Connecting BAME Social Entrepreneurs was a Greater Manchester (GM) level programme aimed at connecting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME*) social entrepreneurs to opportunities for development and growth. It was funded by the Connect Fund and People’s Postcode Lottery to provide support to social enterprises led by BAME people.
The programme was delivered by GMCVO in association with Greater Manchester BAME Network and began with a research project to understand the additional barriers faced by BAME social entrepreneurs in accessing social enterprise support and investment.
A briefing report for this initial research is available here,
GMCVO, in association with Greater Manchester BAME Network accepted all the recommendations from the research and were able to implement some of these in 2019-2021 with support from The People's Postcode Lottery and The Connect Fund.
This work included capacity building support, a BAME mentor programme, physical social enterprise support hubs and the establishment of a BAME social entrepreneurs network. An evaluation of this stage of work can be found here.
GMCVO continues to work closely with BAME social entrepreneurs and infrastructure organisations.
*GMCVO uses the BAME abbreviation as we believe it is widely understood, but we acknowledge many feel this term is inadequate and limiting. We are therefore currently reviewing our use of the term. Our principle is to refer to individuals, organisations or networks by the terminology they themselves prefer.