Guidance

Social Enterprise Boost Fund

Information about the Social Enterprise Boost Fund and local areas of delivery.

• From: Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• Published: 30 March 2023
• Last updated: 15 November 2024 — See all updates

Applies to England

The Social Enterprise Boost Fund is an up to £4.1m package of funding to kick start and accelerate social enterprise activity in disadvantaged areas of England. This is being delivered through a combination of capacity building and onward grants to support local social entrepreneurs. The capacity building support includes business support, training, networking, one-to-one support and peer learning. 

Up to £1.45 million of this government funding is being delivered as onward grants of up to £10,000 for entrepreneurs to kickstart or grow their social enterprises.

The Social Enterprise Boost Fund is currently being delivered in:

• County Durham
• South Tyneside
• Sunderland
• Thanet

To find out more about support available in your local area please visit the relevant local delivery partner’s website below:

• for County Durham, please contact North East BIC
• for South Tyneside and Sunderland, please contact First Port for Social Entrepreneurs
• for Thanet, please contact Social Enterprise Kent

The Social Enterprise Boost Fund commenced in early 2023 and will run until March 2025. Until September 2024, the fund was also delivered in Wolverhampton and Sandwell. However due to operational issues the funding ended earlier than originally scheduled in these areas

Objectives

The objectives of the Boost Fund are, by March 2025, to:

• grow the social enterprise sector in targeted areas, by supporting the creation of new social enterprises and boosting early stage organisations
• enable targeted high-deprivation local authorities and the local voluntary and community sector in these places to implement sustainable systems and processes that encourage social enterprise growth
• build and disseminate evidence on:
  • scalable and sustainable place-based interventions that work in growing the social enterprise sector in disadvantaged areas
  • the extent to which and how social enterprises support communities and economies in disadvantaged areas

Published 30 March 2023
Last updated 15 November 2024 + show all updates

1. 15 November 2024

   Updated the areas in which the fund is being delivered

2. 27 October 2023

   Information updated to reflect the final figure for the fund and the areas of delivery.

3. 30 March 2023

   First published.