Blogs

As part of our new series providing advice and insights on social enterprise, Julie Harris talks about what got her started and her top tips for others starting-up... My experiences of working in the public sector had led me to believe that there had to be a better way of achieving social impact, and my background and experience in helping to run a family business taught me all the skills needed to make COSMIC a success. There’s still so much potential for people to s...

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As part of our new series providing advice and insights on social enterprise, Kresse Wesling talks about what got her started, how to avoid failure and her top tips for starting-up... Several triggers prompted my involvement into social enterprise. There are the smaller gradual shifts which had been building up for years: developing a significant concern for environmental protection due to the contrast between life/industry in Canada and life in Hong Kong and China; going to ‘the dump with my...

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Sometimes good fortune just falls in your lap and today it did in the form of Divine Chocolate. I was just about to start planning my first visit ‘ambassador’ to Lawnswood School, where I’ll be talking with business students about social enterprise,  when the Sunday Times dropped through the letter box.  One of my favourite features is ‘A Life in the Day’ and I duly turned to the back of the magazine to read about Comfort Kumeah a Fairtrade cocoa farmer from Ghana. She work...

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I first started to do some mentoring in 2000, supporting the government’s network of IT centres which were being opened up across the country to help get people online.  They wanted mentors to help organisations develop their ideas and business plans.  The first assignment was to drive through the snow to Longtown on the border with Scotland in early March to help a stressed out school development worker submit a funding application.  I let her know that it wasn’t really what ...

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