• What does it do? The Cornwall Bicycle Project is a cycling CIC that help to improve lives of people in Cornwall through cycling; to improve mental health, physical health, social inclusion, transport poverty, and well-being. 
• Traded income pre and post programme: £8,000 to £18,000 
• Ratio of trading income to other income pre and post programme: 23% to 49% traded income (1:4 to 1:2 ratio) 
• SSE programme: Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Trade Up Programme 2022

The Cornwall Bicycle Project aims to give people who may not think themselves cyclists the means to enjoy and benefit from cycling and all it has to offer and to develop their love of cycling.  

The organisation helps people like Sarah and her son. They both struggled cycling, but Sarah wanted to cycle down the same local trail with her son. He was very anxious and had dyspraxia and so they came to a confidence-building session. After 5 weeks on the course Sarah was able to go on a ride with him on the local trail joining in with the rest of the group. The classes the organisation provides vary from learning sessions to bike maintenance classes, group social rides and even in response to observations made by Emma herself:

“I go into lots of schools to teach bikeability and noticed that there were gaps of children not coming in years 5 and 6 because they can’t ride bikes. These children don’t want to join the groups of much younger children learning to ride a bike, so we provide small groups of learning to ride and confidence-building sessions for older children, and they’re really popular. There are so many different areas of cycling from it being a social past time to a form of transport, bike mechanics to racing and coaching. It reaches people in so many ways and a crucial tool to deliver different things.”

The Cornwall Bicycle Project looks to reflect on this within its reach and offering.

About the programme & Match Trading

For Emma, joining the Lloyds Trade Up programme was very much about becoming financially self-sufficient and not relying on funding for the sustainability of the social enterprise. “Being on the programme with other people that are at the same point with their businesses was great. Although everyone was running very different organisations having other people to talk to was most helpful – creating that network. The Match Trading funding was great because it was a motivation to really try hard to think about ways of increasing our traded income to be a sustainable business.”  

Applying for Match Trading allowed Emma to focus on the specific task of applying for a type of funding she hadn’t experienced before. This helped to engage and focus her attention on incorporating more trading driven income into the organisation.  

And that’s exactly what Emma then implemented…

“we were motivated to give things a go by being on the programme, so we found things that were successful and we used this feedback to further things in these areas.”

 

 

The trading income of the business went from £8k before Emma applied for Match Trading to £18k after the programme ended. This resulted in a decrease in non-trading income because of the reduced need and reliance on grants and funding. The overall income uplift for The Cornwall Bicycle Project went from £31k to £37k within the first 2 years of trading.

 Emma’s desire to run a successful organisation that lasts into the future meant that implementing and establishing a financially sustainable business is at the heart of business planning. Being introduced to a network of other social entrepreneurs has introduced Emma to collaborative working and thinking of new ways of working. “Trying new things and focusing on those things that work mean the customer base is growing whilst also putting an emphasis on maintaining and growing the relationship with our existing customers.”  

On making connections with other social entrepreneurs, Emma says:

“I’m better at linking up things and ideas with other people and new ways of working together with other organisations. I love everything SSE do. I met some great people and the course was really good. The Match Trading was a brilliant motivator and we learnt that we can’t rely on funding all the time and that we need to think about trading to be a sustainable business.” 

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