Social Enterprise thrives in the North West

The North West has been recognised as a leading region for social enterprises in the UK, and The Reader Organisation is proud to stand amongst the top regionally based social enterprises listed in the Natwest SE100 Index.

The Natwest SE100 Index tracks the performance, growth, financial progress and positive impacts of social businesses across the UK, breaking down data by regions and sectors. It includes data from nearly 1,000 businesses and organisations to date, 83 in the last year hailing from the North West, and all of which can be viewed on an open-access platform. You can view and search the Index here.

Over the past financial year, the North West social enterprise contingent has recorded an average growth of 9.6%, a total combined turnover of over £717 million and a combined regional profit increase from £62.9 to £69 million.

The Reader Organisation is listed in the Health and social care sector of the SE100 Index, one of the top three sectors for profit growth in the North West in the last year. Each week our shared reading groups - running in the North West and elsewhere across the UK - are reaching people with social, mental and physical issues in a variety of settings, providing an alternative and cost effective solution to society-wide problems, stimulating wellbeing and social interaction and providing access to great literature. As one of our members puts it:

“The reading group mends holes in the net you would otherwise fall through.”

Our Founder and Director Jane Davis comments on the value of being included in the SE100:

“The SE100 allows social enterprises to benchmark themselves against others and compete with the commercial sector. Profiling the success of social enterprise is a step towards changing people’s attitude to social businesses. Social enterprise is the way forward – capitalism, as we have known it, is not going to survive. Something else has to happen – people must become more important than profit.”

We're delighted to be part of the thriving social enterprise sector in the North West, and look forward to building on the region's success in the oncoming year with our continued development of Calderstones Mansion to become the International Centre for Reading and the opening of the Storybarn - the region's first interactive story centre for children.

For more about social enterprise success in the North West, visit the Natwest SE100 website and Twitter: @SE100