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May 30, 2018
Accelerate those enterprises
Back in 2016, Scottish Community Alliance published this report. We called it A Vision for a Stronger Community Sector and in it we identified a wide number of actions that we felt were needed if Scotland was to have a more robust and sustainable community sector. One of the key demands was for a national programme of business support that was better suited to community owned businesses and in particular would help community organisations in the very early stages of business start-up. To its credit Scottish Government has responded positively. The Enterprise Accelerator programme is now up and running.
Enterprise Accelerator is a partnership between Scottish Community Alliance and Community Enterprise and is intended as a programme of business support for community based organisations who have little or no trading experience but wish to expand this aspect of their operation. It is not an alternative to the support on offer from the Just Enterprise programme. Over the next year, the next contract for Just Enterprise will be out to tender and it is expected that the experience drawn from the operation of Enterprise Accelerator should inform the specification of this new contract. It is a short term project, running from Jan 2018 – March 2019. It is intended that the new Just Enterprise programme will incorporate the learning which emerges from Enterprise Accelerator.
For more information on how to apply