Our family of Fellow-founded social ventures
Our programmes birthed 50 social ventures, each with a new angle on a tricky problem.
Backed by UnLtd, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Bethnal Green Ventures, among others, these charities and social enterprises have been recognised with the Next Billion EdTech prize at the Global Education and Skills Forum, the Teach First Innovation Award, the Centre for Social Justice Social Enterprise of the Year Award 2018 and the Evening Standard Social Enterprise of the Year Award 2019.
They’ve also been widely featured in the press — including in The Guardian, VICE, The Evening Standard and Financial Times.
Formed and finessed during Year Here, our ventures were designed based on insights our Fellows gained during the course — and developed in partnership with the people they are intended to help.
Making a house a home: How Settle was founded
Vulnerable people commonly find themselves moving out of hostels, struggling to manage their bills, getting evicted and landing back at square one. Settle was founded by 2014 Fellows Rich Grahame and Katie Slee to help young people maintain their first tenancies and avoid eviction.
Rich and Katie were placed in homeless hostels where they were tasked with preparing young people to move into their own flats. But the reality of living independently hadn’t set in yet for the young people they were working with, and Rich and Katie found it difficult to make any headway. Homeless young people continued to leave hostels unprepared to live independently.
Taking a different approach, Settle’s support is delivered once the young person is in their new home — when paying bills on time has become a reality — and is targeted at the issues that the evidence suggests are the biggest drivers of tenancy failure.
Settle has been recognised as Best Tenancy Support at the National Housing Excellence Awards, and named as one of The Big Issue’s 100 Changemakers in 2019.
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Nudging patients towards better health: How Appt got started in the east end
During his Fellowship, 2016/17 Fellow Hector Smethurst was placed in a GP surgery in Tower Hamlets, a diverse and deprived East London borough with one of the highest rates of type two diabetes in the country.
As part of his role, Hector regularly made phone calls to invite patients to attend check-ups to manage their long-term conditions. But the take-up of these appointments was poor. Isolated patients from the Bengali population, which is significant in Tower Hamlets, were among those least likely to respond. Hector started experimenting with text messaging and drew from behavioural economics to find the best ‘nudges’ to encourage attendance. He started seeing results immediately.
Today, Appt is a growing health tech venture using a combination of behavioural economics, targeted engagement and data analysis to promote appointments that diagnose, measure and manage long-term conditions.
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Working women taking flight: How Birdsong was hatched
Sophie Slater, Ruba Huleihel and Sarah Neville all worked with vulnerable women during the 2014 programme. They found that lots of the women’s charities they came across had small clothes- or jewellery-making projects, often with therapeutic benefits for the women but rarely generating significant income.
They recognised the potential for connecting these small enterprises with a large market of potential customers: young ‘fourth wave’ feminists who were willing to buy clothes differently — if they were presented in a bold new way that ran counter to drab ethical fashion stereotypes.
And inspired by Sophie’s negative experience of teenage modelling and retail, they ensure that the brand is body positive and proudly feminist.
Sophie and Sarah were recognised on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2019.
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A home of one’s own: How Fat Macy’s was founded
While placed at a North London homeless hostel, 2015/16 Fellow Meg Doherty made two discoveries. First, hostel residents were in a benefit trap. Those that worked full time took home only a fraction more than those that were unemployed — as housing benefit was cut back for every extra pound earned through work.
The second discovery was that there was one thing that managed to unite hostel residents and animate their spirits: food. Specifically, jerk chicken.
Seeing that London’s food industry was booming, Meg took her chance to exploit that market opportunity to give young Londoners in temporary housing a tangible pathway out of homelessness.
Fat Macy’s runs supper clubs, offers catering services and is opening its first restaurant in Peckham. Takings from each dish go into a pot to help the staff earn a deposit for their first home.
