Kate Welch: resilience, sustainability and social enterprise success

Kate Welch is founder and CEO of Social Enterprise Acumen, a community interest company (CIC) which supports social entrepreneurs to develop their concepts or grow their businesses.

She joined me for an extensive radio interview on this morning's show – and the podcast is below. It's crammed with great advice for leaders of businesses and social enterprises.

Kate covers:

• Acumen's work and the most common challenges Kate and her team help clients to solve
• balancing the delivery of public sector contracts with the need for positive cashflow
• social investment: do impact investors understand social enterprises' needs?
• the vital importance of developing resilience for social entrepreneurs, including advice on separating problems from solutions
• public recognition and awards (Kate's been awarded the MBE for services to social enterprise and the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion) – do they help?
• the difference between budgeting with wishful thinking and realistic financial planning covering best and worst case scenarios
• tips on how to decide whether to bid for contracts, and if you do, how to put together an excellent bid
• her voluntary work with Girl Guiding and some of the skills and aptitudes this organisation develops in girls and young women (did you know girl guides are incredible sales people?)
• her long-held love for Sheffield having spent time studying physics at University in the city

Timings:

• 0 - 8:13 introduction and updates, including Sheffield's free city wi-fi which went live this week, on World Wi-Fi Day; report finds young entrepreneurs choosing social impact as their top business priority; the UK Social Enterprise Awards are open for entries; so are the Sheffield Business Awards and the Barnsley and Rotherham Business Awards,
• 8:13 - 43:44 Kate Welch,
• 43:44 - (47:24) wrapping up.