Established as a co-operative, CERT functions as a consultancy that provides social enterprise support in Humberside. Its mission is to improve the economic status of people facing deprivation. It does so by helping social enterprises to develop income and new revenue streams through trading. It also runs training and development programmes for organisations and individuals. Whilst still formally a co-operative, CERT increasingly sees itself as a social enterprise.

The Connect Fund funded the Gearing Up! project which aimed to help small and medium sized social enterprises and charities to explore the concept of social investment through a series of “seeing is believing” visits to organisations that have successfully taken on investment and developed sustainable income streams, and through masterclasses that equip people to assess opportunities and assemble realistic proposals.

In the Final Report from the project you can find more details about how the project was delivered as well as the lessons learned.