The North East of England is embarking on a plan to turn itself into the UK's leading region for social enterprise and voluntary sector activity.

Currently the North East has around half the national average number of social enterprises and charities, and most of these are small-scale - half have income of less than £50,000.  Less than one in 20 regional charities has turnover of over £1m, compared with one in five nationally. 

But now a group of social enterprises in the region have clubbed together to devise a campaign to change this. Making the Change intends to increase the amount of social enteprise activity in the region so that by 2015 it exceeds the national average.

They estimate that this would deliver an additional £1.1bn in turnover to the region and boost the regional economy by £350m.

Making the Change will be supported by Business & Enterprise North East (BENE), which gets funding from central government to help social enterprises in the region and delivers the Business Link service there. It is also the first Business Link in the UK to employ a dedicated, specialist social enterprise team to give advice on becoming investment-ready.

Roy Stanley, chairman of Business & Enterprise North East, said: “We want to help the social enterprise sector grow in the North East by more than a billion pounds a year.

“A key element in the plan is for social enterprises to understand the mainstream and social investment offering. And critically, smaller social enterprises must become ‘investment-ready’ so they stand the best possible chance of accessing finance for growth.

“Developing clear financial plans, risk analysis and cashflow projections is crucial to this process.”

The plan is based on seven core priorities that will help to create an environment where voluntary and community activity can flourish.  The publication of case studies of successful regional social enterprises will also aim to inspire a new generation of social entrepreneurs.