Evergreen Fund for Growing Businesses
The Evergreen Fund has been established through the generosity of past participants of Cranfield's Business Growth and Development Programme (BGP), to enable aspiring entrepreneurs who need financial support to participate in the Cranfield BGP.
The Fund will assist deserving businesses that will benefit significantly from BGP.
Recipients of Evergreen bursaries will be given grants in the expectation that by growing their businesses through BGP they will repay these awards within three years. Once they repay, they will in turn be recognised as donors, and if BGP has helped their business achieve its full potential, we’ll ask if they can help top the fund up.
For further details of the Evergreen Fund please contact d.molian@cranfield.ac.uk
"The BGP has been so vital to the development and success of our business over the last decade, that we felt inspired to give other growing businesses the opportunity to participate in the UK's most successful programme for the development of owner-managers."
Paul Tombs, BGP 2006 & Founding Donor
Founding Donors:
Dominic McGuinness
Paul Tombs
Jon Thornes, MBE
Donors:
Paul Barrow Dan Munro
Penelope Bossom Jerry Sandys
Marihelen Esam Viv Semmens
Mark Kelly
Evergreen Fund Recipients
Algy Batten and Mark McConnachie, Principals, Fivefootsix
Fivefootsix is an independent graphic design consultancy working with clients of all shapes and sizes, across a broad range of communications. We create relevant and engaging design solutions for organisations that value the importance of their own brand.
We've grown from three to nine people in the last 18 months. Attending BGP was deemed an essential initiative in order to manage the effects of that change, help us get effective procedures in place and manage future growth.
For us as one of the smaller businesses on the programme the Evergreen Fund was a huge factor in helping us make the decision to take part. And also from an emotional point of view, having the BGP programme team believe in us by offering support from the fund was extremely reassuring that we were doing the right thing.
It's still quite early on at the moment, but it's fantastic to learn there are simple things we can implement right from the word go that will benefit our business. What I'm particularly pleased by is that not all of what we learn is financially driven, there are simple tips to better working methods and ways to engage with our staff and clients better on emotional levels too. The whole experience is thoroughly exciting and we can't wait to see where it takes us.
To find out more about how BGP could help you achieve your goals for your business, come along and join us at a FREE briefing event– Register now!
Evergreen Fund Criteria for application.pdf
Press Release