiness programme (BiR) aims to strengthen social enterprises around the world by providing them with the support they need to enhance and scale the impact of their work.
Ready for business
BiR provides business readiness support to Social Enterprises at start-up or early stages in their development or organisations making a transition from a donor dependent model, to allow them to strengthen their organizational capacity and put in place plans for future growth and increase impact.
Ready for investment
- BiR provides investment readiness support to Social Enterprises which are in need of finance in order to grow and enhance impact. Finance could be in the form of grants or social investment or a mix of the two. BIR will also support Social Enterprises to identify potential Social Investors
- BiR supports Social Enterprises that might require a mix of business and investment readiness support.
- Participation in BIR by no means guarantees that a social enterprise will access investment; the programme does not provide finance to social enterprises.
Ready to measure impact
BiR provides support for organisations to more effectively account for, measure and communicate the impact they are making. It does this by drawing on the diversity of approaches that exist both across the UK and globally ensuring sensitivity and relevance to local contexts.
How does BiR work?
- BiR facilitates collaboration between Social Enterprise and Social Investment intermediary organisations in the UK and their counterparts in countries around the world.
- These organisations, work together to support social enterprises in these countries, to grow and scale their impact. This could mean supporting organisations to develop more robust business and financial plans, more comprehensive sales and marketing strategies, as well as developing strategies to secure social investment.
- Through collaboration, the intermediary organisations develop knowledge, skills, networks and business opportunities.
- Learning is shared and social enterprise infrastructure is developed and sustained across the social enterprise sector in the UK and globally.