Empowering great community businesses
We are a helping hand for ambitious, community minded organisations to access quality business development.
Based in the West Midlands, we offer business coaching, and interim or ongoing support for organisations that are already off the starting blocks, and ready to take the next step, but not in a position to have their own business development manager.
Led by Laura Kerrigan, we work alongside a variety of community minded specialists that can help your organisation to achieve your goals. We are well connected across the community, sport and social good sectors and keep in touch with all the latest opportunities, innovation and challenges, meaning that you can focus on what you do best.
We are passionate about the greater good, and take a ‘big picture’ approach, being mindful of the impact your services and systems have on the planet. We are more than bid writing, and believe that great impact comes from an ongoing relationship that really understands, shapes and develops your organisation, so it is authentic and most essentially, represents you!
Our Vision: That opportunities land in the right places, for the right people - every time.
Our Social Mission: To empower community organisations to achieve the greater good.
Our Values: Empowering, Innovative, Challenging and Sincere
About Laura Kerrigan
With nearly 20 years in community development across the West Midlands, it’s time for me to focus on what I enjoy best - helping those who help others.
My Experience
It’s varied! But it’s always impact focused and makes a real difference to local communities.
From the world of community sport and physical activity, to the arts and the outdoors, I have both managed and attracted millions of investment from funders and commissioners into great local projects.
Taking your organisation to the next level…
I have a strategic mindset and have worked intensively with commissioners to embed and sustain projects as part of their services, and not just as a ‘nice to do’. From reducing falls in older people, to developing innovative programmes with Police and Crime Commissioners for young people at risk of offending, I’ve worked across both shire counties and cities, and am able to engage and empower communities programmes to drive impact and positive outcomes for all.
I have worked for three Local Authorities and spent eight years at a senior level in Active Partnerships, so I’ve also sat on ‘the other side of the fence’, as a grant giver, investing in hundreds of community organisations. I’ve also worked for charities and I am a trustee myself, so I can bring an objective view from both sides of the coin!
Sustainable Growth
I’ve recently completed the national ‘Help to Grow’ Business Course with Aston Business School; gained a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring and completed the ‘Green Advantage’ course, to create a road map for environmental sustainability for community organisations - a growing feature of bid applications.
I believe that the key to sustainable growth is by being impact led and engaging with our communities, so if you’re also ‘true to the cause’, why not get in touch?
‘‘My time working in Birmingham during the B2022 Commonwealth Games showed that there is a real gap for ambitious community organisations in accessing business expertise at the level needed.
I’m on a mission to make it happen!”