Social Enterprise Challenge

Aimed at secondary school students, this challenge will be aimed at supporting students in developing their own social enterprise, and think of social responsibility. The students will receive a presentation on what a social enterprise model is, and why it is beneficial to the society and the environment. The students will then be divided into teams, where they will identify a social or environmental issue that they would like to address through their business, and consider how they will raise funds to build a sustainable business while also creative positive social, economic or environmental impact. Dr Agarwal runs an award-winning social enterprise and has also been named as one of the top 100 influential women in social enterprise in the UK.

During the course of the day, the teams will be given guidance on how different models of social enterprise work, and also given examples of some successful social enterprises. Following product development, students will also need to calculate the cost of producing the leaflets and marketing using social media and websites as well as more traditional marketing techniques. Other tasks to complete will include the design of their corporate logo, developing a realistic sales and marketing strategy, designing a sales leaflet/poster and creating a five minute presentation to promote their enterprise.

This STEAM challenge can be delivered for up to 250 students and aims to provide insight into running a small business as well as developing skills such as confidence, team working, time management, communication, organisation, planning and presenting. The students will learn how to develop marketing and promotional materials/leaflets/websites, think about social and environmental impact and sustainability.