BUSINESS BIO

Where is the enterprise based?  London

Key business markets: Young people, sport, education and training

Annual turnover: £2.4 million

Number of employees: 48

www.streetleague.co.uk

 

ambassadors

Matt Stevenson-Dodd

Matt Stevenson-Dodd
  • Street League

  • CEO

  • London

Social Enterprise Ambasasdor Matt Stevenson Dodd's first task on taking the helm as CEO of social enterprise Street League took him to South Africa during the World Cup where the ‘Football for Hope Festival 2010’ celebrated the power of football to bring about positive social change.

Founded in 2001, Street League delivers structured sport and education programmes to some of the most disadvantaged young people across the UK to build participants confidence, improve their health, extend their social networks and develop their employability skills.

Matt has many years of experience of working with young people and in social enterprise. He joined Street League from enterprise education providers Young Enterprise North West where he got fellow Ambassadors involved in a programme to inspire budding young entrepreneurs to think about the possibilities of doing business differently.

When he started as Chief Executive of Young Enterprise North West (YENW) – a charity that supports groups of young people to set up businesses – in April 2008, ambassador Matt had transformation on his mind. 

He wanted the organisation to be more financially sustainable and to focus more on teaching young people about social enterprise business models.

His ambitions are now well and truly off the ground, with many more of the young people connected to YENW creating businesses with a social or environmental purpose.

“One great example is a group of young people who sold A-level artwork left over in their school and used the proceeds to create community art workshops. Many individuals go on to properly form their own businesses after we’ve worked with them,” says Matt.  

His ambitions are now aiming higher: “I'd love to see every school in the country have its own social enterprise, so that young people can experience social enterprise first hand before they make choices about what they want to do in life,” he says. In the 2009/10 academic year, YENW will help 50 schools in the North West set up and run a social enterprise based on the Community Interest Companies (CICs) – a special legal form for social enterprises.

I'd love to see every school in the country have its own social enterprise, so that young people can experience social enterprise first hand before they make choices about what they want to do in life

 

Matt’s other ambition – making YENW financially sustainable through selling education contracts – is also taking shape. “There’s a lot of competition in the market place for what we do, including  all sorts of charities and big private companies, but we are starting to win contracts,” he says.

Matt has always been involved in youth work. Prior to joining YENW he led award-winning social enterprise Unique, where he helped many hard-to-reach young people get on the right track through training, education and experience. He is thrilled to be continuing this at YENW.  

“Young Enterprise North West helps young people experience business and make decisions for themselves” he says. “At the beginning of the Company Programme we often find the teams of young people are under-confident and have trouble organising themselves.

"By the end of the process they are standing up in front of 300 business people giving incredible presentations and speaking confidently about profit and loss and how they’ve run their business. It really is an amazing transition.”

Thousands of young people are benefitting from Matt’s energy and reaping the rewards. In July 2009, one of the YENW school groups reached the final of the Young Enterprise Innovation Awards with a social business that offers multi-racial workshops to children aged 6-9. Head of the group Jaanki Koecha, 16, picked up the national leadership prize at the awards.

She says: “I used to think I wanted to go into pharmacy but this has definitely given me a taste for business. I’m doing a business A-level, but you learn so much more when you actually have to put it all into practice.

"YENW gave us an excellent business advisor who spent a lot of time with us. We’ve had interest from a couple of big companies since the award. I think social business is even more important in the recession,” she concludes.

Quick Facts

  • In the 2009/10 academic year, YENW will help 50 schools in the area set up a social enterprise based on the Community Interest Companies (a special legal form for social enterprises) as part of Company Programme.
  • Independent research found that the young people Young Enterprise works with are twice as likely to start a business, earn more money and volunteer than their peers.
  • In the last year, YENW has supported 31,000 young people in developing business skills, with the help of 1,500 volunteer business mentors.

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