Social Business Wales Awards 2024 finalists announced

The fifteen finalists in the Social Business Wales Awards have been announced.  

The winners will be announced when Wales’s top social businesses gather at Venue Cymru in Llandudno on Tuesday 1 October for the Awards ceremony. 

The annual Social Business Wales Awards celebrate social enterprises across Wales making a difference locally, nationally and globally in areas such as housing regeneration, mental health and wellbeing, the transition to a net-zero economy, and employability skills training. 

This isn’t just another awards ceremony – it’s a tribute to the tireless efforts being made to shape our future. 

Social businesses are focused on their impact on people and the environment, reinvesting profits into the local community, and delivering jobs and services closer to home where they’re needed most.

The Social Business Wales Awards 2024 are sponsored by The Co-op, CAIS Social Enterprises and Co-operative and Community Finance.  

Funded by Welsh Government, the Social Business Wales service delivers advice and support to new and existing social enterprises all over Wales through a consortium of providers that includes Cwmpas, Development Trusts Association Wales, Social Firms Wales, UnLtd and the WCVA, helping businesses to thrive in a challenging economy.   

Winners will be chosen from three finalists selected in each of five categories.

Secure your tickets to the Awards ceremony here.

Social Enterprise of the Year: A social business with excellent vision and strategic direction, and clear evidence of social, environmental and community impact, showing sustainability in terms of growth and profit.

Finalists:

• The Community Impact Initiative CIC: Based in Bridgend, The Community Impact Initiative CIC buys and renovates long-term empty properties, teaching new skills and providing employment to disadvantaged communities. The process also focusses on boosting wellbeing and empowering individuals to achieve recognised qualifications. Once renovated, properties are either sold with the profits reinvested into community activities, or used in partnership with local authorities to house vulnerable people.  

• Groundwork North Wales: Wrexham-based Groundwork North Wales delivers courses and classes to the hardest to reach communities across Wrexham and Flintshire, helping individuals gain skills and get back into work, building stronger communities, and empowering people to improve local green spaces, and promoting reuse and recycling. In 2023-24, they delivered 12,870 hours of community-based learning to individuals aged between 19 and 101. 

• Run 4 Wales Ltd: Run4Wales is a not-for-profit social enterprise, set up to promote, manage and deliver major sporting events including the high-profile Newport Marathon, Cardiff Half Marathon and 10k runs, and to support mental health and wellbeing through running and sporting activities.

One to Watch: A social enterprise that has been operating for less than 2 years, with a clear vision and creative approach to problem-solving, and commitment to holistic impact beyond social and environmental aims. 

Finalists:

• Beacons Cymru Music Industry Development CIC: South Wales Valleys-based Beacons Cymru identifies and nurtures young musical talent right across Wales, and creates opportunities for young people in the music industry, regardless of background or circumstances. 

• Heol Chwarae Rol Ltd TA Role Play Lane: This not-for-profit role-play centre in Pontypridd holds craft, music, sensory, cooking and family wellbeing sessions, as well as offering parent support, baby and toddler groups, additional learning needs (ALN) sessions, school trips, and hosting parties and events. 

• Down to Zero Ltd: Down to Zero delivers community-led environmental activities in Pontyclun and Mountain Ash in south Wales. They take an active approach to tackling climate change and champion the low carbon green economy. Activities include a low-cost vegetable subscription service, developing and selling sustainable charcoal fertiliser, and education and training.

Social Enterprise building Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Justice: Social justice is fundamental to the social enterprise movement. The winner of this category will show clearly how they’re building inclusion and demonstrate the impact of their work on their target community. They will display a unique approach to challenging inequalities in Wales and inspire other organisations to improve their commitments to diversity and inclusion. 

Finalists:

• Trivallis: Pontypridd-based Trivallis is a tenant-owned housing association focused on community development, regeneration and individual wellbeing, seeking to enable those in need to access and sustain safe, affordable housing. Their GRAMO course supports vulnerable individuals to successfully manage a tenancy. 

• Platfform for Change: Platfform for Change is seeking to support sustainable wellbeing in Swansea communities, boosting mental health and instilling a sense of purpose, hope, agency, and direction for people and communities to thrive.  

• Grange Pavilion Youth Forum CIC: Based in Grangetown, Cardiff, Grange Pavilion Youth Forum seeks to boost opportunities for young people growing up in a disadvantaged area, by providing environmental, academic, arts, crafts and sports activities, as well as skills training and qualifications to help young people to start out in the hospitality industry.

Community-based Social Enterprise: Social enterprises are powerful actors in shaping local places and communities. The winner of this category, whether based in rural communities or inner cities, will be firmly rooted in their community, trading for the benefit of the local community, and making a real impact in their community.

Finalists:

• CAIS Social Enterprises/St.Giles Cymru: CAIS Social Enterprises is the trading arm of a Llandudno-based charity aiming to improve nutrition and break the poverty cycle for individuals affected by addiction, mental health issues, unemployment and offending. St. Giles Cymru is an award-winning social justice charity, operating in Wales since 2012, whose vision is to help build ‘inclusive communities where people facing the greatest adversity have a voice and opportunity to realise a positive future’. The social supermarket, Y Pantri, which is a joint partnership, between St Giles Cymru and CAIS Social Enterprises, has provided subsidised food (including 14,672kg of food saved from landfill) to 453 local individuals and families who are suffering due to socio-economic circumstances. The scheme has also delivered 1200 intensive support sessions, demonstrating that tailored interventions can turn around life stories.
• Datblygiadau Egni Gwledig (DEG): Caernarfon-based DEG aims to promote a zero-carbon localised economy in north-west Wales and to lower fuel costs, reduce energy use, and decrease reliance on unsustainable fuels through collaboration with locally-owned energy initiatives. Four full time and ten part time employees also deliver energy audits and consultancy services to community organisations, local councils and energy agencies, working with 150 community groups to date and helping to diversify income and reduce electricity costs.
• Glyn Wylfa Ltd: Based at the head of the Ceiriog valley, above the Wrexham World Heritage site, Glyn Wylfa’s café and community hub provides accommodation to local businesses, runs Welsh language courses, and partners with a local mental health charity to benefit Chirk and the local community and boost the local sustainable economy.

Social Enterprise Innovation of the year: Social enterprises are nearly three times as likely to have developed a new product or service in the past year than mainstream business equivalents. The winner of this award will be a social enterprise that has brought something truly innovative and remarkable to market in the past year, delivering a unique social or environmental impact.

Finalists:

• Qualia Law CIC: The only non-profit in the UK providing court of protection deputyship by qualified and regulated solicitors, Cardiff-based Qualia Law CIC delivers a subsidised, or pro bono, service designed to protect the most vulnerable in society. 

• People Speak Up: Llanelli-based People Speak Up has developed a new service, delivering their creative activities in the homes of residents experiencing mental health issues or loneliness, and helping individuals to make new friends, learn new skills, and ‘live, laugh, and love a lot’.  

• Wilderness Tribe CIC: Wilderness Tribe takes a unique therapeutic approach to providing mental health support to men, involving practical bushcraft and ancestral skills. Bushcraft skills workshops, team building days, outdoor first aid training and archery ranges provide a safe, supportive space for a community of men with similar lived experiences. 

We look forward to celebrating our amazing nominees – and the winners – in October