Winners of €1.6M Social Enterprise Development Fund Announced

 

8 Awardees will receive cash grants of €50,000 and a place on Ireland’s most prestigious Accelerator Programme

July 27^th 2018: Cork County Mayor, Cllr. Patrick Gerard Murphy, today announced this year’s winners of the €1.6 million Social Enterprise Development Fund at an event in Vertigo at Cork County Hall. The fund was set up to support social enterprises from across the country to achieve their goals and create measurable social impact that can be scaled all over Ireland. The €1.6 million fund, created by Social Innovation Fund Ireland in partnership with Local Authorities Ireland, is supported by IPB Insurance and the Department of Rural and Community Development from the Dormant Accounts Fund.

 

Chosen from over 100 applicants from almost every county in Ireland, 8 successful awardees, made up of a mixture of urban, town and rural social enterprises, will not only receive cash grants of €50,000 but will also land a place on Ireland’s most prestigious Accelerator Programme for social enterprises.

 

The Accelerator Programme is run in partnership with Local Authorities Ireland and provides intensive, expert and bespoke supports for social enterprises to hone their social impact, business skills and accelerate their growth. The 8 awardees are:

 

• MyMind works to ensure that everyone has easy and quick access to affordable mental health services. They address the issue of unequal access to mental health support by operating through self-referral and ensuring that appointments with accredited counsellors occur within 72 hours, which allows for fast and easy access to support before a problem gets worse. MyMind provides mental health services at reduced rates to unemployed clients, pensioners or full-time students. With this support, the client can lead a healthier and happier life, having a positive impact on families, workplaces and communities.

 

• GIY GROWBox addresses the challenge of diet-related illness arising from a lack of understanding and connection to healthy food. It makes growing healthy and delicious food easy, affordable and accessible. GROWBox is a range of one-off and subscription growing kits from GIY, to make growing easy. A GROWBox is a complete, tailored kit with everything you need to grow your own food at home.

 

• Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance builds quality homes and offers them to those who could not afford to buy their own home on the open market. Their goal is to develop and support fully-integrated communities, to deliver well designed, top-quality, energy efficient homes at an affordable price, and to ensure its co-operative model for affordable housing can be replicated and scaled across the country. Ó Cualann is committed to building communities, and believes that integrated, affordable housing can have a transformative effect on wider social issues in Ireland.

• The Shona Project aims to educate, inspire and empower today’s Irish girls to become tomorrow’s strong, confident and curious young women. Through their school workshops, events and online community, The Shona Project provides girls with information, advice and a safe space to share their stories. The organisation is advised by its team of youth ambassadors, 14 girls aged 17-24, who come from all over Ireland. The ambassadors have all overcome their own unique challenges, and are dedicated to supporting others and creating social change.

 

• Sensational Kids bridges the gap between public and private services by providing affordable and accessible early intervention services for children with additional needs, who cannot access or afford vital early intervention to help them reach their potential. Over 4,700 children have already benefited from its subsidised speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and play therapy. Each month, Sensational Kids saves families €20,000 in therapy fees, bridging the gap between public and private services for children in need.

 

• Meals4Health provides fresh delicious ready meals for older people in their own homes, giving them independence and dignity in choosing their own meals. The meals are created in accordance with best practice in clinical nutrition that addresses individual needs and supports older people with prevention and recovery from illness, the promotion of health and well-being and by helping to reduce social isolation. Local communities are supported in looking after their older people, helping them to age well at home, and through the community partnership model they are creating opportunities for urban and rural community employment.

• Social Farming Ireland coordinates social farming activities in Ireland, by providing placements on farms for a range of people including people with disabilities, those recovering from mental ill health and brain injuries, young people, older people, long-term unemployed, and asylum seekers. They are focused on working with families of farmers or growers, where small numbers of people benefit from individualised support and the opportunity to take part in day-to-day farm activities in a non-clinical environment. These social farms operate with a strong emphasis on a person-centred approach, community connections, social inclusion and on enabling participants to do ‘ordinary things in ordinary places’.

 

• Sailing Into Wellness helps people build their recovery and supports young people at risk by supporting healthy ways to look after their physical and mental well-being. It provides a natural environmental programme where sailing is used as an educational and therapeutic activity. A key component is empowering people to cope with a challenging natural environment.

 

14 awardees, who come from across the local authorities of Ireland, will also receive a place on the Accelerator Programme.

 

Deirdre Mortell, Chief Executive Officer, Social Innovation Fund Ireland said: “We believe that we’ve found amazing organisations that are already creating real change and, with the support of this new fund, will grow and reach more and more people in need of their work. These awardees collectively demonstrate the powerful impact social enterprises can have on every community across Ireland.”

 

Tim Lucey, Chief Executive, Cork County Council said; “Social Enterprises play a crucial role toward enabling the creation of sustainable communities, which is the very essence of what we do. Today’s awardees are proof of this. We are delighted to partner with Social Innovation Fund Ireland in creating this invaluable fund and to host this inspiring event today.”

George Jones, Chairman of IPB Insurance said: “The quality and diversity of fund applications has been impressive, but today’s awardees really stand out as social enterprises that blend innovative thinking and social impact in a way that makes a difference to their local communities. At IPB Insurance, we know how important not only financial support can be but also business and leadership development is to any fledgling business and with the Social Enterprise Development Fund, today’s awardees will be able to continue their incredible work and support job creation within their local communities.”

 

For more information on the Social Enterprise Development Awardees, please visit: http://www.socialinnovation.ie/social-enterprise-development/

 

Please find below more info on the 8 cash grant awardees and the list of 14 additional awardees taking place on the Social Enterprise accelerator programme.

Organisation	Social Issue	Location	Summary
My Mind	Mental Health	Dublin	MyMind works to ensure that everyone has easy and quick access to affordable mental health services. With this investment, MyMind will open a new centre in Dublin 8 in early 2019,
GIY GROWBox	Obesity / diet related illness	Waterford	GIY BROWBox addresses the challenge of diet-related illness. It makes growing healthy and delicious food easy. This investment will scale the distribution of the range of GROWBox products.
Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance	Housing	Wicklow	Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance addresses affordability in the housing market. The investment will give them the capacity to commence work on over 300 affordable homes in fully integrated, cooperative, sustainable communities, in the next 12 months.
The Shona Project	Mental Health	Waterford	The Shona Project addresses the lack of information, advice and access to role models available to teenage girls in Ireland and offers supports through workshops, events and an online community. The investment will be used to increase the capacity of the organisation and to research, develop & deliver a number of modules, which can be accessed both online and offline.
Sensational Kids	Disabilities	Kildare	Sensational Kids provide nationwide subsidised early intervention services for children who have a special educational need. The investment will allow them to add to their existing Leinster services and open two additional Sensational Kids Centres in Munster & Connacht.
Meals4Health	Ageing	Galway	Meals4Health provide fresh, nutritionally balanced ready meals for older people in Ireland. This investment will grow the social enterprise which will extend the availability of and access to their meals throughout Ireland.
Social Farming Ireland	Social Inclusion	Leitrim	Social Farming Ireland provides nationwide farm outcome-based placements for a range of people including people with disabilities, those recovering from mental ill health. Social Farming Ireland is the link between the farms and the service providers whose clients attend placements on the farms. This investment will develop the business model to ensure that Social Farming Ireland is a sustainable national social enterprise which serves both the participants and the farmers to the highest standards.
Sailing Into Wellness	Mental Health / Addiction	Cork	Sailing Into Wellness helps people to build their recovery and supports young people at risk, through a healthy and natural solution to looking after their physical and mental well-being. A place on the Accelerator would give their leadership team the tools to manage and expand an innovative national social enterprise. It would involve developing a strategic plan which would bring Sailing Into Wellness up to 2021.

 

The 14 awardees taking a place in the Accelerator Programme are:

 

Organisation	Social Issue	Location
The Cornmarket Project	Addiction	Wexford
Walkinstown Green Social Enterprises	Employment	Dublin
Dress for Success	Gender Equality/Employment	Dublin
TechIreland	Gender Equality	Dublin
Helium Arts	Disabilities	Westmeath
First Fortnight	Mental Health	Dublin
St. Gabriel’s Orthotics Services	Disabilities	Westmeath
Third Space	Community Development	Dublin
The Peace Link	Social Inclusion	Monaghan
ReCreate	Environment	Dublin
Foodshare	Social market/ Food Poverty	Kerry
Siel Bleu Ireland	Ageing	Dublin
Tipperary Energy Agency	Environment/Sustainability	Tipperary
Generation Accommodation	Isolations/Housing Crisis	Dublin