What a week City Drive once again proved to be the biggest social enterprise event in Birmingham’s calendar. We held our conference Monday morning which brought together some of the best and brightest social entrepreneurs in Birmingham and across the UK to learn, talk and develop our sector. We worked with PWC to discuss growing social enterprises, we held an impact investment breakfast with Big Society Capital to talk about investment within social enterprises and we hosted the first Birmingham ethical wedding fair.
For Digbeth it was another action-packed event, with 2 events scheduled in for the Tuesday. The first the Digbeth ‘Porridge’ Microfunding event. With the kind support of ART Business Loans we offered social enterprises, charities, co-ops and community organisations the opportunity to pitch for £500 to support a project. We had pitches from some amazing organisations, but we are happy to announce that Samantha Browne and the Diamond You Project, a social enterprise that works with young people to teach them about the dangers of human trafficking and modern day slavery in Britain today.
On the Tuesday afternoon we then ran a tour of Digbeth with the CEO and CFO of Unity Trust bank as well as representatives from the University of Birmingham to learn about the social enterprises in Digbeth , the social value they create as well as the challenges and opportunities that are posed to local social enterprises by the ongoing HS2 development and other major construction projects.
Overall another fantastic City Drive week has come to a close hopefully with a sector energised and ready to continue to grow throughout the year.