Brief
History
The company was founded by Jo Clay 5 years ago
following 18 months’ work
in collaboration with Vi-Ability
setting up, delivering and managing the very successful “India Adventure” international volunteer
programme.
On 6th May 2021 Empower – Be The
Change celebrated its 5 year anniversary. The company has grown
exponentially during this time: in year one we empowered 35 people with an
income of £17,000; by year five we had empowered 500 people and had an income
of £145,000.
My
proudest moments
We’re really proud of our awards and recognition within the
industry:
- Social Enterprise UK: Finalists 2021 – Team of the Year, UK Roll of - Honour 2020, Finalists 2018 – Education, Training & Employment
- Social Business Wales: Finalists 2021 – Team of the Year & Tech for - Good, Highly Commended 2019, Winners 2018 – Education, Training & Employment
- Wrexham Social Business: Winners 2017 – New start-up and community impact
- Business Wales Mentoring awards 2018 & 2019 – Mentee and Mentor of the Year Award
Do you
use Welsh in your business?
We have team members who are fluent in welsh and this has
helped with delivery of courses in welsh speaking areas.
What
has been your biggest challenge to date?
Like almost every other company, the challenge presented by
Covid knocked all other challenges out of the park. We’re very proud of the fact that, in March
2020 when the world stopped, Empower – Be The Change didn’t. From being
entirely classroom based prior to the pandemic we successfully adapted all our
programmes for online delivery, including creating a bespoke coaching product
expressly to help people cope with the new routines and systems mandated by
lockdown and work from home. We even increased our workforce during the
pandemic. To be honest we could have put
this in the ‘My proudest moments’ section too …
We wouldn’t have done anything differently – in fact we’ve
embraced our new way of working to such an extent that we have chosen to
continue to work from home and our digital delivery is going from strength to
strength.
What
in your opinion are the benefits of using Sell2Wales
As a social enterprise working in the service sector,
receiving information about tenders direct in our inboxes is invaluable and as
we are a small company we can react nimbly and quickly to them which is brilliant.
Any
tips you would give other businesses
Don’t give up, and keep on going – if the last 18 months
have taught us anything it’s that we’re all much more resilient than we gave
ourselves credit for … we just need to know where to find it.
www.empower-bethechange.org
Twitter: @Empower_BTC
Facebook: empower.bethechange
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