About Us – www.nnse.org.uk

OUR VISION

For North Northamptonshire to become a thriving hub of social entrepreneurship – bringing financial, social and environmental prosperity to our area.

OUR MISSION

To connect, support and promote social enterprises across North Northamptonshire.

OUR MAIN AIMS

To CONNECT local social enterprises with each other as well as with local leaders, influencers and other partners to increase collaborations, funding opportunities and partnership projects.

Bringing together local social enterprises for networking, showcasing and training opportunities.
Establishing strong relationships and good awareness of local social enterprises with councillors and officers across different functions at North Northamptonshire Council.
Ensuring the voice of local social enterprises is represented and heard where it matters.

To PROMOTE our network of local social enterprises to highlight the wide positive impacts we have, helping to raise our public profiles individually and as a group by:

Increasing the number of social enterprises featured on our website by actively approaching potential members.
Sharing success stories via our social media, monthly enews, local press and feature videos.
Working with wider support networks across the UK and beyond to help us build our knowledge and achieve Social Enterprise Place status.

To SUPPORT social enterprises at all stages by providing information, securing funding and resource opportunities and directing them to further sources of support by:

Identifying sources of support for local social enterprises and promoting them on our website, enews and in our social media.
Collaborating with local business support networks to share information.
Applying for funding to provide training and other opportunities to enable local social enterprises to flourish.

OUR HISTORY

North Northants Social Enterprise Network was set up in November 2020 by Alison Holland who has run Brightwayz, a Kettering-based social enterprise, since 2004.

This was done to help ensure local social enterprises are better understood, valued, supported and recognised as being good, effective partners in addressing the global and local challenges we face – economic, environmental and social.

In 2021-22 our new unitary local authority was settling in and we focused on building up good relationships there and developing our network with features of local social enterprises. We succeeded in securing funding from Northants Community Foundation to fund digital training for local members. Through the University of Northampton’s Changemaker programme and other support our two Social Enterprise Ambassadors have been working with local social enterprises to create a video feature series, due for launch in February 2023.

The idea emerged for our network after we did a short video in 2019 featuring several Kettering social enterprises to show how they are benefiting the town – ‘Who’s Bettering Kettering?’. Then in 2020 – a very different year – we saw how social enterprises were working hard to overcome the new challenges and even saw new social enterprises launching. Many of the issues we approach are also being addressed by our fellow social enterprises so by creating a network we are more easily able to collaborate. We are also stronger together and more able to raise awareness as a bigger group.

We now cover the whole of the North Northamptonshire unitary authority – Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Oundle, Thrapston, East Northants and the A6 towns of Rothwell and Desborough and surrounding villages. We welcome any social enterprises from anywhere in North Northants who find us and wish to join our network.

But now back to Kettering and here is a video featuring a selection of our town’s social enterprises – filmed in 2019 some things have changed but the passion is still the same.

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