As part of a joint application to the Dormant Accounts Fund, supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development, Dublin South City Partnership joined a consortium in cooperation with Dublin Inner City Community Co-operative, Northside Partnership Company, Ballyfermot/Chapelizod Partnership, Empower Fingal Leader Partnership and Dublin Northwest Area Partnership. Jointly we secured funding to pilot training and mentoring supports for social enterprises across all six Partnership areas. The first phase of Social Enterprise Community In Practice (SECOP) ran from January 2020 until March 2021 with the following aims and objectives:

• To deliver tailored training to new and existing social enterprises to enable growth and improve sustainability and to increase social, societal and environmental impact
• To provide one-to-one mentoring and coaching to social enterprises to enable growth and improve sustainability
• To provide learning opportunities for social enterprises operating in disadvantaged areas and with disadvantaged groups
• To raise awareness of social enterprise locally.

In 2020 our consortium provided online training and a range of business mentors to over 60 Social Enterprise clients during the COVID 19 crisis in 2020/21. This programme was an invaluable resource to these organisations and laid the groundwork for the creation of a supportive and valuable community for social enterprises who are starting or relaunching following the pandemic. These are highly collaborative events with a lot of group exercises and discussion. Skills workshops are a slower paced deep dive into specific competence areas that need building with extra Q&A opportunity for additional contact time with each learner. Creating a network within the group will be a key emphasis of the programme. They can learn from each other throughout the programme and after completion. This network will continue to sustain them as they grow their enterprises across Dublin. The thematic areas include:

The second phase of Social Enterprise Community In Practice (SECOP) will run from July 2021 until December 2021 with the following aims and objectives:
The programme aims to promote, raise awareness, and build the markets for social enterprise at a local and national level.

The SECOP V2 mentor programme has been designed to build upon SECOP V1.
We will further support our Social enterprise clients by ensuring they grow their business acumen and their capacity to deliver their social mission. We will do this through targeted training and focused mentoring supports across four identified themes. We will work with the management and staff driving social enterprises and strive to enhance the business skills and resourcefulness of these key staff.

The thematic areas include:

1. Strategic Planning/Income diversification
2. Digital Innovation
3. Capacity Building
4. Governance Support

This project was approved by Government with support from the Dormant Accounts Fund.