Awards honour outstanding and innovative social enterprises

Paul McEldon North East BIC
Paul McEldon, Chief Executive

As a regular supporter of the prestigious Sunderland Echo Portfolio Awards, the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) is proud to be sponsoring this year’s Social Enterprise Award.

The award honours outstanding and innovative social enterprises in Sunderland that are working to make the world a better place. Like traditional businesses, social enterprises generate income through trade and aim to make a profit. But it’s what they do with their profits that sets them apart, reinvesting them to create positive social or environmental change.

BIC Chief Executive, Paul McEldon said: “The evidence suggests that social enterprises are playing an increasingly important role in economic growth. The pandemic has certainly inspired a new wave of social entrepreneurs and despite the challenging economic climate, we’ve seen demand increase for our business advice services and in particular, our social enterprise experts.

“As with all crises, the pandemic brought out the best in a lot of people and has inspired them to take collective action to consider how they can best support others. People are thinking more about their social objectives and their own accountability and responsibility to their communities.”

With the growing demand for expert advice in this sector, the BIC will soon be launching a new programme, Innovate for Good. There will be new services to help those that dream of starting a new social enterprise; support for social enterprises who want to grow and access funding and for private businesses who are looking to explore how the social enterprise model could open up new opportunities.

In sponsoring the Echo Portfolio Social Enterprise Award, the BIC is encouraging social enterprises to come forward and showcase their success and to celebrate the great impact they are making both commercially and in creating positive change in their communities.

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