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Competition launched for partner to deliver new social enterprise ambassadors programme

The Cabinet Office has published an invitation to tender for developing and delivering an exciting new programme to create at least 20 new social enterprise ambassadors.

Ambassadors will be social entrepreneurs with great stories to tell about how this way of doing business changes people's lives. They will commit some of their time to awareness raising activities, for example through events and the media. The new delivery partner will find the ambassadors through an open and transparent process, and provide a supporting infrastructure for them.

The programme was proposed in last November's Scaling New Heights action plan on social enterprise, and aims to raise awareness of social enterprise and to attract new entrants to the sector. It will help to position this growing business sector as an aspirational career choice for people who wish to combine enterprise with achieving social or environmental goals.

Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, said:

“Social enterprise is a growing movement, but still only one in four people know about it. That means we are losing potential entrepreneurs, customers, and investors. That has to change.

“Once people see social enterprise, they understand it and become enthusiasts. We want to create an ambitious programme, owned by the sector, which will spread the message of what social enterprise can achieve throughout the country. Through their own stories and networks the ambassadors will help the movement achieve even more.”

The ambassadors will be in place in time to be at the forefront of Social Enterprise Day on 15 November 2007.

Notes to editors:

1. For media enquiries about this announcement, please call the Cabinet Office press office on 020 7276 0317.
2. For more information about the tender process
3. The Social Enterprise Action Plan, launched by the Office of the Third Sector in November 2006.
4. For more information about Social Enterprise Day, on 15 November 2007, please go to: www.starttalkingideas.org [External website]
5. In March a workshop was held at Oxo Tower on London's South Bank, with invitees from the social enterprise sector, government and other interested organisations. It was jointly hosted by Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, and Baroness Glenys Thornton, Chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition. It informed the development of a tender specification for an organisation or partnership to manage the new social enterprise ambassadors programme. The project will be jointly steered by the social enterprise sector and government.
6. In recognition of the increasingly important role the third sector plays in both society and the economy, the Prime Minister created the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in May 2006 to drive forward the Government's role in supporting a thriving third sector, and join up sector–related work across government

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