Women entrepreneur award helps Keyfund move forward
by WIN Admin — published in Press Releases
GREATER exposure to and support from the private sector has made 2010 a year of progress for Tyneside-based social enterprise Keyfund.
Chief executive Hannah Eyres, who won last year’s Best Social Enterprise category in the North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, believes that success in the contest has really opened new doors for the organisation.
Newcastle-headquartered Keyfund, which has seven staff, provides services to help engage disadvantaged, vulnerable and deprived young people to help them fulfil their potential through youth led learning.
It operates across the North East, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, in London and is now rolling out its programme through a social licensing model.
Ms Eyres said: “I was encouraged to enter the awards by Kate Welch my previous chair at Keyfund. I look up to her a great deal. She won the awards a few years ago and I was keen to follow in her footsteps.
“Also, it felt like the right time to enter an award. We have gone through a huge amount of change, development and growth over the past five years and our replication model is really starting to take off.
“We felt we deserved some recognition and knew that we would benefit hugely from a launchpad like this.”
She credits the award with helping Keyfund to attract more attention - and vital funding - from the corporate sector.
“We’ve been trying to engage with the corporate sector for a while and this has really helped,” said Ms Eyres.
“Wipro have made a commitment to work with us, they are a multinational company and we are now discussing how we can work together.
“We have also started working with O2. We’ve been presented with their quality mark and are one of their delivery agents for their Think Big project.
“Closer to home we are starting to establish relations with [lawyers] Muckles. One of our board works for them and they are getting involved.”
Since Ms Eyres won the award, Keyfund has also established links with stockbrokers Brewin Dolphin and insurers Lycetts in Newcastle.
Vitally, it has also won money from the Frederick Milburn Fund to run a ‘Keyfund Blast’ - a programme to bring in more people to work with its groups of young people to develop their skills, confidence and self awareness.
Ms Eyres said: “It’s planting a Keyfund ‘bomb’ essentially, so in one week we’re training new facilitators to sit on Dragons’ Den-type panels, when all the young people on projects can come and present their ideas on one day.”
Ms Eyres added: “Winning the award has not only been a huge boost to me personally, but has really put Keyfund up there on the public stage. All our hard work, creativity and diligence is being recognised and valued at last.
“Just to be up there competing and working has been very exciting for us. We’ve been able to learn a lot and hopefully they will have learned from us too.”
It felt like the right time to enter an award. We have gone through a huge amount of change.
Source: Karen Dent, The Journal