The Enterprise Development Programme (EDP)
Independent evaluation for Access - The Foundation for Social Investment and SIB (Social Investment Business)
“The program was really helpful for us and the support during the program was amazing.”
- Participating organisation, Black and Minority Communities
“I can[’t] underemphasise how [much] having a warm, interested person... somebody who genuinely gets you ... who’s kind of walked the walk as well ... makes a massive difference.”
- Participating organisation, Homelessness
Aimed at fortifying the third sector’s financial stability, the Enterprise Development Programme was designed to support charities and social enterprises across six sectors to explore and develop sustainable enterprise models, diversify income, and build long-term resilience. It focussed on organisations at an early stage of developing enterprise activity, helping them explore and expand income streams.
The programme operated across six specific sectors: Homelessess, Youth, Mental Health, Equalities, Environment, and Black-and-minoritised led organisations. Support was offered in a number of different ways, including the provision of enterprise grants, advice, training, peer-learning, and support from financial experts.
Partnering with the wonderful small enterprise Shortwork, who specialise in qualitative participatory action research, and financial data specialist MyCake, The Researchery helped to carry out an independent evaluation of the main programme which ran from 2019-2024.
Download the report below
Final evaluation of the Enterprise Development Programme (2019 - 2024)
The evaluation employed a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative analysis with qualitative insight built on an evaluation framework and Theory of Change agreed with Access and SIB.
The evaluation demonstrated that the EDP was successful in supporting organisations across a number of key areas, including:
Building Strong Foundations
Investing in Social Leaders
Creating Space to Experiment
Driving Growth and Investment Readiness
Aligning Mission and Enterprise
Other assets: Shortwork
Shortwork have produced a number of visual assets to accompany the final evaluation report which can be downloaded from their website below.
Other assets: Access
Access has developed some other assets around the evaluation of the EDP, including a blog and a presentation of different revenue models, which you can find on their website below.
