Social Enterprise Assist launched

A new service to help sport for social change organisations improve their sustainability is already working with projects in Kenya and Ghana.

Developed with funding from Common Goal and in partnership with streetfootballworld, Social Enterprise Assist (SEA) is designed to support sport for social change organisations in working towards improved financial sustainability and increased impact. It includes an online toolkit as well as workshops, remote mentoring, and onsite consulting.

Using their experience setting up and running enterprises such as No.7 Restaurant in Lesotho, Kick4Life led the co-creation of the SEA service in partnership with a team of streefootballworld Network Members, who have a successful track record in social enterprise development, including Football United, Tiempo de Juego, Sport 4 Life and Street Soccer USA.

The SEA resources are designed to take organisations through the necessary steps towards launching income-generating social enterprises, from analysis and idea generation to business modelling, fundraising and implementation.

During 2019, SEA will be directly supporting a number of organisations in Africa, including the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) in Kenya and Play Soccer Ghana, as well as exploring opportunities to expand delivery across the globe.

Steve Fleming, co-founder of Kick4Life said: "We have benefitted enormously from developing our own social enterprises, in terms of improving our sustainability as well as providing structured training and employment opportunities for young people coming through our programmes. It is very exciting to now have the chance to share our learning with others."

Jurgen Griesbeck, founder of Common Goal, added: "We are focused on making a long term impact on lives and communities through the power of football, and through SEA we aim to have a profound impact on the success of our sector by promoting the financial sustainability of organisations, helping them to plan more effectively, scale their initiatives and achieve more balanced funding."

If you are an individual organisation or a group of organisations that is interested in accessing the support, please get in touch via the details below. Links are also being developed with funding bodies to “plug-in” SEA as a sustainability element as part of their application and support structures.

For more information contact: [email protected]