Social Enterprise Success Boosts Economic Growth
The Business Enterprise Fund has seen another significant year of growth. With their lending continuing to touch more and more businesses, BEF has not only grown in scale but it has grown in terms of the area it covers.
Formerly covered West and North Yorkshire, BEF now covers the whole of the North East and Teesside as well North Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire.
With the acquisition of Goole Development Trust and their new offices opening in Darlington, BEF has seen its scale and reach grow.
To match this they have also seen impressive figures and almost doubled their profit on last year to £182k half of which, as a social enterprise, is ploughed right back into enterprise development in the region. They have also seen an impressive 25% growth in their net value.
All in all this means that BEF continues to grow and develop to meet the needs of businesses in the region. CEO Steve Waud says, ‘Whilst the numbers are impressive, what is more impressive is BEF’s social impact. This means that this year we have been responsible for helping over 313 businesses access the finance they never would have been able to access, that is up 25% on last year. The effect on the economy is bigger than you would imagine for the lending we have undertaken we added over £33m to the region’s economy in businesses and jobs protected and created.’
In recognition of this BEF have now moved from 10th to 3rd place for the Yorkshire and Humber region’s Natwest social enterprise rankings known as SE100, and are 1st for their social impact: https://se100.net/index/impact-measurement