Starts with you: creating positive change
Our social enterprise subsidiary Starts with you (SWY) continues to deliver its social purpose to create opportunity and empower people to make Positive Change, tackling life challenges and providing access to good quality work in Bolton.
The company delivers property clearance, handy persons, caretaking, and building safety inspection contracts for Bolton at Home, creating jobs, and opportunities for local people who’ve struggled to get work in the past.
Since their creation in 2017 the company has generated profits of over £600,000, which are re-invested to create good jobs, support local people, or is gifted back to Bolton at Home to invest in local communities. Any profit retained by SWY is used together with grants to offer free help with energy costs, money or benefits advice, and help getting into work, for Bolton at Home tenants and other residents.
During 2023-24 SWY expanded their Building Safety Service to include Regulation10 Fire Door Inspections, as part of Bolton at Home’s commitment to keep homes safe. They also secured grants of £130,000 from UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Department for Work and Pensions to continue to offer employability support to customers in Bolton and across Greater Manchester despite budget cuts.
SWY continues to make a real difference to people here in Bolton and to support the growth of social enterprises in Bolton, Greater Manchester and beyond. Here are a few highlights:
of SWY employees are Bolton at Home residents, 67% live in Bolton and over 90% in Greater Manchester.
of employees working at SWY during 2023-24 were out of work when they were taken on.
More than 1,000 customers have been supported, 42% of them are Bolton at Home customers.
customers were supported to get back into work, an increase of 67% from the previous year.
Over £665,000 in financial gains for customers from money, benefits, and energy advice in 2023-24; increasing the amount saved for customers the previous year and taking the amount over the life of the company to £3.3 million.
SWY’s managing Director was named in the NatWest WISE100 list of the one hundred most impactful women in social enterprise.
“I wanted to write to you to compliment a member of your staff who found this job for me and suggested I apply for it. Andy has worked very hard over more than a year at rebuilding my once shattered confidence and incredibly low self-esteem. After more than a year of incredible patience, gentle coaxing, and persuasion, has not only helped me find my confidence and self-belief again but has restored my faith in human nature.”
To find out more about Starts with you impact and services, contact the team via:
Email: hello@startswithyou.org.uk
Phone: 01204 937700
Website: www.startswithyou.org.uk