Co-founders of Flourish Together, Nickala Torkington and Jo McGrath have both been recognised on UK Social Enterprise Roll of Honour for their work supporting people through the pandemic
The outstanding work of Flourish Together and the women changemakers network they have supported over the course of the pandemic has been recognised at a special event bringing together the UK’s business community.
The Roll of Honour was announced at Social Enterprise Futures which took place between 25-26th November and saw nearly 1000 attendees come together to celebrate the heroes of the last year. Flourish Together has supported just under 100 women to start and develop social enterprises in the last year tackling a range of complex social issues with entrepreneurial solutions and their creative, intensive support and consultancy and enabled over £400,000.00 of grant funding and investment to be secured across 20 of social ventures they work with.At the Social Enterprise Futures event Flourish Together was celebrated along with all the others on the Social Enterprise Roll of Honour, by a session hosted by actor, comedian and director, Chris Addison. The Roll of Honour acknowledges those individuals and businesses which, over the course of an extremely challenging year, have demonstrated the strength, passion and resilience which is so characteristic of the social enterprise sector. Over 400 nominations were received from those within the social enterprise sector as well as supporters of the sector.
Social enterprises are businesses which trade for a social and/or environmental purpose and have been at the heart of community responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve been doing all they can to keep on serving the communities they are set up to support with many pivoting their business models to do so. Commenting on being named as part of the Roll of Honour Nickala Torkington said:
“Whilst we have been nominated for and won a number of awards in recent years, being recognised this year on both the SEUK Roll of Honour and the WISE 100 list of outstanding women in social enterprises in 2020 of all years, is a real accolade given the challenges and transformations we and the women we support have had to go through this year to keep Flourishing.”
Speakers at Social Enterprise Futures included former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who commented on the success and strength of the UK’s social enterprise movement, stating that “there is no route to the future that does not have social enterprise at it’s centre”. Other speakers included leaders of big business such as former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman and economist, Kate Raworth who stressed the sheer extent to which business needs to change to build a fairer and more sustainable economy.
The event was organised by Social Enterprise UK, in partnership with social enterprise trade bodies across the home nations – Social Enterprise Northern Ireland, Social Enterprise Scotland and the Wales Co-operative Centre.
Commenting on the event and the Roll of Honour, Peter Holbrook CBE, Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK said:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and exacerbated the deep inequalities within society. When the pandemic passes, we need to seriously rethink how the economy works and the role of business within it. To truly build back better we need a real step change in the uptake and adoption of social enterprise models, which show that successful businesses can put people and the planet first.
The Roll of Honour, announced at Social Enterprise Futures in November 2020, shows just how important social enterprises have been to communities’ response to the pandemic. They’ve been pivoting their business models to create new goods and services, getting food and essential supplies to the vulnerable, manufacturing PPE and also working on the frontline of the pandemic delivering vital health and social care services. It is this spirit that needs to be harnessed when we eventually head out of lockdown, so we make sure we don’t go back to business as usual.”
Nickala Torkington
