As discussions at the final learning session of the course highlighted, there is an issue with flagging up our expertise as social enterprise advisers to the people who are able to broker work to us. It does seem a little strange to me that a wad of tax payers’ money can be thrown at getting us qualified but then we’re left to find our own way through the murky mists to find out how to make ourselves known to the people who need our services.
True, it should be down to our own initiative to acquire our own clients but when there is so much talk of braiding social enterprise support into the mainstream, surely there ought to be a quick and easy way of enabling them to find us????
So here’s what I understand to be the way to make this happen (no guarantees from me though)…
Step 1. Get yourself registered on the East Midlands Brokerage Platform – www.embrokerage.co.uk. Initial registration gets you on the radar for a randomised referral into clients (the system picks 3 appropriate suppliers each time a service is sought for, I understand).
Step 2. Follow through to become an approved brokerable provider for any grant-funded work – remember the SEBA grant?? The process isn’t too arduous as long as you can provide contact details of 5 happy clients to give you a reference, as I’m sure you can.
This is where it starts to confuse me… there is no space on the form you fill in to say you have specialist expertise in social enterprise. Why not is, and will probably remain, a mystery. So you then need to go to…
Step 3. When you’ve been approved, let Lynette Daws from SEEM know. My understanding is that Business Link will check with SEEM when they identify a social enterprise and that they will then be able to identify suitable providers.
This, guys, is simply my understanding as I write on Monday 17th March 2008. Don’t blame me if it all changes tomorrow 
Good luck.
