After the success of the first round of applications in December which saw well over 800 social enterprises apply for funding from across England, the second and final round of the Social Enterprise Support Fund will reopen at 1pm on 28th February.

As a reminder, the Social Enterprise Support Fund will provide grants between £10,000 and £100,000 to social enterprises in England to support those impacted by COVID-19. The fund aims to support over 500 social enterprises, across the 2 rounds and is committed to inclusion, working to ensure that at least 50% of grants reach groups that are led by: people from black, asian and minority ethnic communities; LGBTQ+ communities; disabled people; and/or leaders with lived experience of the issues their social enterprise is addressing.

The fund is aimed at social enterprises whose annual income was between £20,000 and £1.8 million pre-COVID-19 or in their last financial year, and enterprises should be substantially reliant on income from trading (e.g. sales and contracts) to deliver social impact.

The fund provides essential financial support to help social enterprises in England to rebuild and grow their income from trading, following the impact of COVID-19.

The fund is focused on social enterprises supporting people facing increased social and economic challenges as a result of COVID-19, it will support them in evolving and growing sustainable community services, in the face of ongoing disruption from COVID-19. The Social Enterprise Support Fund is a two-year project, delivered by Resonance, Big Issue Invest, Key Fund, the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) and UnLtd, in partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund.

Thanks to National Lottery players, The National Lottery Community Fund has committed £18m to the partnership, which will offer vital and rapid financial support to more than 500 businesses focused on supporting their communities to recover from the pandemic.

If you are a social enterprise, based in England and wish to apply for funding from the fund then you can find out more by visiting:

socialenterprisesupportfund.org.uk

There you will find everything you need to apply when the fund opens on the 28th February, including downloadable Application Forms and Application Guidance. In addition webinars are being held to provide further support enabling enterprises to find out more about the Social Enterprise Support Fund, with a focus on the criteria and key priorities that assessors will be looking for. The webinars will also help you discover more about how the application process will work, and how the partners of the fund will support successful applicants. You can register for the webinars by visiting:

socialenterprisesupportfund.org.uk/news/support-and-tips-completing-your-application