What the latest phase of SEGA tells us about Sheffield’s social enterprise community
The latest iteration of the Social Enterprise Growth Accelerator delivered strong results in a shortened delivery window, supporting 81 social enterprises against a target of 65. Just as importantly, 100% of survey respondents supported the continuation of the programme, pointing to strong demand, positive experience, and a growing social enterprise pipeline that deserves time, trust and the right kind of support.
When we look back on the latest iteration of the Social Enterprise Growth Accelerator, the headline is a positive one.
Despite starting later than planned and working within a delivery window of roughly nine months, SEGA still supported 81 social enterprises against a target of 65, reaching 125% of target overall. We also exceeded programme targets across wider outcomes including jobs impact, new businesses created and managed referrals.
The different areas of the programme all attracted over 90% satisfaction and the overall results from our independent evaluation show an increase in satisfaction from the first SEGA programme, with overall satisfaction increasing by 18 percentage points.
That matters in itself. But the more interesting story sits just underneath the numbers.
What SEGA has shown again is that there is real appetite for social enterprise support in Sheffield, especially at the start-up stage. Demand at that point in the pipeline significantly outstripped expectations, which is encouraging in one sense, but it also highlights a very real challenge. Moving people through a meaningful development journey in just nine months is hard. Social enterprises do not grow in neat reporting cycles. Ideas need time to take shape. Founders need time to build confidence. Organisations need time to test, adapt, strengthen and, in many cases, become properly ready for growth.
That is one of the clearest lessons from this latest phase of the programme. The pipeline is there. The demand is there. The ambition is there. But if we want to support people well, we need to recognise that development does not happen overnight.
It also reinforces something we see time and again across this sector. Social enterprise is not growing in the abstract. It is growing in response to real need.
Across the SEGA cohort, the organisations coming through were disproportionately working alongside communities facing the sharpest edges of inequality. More than half were supporting people experiencing poverty. Nearly half were working with racially minoritised communities. Large proportions were also supporting neurodivergent people, disabled people and LGBTQ+ communities. This is not a general business support cohort in disguise. It is a part of the economy rooted in places where mainstream systems too often fall short.
For me, that is one of the most important things this programme reveals. Social enterprises are often not just service providers or employers. They are trusted, community-rooted infrastructure. They emerge where need is most acute, often led by people with lived experience, and they carry a kind of relational intelligence that more conventional models can miss. Backing social enterprise is rarely just about supporting an organisation. It is often about strengthening the community tissue around it.
The feedback from participants was also overwhelmingly positive. 90% of respondents were fairly or very satisfied with the programme, 81% said they felt more confident in addressing their challenge, and 100% said they would support the programme continuing. The strongest reported impacts were in helping organisations feel more connected and stronger and more confident.
That confidence piece is worth pausing on. A lot of the best support in programmes like this is not just technical. Yes, some organisations needed help with governance, finance, business models or growth planning. But a significant share of the support also became more relational in nature, sitting somewhere between consultancy, coaching and mentoring. In practice, that meant helping founders work through uncertainty, regain focus, make decisions and move from overwhelm into action.
SEGA also surfaced an important challenge around how impact gets measured. Some of the most valuable support in the programme was preventative and developmental rather than reactive. It helped organisations strengthen governance, improve alignment, build resilience and make better long-term decisions. That is real impact, even if it does not always fit neatly into a narrow reporting framework.
That is part of why our own data and insight systems continue to evolve. With each iteration of the programme, we are learning more, refining more, and building a clearer picture of what good support really looks like, both in numbers and in practice. The work is recursive by design. Each round should make the next one better.
And that is what feels most exciting right now.
This latest phase of SEGA shows a local social enterprise community with energy, demand, depth and huge social reach. It shows the value of support that is both practical and relational. It shows the importance of building stronger pathways from start-up through to longer-term sustainability. And it gives us a stronger foundation for what comes next.
We are proud of what this iteration achieved. More importantly, we feel better equipped because of it. The learning is live, the foundations are strengthening, and we are now preparing for what we hope will be a third iteration of the programme this summer.
Read more:
SEGA Delivery Report (July 2025 – March 2026)
Independent SEGA Evaluation Report, March 2026