2013 – A Brilliant Year!

In 2012/13 we traded through a drop of over 55% of turnover and emerged stronger, leaner and operating profitably

Very few businesses would have the resilience to achieve that

Secured contracts totalling over £2.2million revenue and c£7million of capital

Exceptional Work Programme job sustainability of c78% - up there with the best in UK among Avanta sub-contractors

Established new Welfare Assistance services for Stockton, County Durham and Northumberland to successfully meet challenging targets and criteria

Secured extension to New Enterprise Allowance contract to deliver up to £2million of loans to c1500 new businesses

RBS SE100 ‘Impact Champion’ and one of only 10 social enterprises in the UK to score 10/10 for impact measurement

Highly commended in the ‘Enterprise Agency of the Year’ category at the National Enterprise Network awards 2013

Leading provider of non-statutory youth services in Stockton – continuing brilliant work with VIBE; All Stars; Muslim lads and Youthy… and an MB award!

On site with first of our 75 Empty Homes properties in Evenwood, County Durham and in Darlington

Delivered first few large business loans of up to £50k from our Regional Growth Fund pot of £750k capital

Over 1,500 MyBnk attendees and agreement with MyBnk to expand our staffing to grow the initiative further

Graeme Oram, won ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ for the North of England in the prestigious Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ 2013

We made over 13,000 personal loans to financially excluded people unable to access affordable credit

Shortlisted in ‘Best Communication’ category at 2013 NEN Awards

Over £1.5million of ‘Helping Hand’ loans across all 12 NE local authorities

Strong performance on our ‘Get On In Life (GOIL)’ project rewarded with new sub- contract to support NEET young people

Extended our role in a broad range of energy saving/fuel poverty initiatives – Warm Homes Healthy People; Big Community Switch; Big Energy Saving Network

Secured funding from Yorkshire Building Society Charitable Foundation to create a soft-play area at The Youthy

Employed over 30 new staff, a massive challenge which HR have delivered on, creating our strongest and most talented staff team ever

Successfully bid for £42k of investment funding to lead the growth to scale and impact of our colleagues at Tees Credit Union

Expanded our ‘FamilyWise’ delivery into Redcar & Cleveland and Middlesbrough, gaining three staff in the process

Bought our first house for refurbishment – 3 Chapel Street, Evenwood …… and nearly found ourselves on ‘Homes Under The Hammer’!

Shortlisted for CDFA ‘Citi Microentrepreneurship’ Impact Award 2014

CDFA ‘Inside Community Finance 2012’ shows us delivering nearly 40% of loans made in UK by their members

Our external auditors highlighted the exceptional performance of our finance team in managing our increasingly complex finances and also the work of our credit control and admin team within Financial Inclusion

Successful joint bid to Synergy securing funding for ‘Healthways’, a consortium approach to improving health outcomes of hard to reach and vulnerable groups in Stockton

DWP told us that 1 in 4 of NEA loans made nationally is from Five Lamps

Our buildings are looking better than ever thanks to our splendid caretaking and front of house teams and more people than ever are coming through the doors at South Thornaby

Exceptional performance on the Start-Up Loan Company contract (nearly 200 loans totalling close to £1m) has opened up further growth into North Yorkshire in 2014

Our contract to deliver ‘CapacityBuilders’ financial inclusion support to pre-release prisoners in HMP Kirklevington was extended and there is strong interest from other prisons

Strengthened relationship with ‘Smarterbuys’ to provide white goods and other household items for Welfare Assistance and Financial Inclusion services

Reaccredited as Investors in People Gold – a tremendous achievement for any organisation

Soon to be published third set of social accounts – the best yet!

Established our trading company ‘Conduit’, enabling surpluses to be gift-aided to the Charity

Completed the restructuring of our Senior Management Team with the recruitment of Director of Financial Inclusion & Housing and new structures will be fully implemented from 1 January 2014

Introduced our ‘Culture Champions’ initiative with representation from all parts of our business

Revised our Charitable Objects, with the approval of the Charity Commission, to allow us to work throughout England

Now ‘Creating Possibilities: Improving Lives’ for over 30,000 people per annum

NOW LOOKING AHEAD…

We want growth in all areas of our business

EU Structural Fund proposals totalling £17.4million have been submitted to grow Financial Inclusion; Enterprise – Access to Finance and Enterprise – Managed Workspace in the period Amazingly, we are bringing over £14.4million to the table

Expanding our Empty Homes activity by purchasing and repairing a further 50 properties per annum and establishing a social enterprise letting and property management agency

Introducing a fully-functioning on-line application portal for personal loans early in 2014 with an integrated automated decision-making system and credit assessment

Actively seeking further investment from banks and social investors

Giving detailed consideration to the acquisition of other businesses to enable growth and widen our geographic reach

Working with partners to establish the ‘North East Social Investment Fund’ which matches Big Society Capital funding to other investment to create a possible £20million fund for social enterprises

Evaluating the benefits of delivering savings and other financial support and securing the relevant Financial Conduct Authority accreditation

Working with ‘Synergy’ the local VCS Consortium to take a prominent role in local Carers and Young Carers tenders

Building our asset base by securing full legal title to Eldon Street and South Thornaby

Developing a detailed plan for one single contact centre that spans all of our services

Exploring new markets like Homecare; Community Transport; Children’s Centres and more

Actively pursuing further growth in Welfare Assistance and related fields as wider Welfare Reforms are introduced

Seeking to take advantage of the Social Value Act, to work with local authorities in the co-production of new models of public service delivery

Building up our trading company ‘Conduit’ to create more jobs and considering audacious projects like an ‘Academy’

Growing our Great North Loan Fund concept to over £20million in funds under management