At Third Sector Dumfries and Galloway (TSDG) through the work of the Social Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway (SEDG) Network, we create the opportunities for enterprising organisations to come together to develop, collaborate and share ideas.

How we do this:

The Economic Development and Enterprise Team is continuously growing and improving the SEDG Network for its new and existing members.

This will be achieved by the following objectives:

To create opportunities for peer support – bringing Social Enterprises together to discuss and share their experiences, good practice and ideas through networking and training events and for this support to continue throughout the lifespan of Social Enterprise projects.

To support new and aspiring Social Enterprises – by creating a platform for peer support, knowledge sharing and mentoring. This includes helping to support young people who want to create a Social Enterprise. ‘To be a gardener nourishing new Social Enterprises to grow’.

Facilitating the creation of trading relationships– across members and between social enterprises, private companies, and public sector organisations and facilitating social enterprises to benefit from Community Wealth Building. 

Facilitating opportunities for cooperation and collaboration – across social enterprises, private companies, and public sector organisations to enable community benefit and understand their contribution to community wealth building. Working together will help the growth of individual social enterprises and the sector as a whole.

To help to build capacity and capability – of people and organisations to develop the skills and knowledge required to establish, manage, govern and run a social enterprise. For both new and existing social enterprises.

To provide specific advice and support – For example: procurement, tendering, business planning and finance.

To provide information and signposting – on support services, events, training, and opportunities provided by other local and national partners. Including helping to link with expert/professional advice around but not limited to financial, legal and IT.

To help raise the profile of Social Enterprises in Dumfries and Galloway – to make the communities and key stakeholders more aware of the goods and services offered by social enterprises. 

To help link into national support – have direct access to national and regional support agencies that make up a holistic approach of support between local, regional and national social enterprise support agencies.