08/03/2023
Today is the 10th anniversary of our launch. On March 8th 2013 at 10 Downing Street, 12 people became our inaugural cohort of Fellows.
And we are still here, forging ahead in a new form.
While we closed our doors to new Fellows in 2022, we keep on keeping on. Today, Year Here is a spirited community of activists, entrepreneurs and creatives tackling Britain’s toughest social problems.
Year Here’s first decade coincided with the government’s austerity policy, meaning sustained cuts to public spending. Brexit and the pandemic both ravaged the economy and exacerbated inequality. A global reckoning with racial injustice in 2020, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, brought new attention to the deep systemic injustices that exist in our society. In the UK, the conversation shone a spotlight on inequity in the field of social entrepreneurship itself. And, over our ten years of operations, climate injustice has become a lived reality for millions. As we closed our doors to new Fellows in November last year, the country was in political turmoil and faced a dire cost of living emergency. Unfortunately, the state of poverty and inequality has arguably worsened in the first ten years of Year Here’s life.
Despite that bleak picture, we are proud of our alumni, who have been at the forefront of building practical solutions to the damage wreaked to the fabric of our society.
Our social ventures have:
__ Pioneered new models to enable successful transitions for some of the most vulnerable people in society, like Settle, Fat Macy's, InCommon and Breakthrough Social Enterprise;
__ Rejected the racist framing of immigrants and refugees and facilitated integration, like Migrateful, Routes, Chatterbox and Bread & Roses;
__ Demonstrated a new approach to business that puts people and planet first, like Birdsong, LIVING PROOF and Pivot; and
__ Harnessed Tech to improve public services, like Tranquiliti , Appt Health and Supply Change
These are harbingers of what an alternative society could look like but we are under no illusion: our collective impact is far too small given the scale of the injustice facing British communities.
There is still so much work to do. So we’re still here.
Over the coming months we’ll be announcing our plan to build the Year Here movement’s collective strength to tackle poverty and inequality in Britain.
The details are coming together but we know that this will include:
🔗 Connecting and catalysing our community of 277 Fellows and 50 ventures to drive social change throughout the country
💡 Inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds to pick up the mantle
🗣️ Advocating for justice and equity in the field of social entrepreneurship.
