Way back in March 2015, we attended a Taster session in Leeds hosted by the School for Social Entrepreneurs about their Lloyds Bank programme which is a free 14-day course offering learning and mentoring about setting up a social enterprise.
As much as we’d talked about Kakou and conducted research, it was still a pipedream; we had no idea how to approach making it into a reality.
After that first taster session, we applied for the course and after two interviews we got accepted to take part.
The course started in October 2015 and so far it’s been amazing. The first thing you appreciate about the course is that you are surrounded by like-minded people. Individuals who are simply looking to make their part of the world a better place and are not driven by capital gain.
The concept of “not-for-profit” is something that still confuses a lot of people. In a world that is dominated by money, “celebrity” and having the latest fashionable item, when you tell someone that you want to build a company that uses its profits for social and not personal gain, you do get some odd looks.
However, Kakou are not alone in our quest to build a social enterprise, and it is not such a new idea.
The Big Issue, The Eden Project, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, The Co-operative and John Lewis are all examples of established social enterprises.
Next time you walk down your local high-street, consider how many businesses might actually be social enterprises.
You may be surprised by the answer!
