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This library holds a chosen collection of useful tools, guides, and resources in the social enterprise sector. You can explore guides, articles, and more to support your journey. If you're starting a social enterprise, facing sector challenges, or looking into the impact economy, you’ll find something useful here.
Suggest a new educational resource or update here to help keep this library useful.
Social Investment Explained is a practical guide that helps community groups and social enterprises understand different types of investment. Produced by the Big Lottery Fund, Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) and Social Spider, it explains funding options, investment readiness, and key questions to consider when preparing to seek investment.
Social Investment Explained
While not specifically about pitching, this comprehensive guide serves as an excellent resource for preparing a social enterprise pitch. Use it as a valuable checklist and preparation tool, to help organise your thoughts and information in a way that resonates with investors, partners or supporters.
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This mini-guide, published by Regen Labs explores one strand of the WEAVE Framework: supporting convening and coordination. It argues place-based convenors, or weavers, provide essential social infrastructure for regenerative economic change, but remain underfunded and poorly understood.
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Discover T.E.S.T., an anti-oppressive framework for ethical storytelling that prioritises the rights and needs of all individuals. T.E.S.T. empowers Story Holders to control their narratives while providing Story Caretakers with principles to ensure safe, ethical storytelling. Explore related resources, including guides and an ethical storytelling video, to deepen your understanding.
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This is a useful guide and template for creating effective investor presentations. It combines crowd-sourced input from top industry experts and the author’s personal experience. It also shares examples, practical design tips and strategies for addressing investor concerns.
The Best Startup Investor Pitch Deck & How to Present to Angels & Venture Capitalist
The Circular Capability Toolkit is a practical guide for social enterprises wanting to adopt more circular economy practices in how they operate and make decisions. Built by practitioners, it offers ready-to-use tools covering procurement, waste, and asset management. It is useful for any social enterprise at any stage of their sustainability journey.
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Nesta is an independent charity in the United Kingdom that supports new and better ways of solving problems. They created this toolkit to help people develop, adapt, or improve ideas that create positive impact. The toolkit includes 30 simple and practical tools that are easy to use and apply in real situations.
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This guidebook, made by and for social entrepreneurs, covers building effective boards to balance social mission with financial goals. It includes advice on governance structures, board composition, recruitment, roles, and managing conflicts, highlighting how governance needs evolve as social enterprises grow.
The Governance of Social Enterprises: Managing your Organisation for Success
This guide introduces the Participatory City model, designed to create vibrant, inclusive neighbourhoods through active resident engagement in practical projects. It offers principles, methods, and insights for addressing social challenges and building community resilience, serving as a valuable resource for policymakers, community leaders, and organisations.
The Illustrated Guide to Participatory City
Discover the Story Canvas—a practical tool to craft impactful, strategic stories tailored to your needs. Designed by Digital Storytellers, this downloadable canvas simplifies storytelling for nonprofits, social enterprises, and impact organisations. With step-by-step guidance and resources, it helps you create engaging stories that inspire action and advance your cause effectively.
The Story Canvas
This resource page from Reconciliation Australia shares learning materials about truth-telling in Australia. It includes guides, reports and videos that explain what truth-telling is and why it matters for reconciliation with First Nations peoples.
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This booklet looks beyond the Business Model Canvas as a general tool. It explains how Ingrid Burkett, an Australian social entrepreneur, adapts the Canvas for social enterprises. The booklet guides you step by step on how to use the Canvas to suit social purpose work.
Using the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design
This report is a practical guide to impact measurement and management. It explains how enterprises can build strong impact strategies and shows that different approaches are needed at different stages of growth. Rather than using one model for everyone, it encourages flexible, stage-based impact practices.
Ventures at the Helm
The "Wellbeing Matters Guide" offers insights from social enterprise leaders, particularly in regional, rural, and remote areas. It provides resources to support leaders in enhancing their wellbeing and effectiveness by sharing real-life experiences.
Wellbeing Matters Guide
This website explores steward-ownership, a business model that protects purpose and independence. It separates control from profit so decisions stay with people committed to the mission, while profits are reinvested or used to support long-term impact.
What is Steward-Ownership? The 2 principles of Steward-ownership