Royal London launches Changemakers Programme for Irish Social Enterprises

Royal London Ireland has recently joined the Business in the Community Ireland network to strengthen its social impact across the country, where the company has a 150 strong workforce. By working together, Royal London and Business in the Community Ireland will help engage colleagues and deepen Royal London’s two purpose impact areas: building financial resilience and moving fairly to a sustainable world.

Alongside supporting customers through its products and services, and working with charity partners in this space, Royal London also delivers a Changemakers Programme – a social innovation programme looking to explore society’s challenges and develop, scale and fund innovative solutions across the UK and Ireland.

Working with The School for Social Entrepreneurs, the ‘Scaling Up’ part of the programme selects ten social entrepreneurs each year and provides funding of €24,000 and two years’ worth of personalised business support to help the organisations scale and grow. Royal London also works closely with the entrepreneurs, providing pro bono consultancy, PR support and regular opportunities to collaborate.

Last year, Irish entrepreneur Fiona O’Neill secured a place on the programme with her business Jobs for Family Carers (JFC), founded to build financial resilience for those with caring responsibilities in Ireland. Fiona identified that family carers are often left particularly financially vulnerable. This can often be because they are limited to working up to 18 hours whilst still receiving carers allowance, and that there were very few job opportunities offering these part time hours. Her solution, JFC works to find and promote suitable jobs for carers and get them into sustainable employment that works around caring responsibilities.

“Having the grant from Royal London means that this year we are going to hire a team of part-time Family Carers and having the pro bono support with employments contracts and the interview process is really getting the ball rolling and developing my skillset too. Royal London giving their staff that time, to delve into that expertise and skill is amazing.” Fiona O’Neill, Jobs for Family Carers.

Last year, the programme focussed solely on Financial Resilience. This year, the programme is expanding to also welcome organisations looking to help people and communities to engage in the societal impact of the move to net zero, as part of Royal London’s work to help us move fairly to a sustainable world.

Applications are now open for the Changemakers programme, and Royal London are looking for Irish social entrepreneurs to apply. Is your organisation looking to increase sustainability through trading, and focussing on one of the following impact areas?

• Build financial resilience in society
• Help enable a fair and inclusive transition to net zero

You can apply here before 17 May, or direct enquiries to marta.zukowska.ex@sse.org.uk

Tags: royal london

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