Take on the Buy Social challenge in 2019
Take on the Buy Social challenge in 2019
Employers For Childcare is made up of a campaigning charity and the only Social Enterprise Childcare Voucher company in the UK. 100 per cent of the profits from our Social Enterprise are reinvested to support the work of our charity, which provides outreach and advice for parents and employers on a range of childcare and work-related issues.
The UK Government defines Social Enterprises as: “Businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.”
We are proud to be a Social Enterprise and, having attended the Social Enterprise UK Awards in November, we were struck by some of the statistics mentioned on the night. Did you know that Social Enterprise is worth £60 billion a year to the UK economy, while the top five Social Enterprises in the UK pay more tax than Amazon, Facebook, Apple, eBay and Starbucks combined?
We recently published our own annual Social Impact Report which highlights the impact of our work on parents, employers and childcare providers across the UK. In 2017/18 we invested almost £1 million in our charity through our Social Enterprise activities. This investment is only possible through the employers who choose to ‘buy social’ and use our Childcare Vouchers. This enabled us to support more than 13,600 people and identify collective financial support of almost £13.2 million for parents using our charity’s Family Benefits Advice Service.
We are just one of many Social Enterprises working right now to transform our society for the better, while boosting the UK’s competitiveness. Employers For Childcare is part of the All Party Group on Social Enterprise at Stormont, which is working hard to champion a Social Value Act for Northern Ireland. Without this legislation, which we hope will be a priority for a re-established Executive, Social Enterprises stand to lose out when bidding for contracts with the result that society as a whole will miss those benefits that we know can be achieved when the choice is made to Buy Social.
In the meantime, as we enter 2019, why not think about how your organisation can use its purchasing power to contribute to positive social change? We’d love to talk to you about how social business is good business – give us a call on 028 9267 8200 or email hello@employersforchildcare.org.
www.employersforchildcare.org
