Blogs

When we started auctionmystuff.org it was going to be a service for cash rich, time poor (lazy, like myself) people to sell stuff through eBay.  It wasn’t until we actually piloted it, that we found that the idea we planned just didn’t make enough money to even cover its costs. What we discovered, from meeting a charity to try and get access to their shops, was that some charities were offered really large donations of ‘stuff’, which they’d love to convert into cash.  As ou...

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I defected from the public sector in 1999 and started up Unique Coffee Bar because I thought there was a better way to work with young people than the Youth Service – although I have to say if the Youth Service hadn’t given me a secondment and kept my old job open for three years, Unique probably wouldn’t be here now. Unique was 100% grant reliant at first which I soon realised wouldn’t be sustainable. We created an Alternative Education course which we sold to local schools and that pu...

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I was sat on a park bench at a playpark today watching my toddler happily running around with some other kids when one of the young mums in the group said she was thinking of starting up a social enterprise.  I was astonished – I had not told anyone there that I was involved in running a social enterprise or that I was promoting them through my role as an ambassador so this was someone who had got the message…..  Her idea was to turn her waterlogged garden into a bogland nature res...

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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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