Invitation to Tender: Enterprise Hub Learning Partner

Summary

The Enterprise Hub (TEH) is a multi-stakeholder initiative that will provide affordable co-working space for early-stage entrepreneurs from minoritised and underserved communities. The learning partner will be a key contributor to this collaboration, supporting us to assess if and how TEH contributes to improved outcomes for entrepreneurs, the local economy, and the E&C town centre; to better understand the strengths and requirements of its business model; and to understand what additional entrepreneurship support would be beneficial. Findings will contribute to process learnings and improvements and will provide insights on the potential for sustainability and replication.

We would love to hear from you if you share our interest in supporting underserved entrepreneurs to thrive and in learning about the role small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play in a healthy local economy that contributes to individual and community wealth creation.

We are seeking a learning partner with expertise in social business models, mixed-methods evaluation, facilitation and co-ordination across diverse stakeholder groups, and ideally with experience of evaluating community-level programmes.

Application deadline: 30th April 2025

About the learning partnership

Overview

Trampoline NH CIC, Southwark Council, and Impact on Urban Health are invested in building a strong local economy with equitable opportunities for local SMEs and entrepreneurs to thrive. We know that aspiring entrepreneurs need affordable access to workspace, networks, and financing to build sustainable businesses. We have partnered on TEH because we believe it could be a key facet of the infrastructure that supports local entrepreneurship, particularly for minoritised and underserved communities. As a new initiative, we are keen to learn and evaluate how effective TEH is in contributing to these aims and vision, and what the potential for scaling and replication could be.

We have identified the following thematic areas that we want to learn about. These are presented as a starting point, as we expect the learning partner to first facilitate a process that enables core stakeholders to refine the key learning questions towards developing a learning framework and plan. Further details are available in the tender document.

• Evaluating the impact on and experience of entrepreneurs/Enterprise Hub members
• Exploring opportunities to strengthen TEH’s business model
• Opportunities to further support TEH members

What we will do with the learning

This learning partnership should support the analysis and documentation of insights across all thematic learning areas and enable real-time improvements for TEH’s offering and business model and suggest other mechanisms through which we can support entrepreneurs. We also want to be able to translate these insights into a business case for TEH through which we evidence if, why, and how TEH could be replicated and/or scaled in Southwark and other areas.

Budget and time

The total budget for this learning partnership is £100,000, including expenses and VAT. The duration of the learning partnership is 45 months. This accounts for a learning partner’s involvement throughout the three-year project period, as well as six months of follow-up with TEH members and a final three months for writing the final report. We expect the learning partnership to begin in June/July 2025 following the appointment of the successful learning partner.