Relive the magic of our 20th Celebration Event – Gathering 2024
Celebrating 20 years of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland
This year, we celebrates our 20th anniversary and to date, over 600 social entrepreneurs across the country have been given over €14 million in funding and pro-bono support, including around €7.5m in financial grants.
The Gathering 2024 showcased past and present community members to celebrate the positive impact of social entrepreneurs in driving social change within their communities and on a national level. These entrepreneurs are shifting attitudes and expectations about solving social and environmental problems.
Highlights from the Gathering 2024: Your Vision, Our Support
Highlights from the Gathering 2024 'Your Vision, Our Support'
Meet the social entrepreneurs featured in the 2024 Gathering
Panel 1: Your Vision Our Support
HerSport empowers and advocates for girls and women in sport. Niamh and Mohammed are tackling gender disparity in sports by delivering educational workshops to schools, clubs and businesses discussing barriers for women in sport and how to overcome them, and by creating daily media coverage to highlight and showcase women in sports.
Hygiene Hub addresses hygiene poverty by gathering evidence of its prevalence and impact, raising awareness of this hidden element of poverty, and crucially distributing hygiene, personal care and household cleaning products to individuals and charities in need via their community partners’ network.
GORM is a social enterprise on a mission to unify across social and cultural differences and advance belonging for marginalised communities. GORM helps bridge connections and conversations across communities through a unique blend of expertise in social psychology and creative media. They focus on creating innovative digital media, intercultural education and events.
At Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), we’re guided by a common purpose to help make financial lives better, through the power of every connection. We’re delivering on this through responsible growth with a focus on our environmental, social and governance (ESG) leadership. ESG is embedded across our eight lines of business and reflects how we help fuel the global economy, build trust and credibility, and represent a company that people want to work for, invest in and do business with. It’s demonstrated in the inclusive and supportive workplace we create for our employees, the responsible products and services we offer our clients, and the impact we make around the world in helping local economies thrive. An important part of this work is forming strong partnerships with nonprofits and advocacy groups, such as community, consumer and environmental organizations, to bring together our collective networks and expertise to achieve greater impact. Connect with us on Twitter (@BofA_News).
The Ideas Academy & Investor Readiness Pathway are kindly supported by Bank of America.
Headquartered in Dublin, ALG is one of Ireland's leading independent international law firms, providing the full range of Irish corporate legal services to domestic and international clients. ALG has over 990 people and 440 lawyers, including 116 partners, working across six office locations: Dublin, Belfast, London, New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto. ALG’s Responsible Business Strategy is called ‘Our future with purpose – ALG's commitment to sustainability’. The strategy places ESG at the heart of its business with the ambition to have a more positive impact on society and the planet. You can read more about it here. Responsible Business | Corporate Law Firm | A&L Goodbody LLP | A&L Goodbody LLP (algoodbody.com)
ALG have generously provided pro-bono legal advice (worth more than €1.5m since 2010) as well as other volunteering and financial supports since 2010. A&L Goodbody lawyers have delivered more than 4,000 free hours of legal work to Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and its alumni over the course of the partnership.
Founded in 1998, eBay Foundation partners with nonprofit organizations that are addressing and removing barriers to entrepreneurship for people who identify with historically excluded groups. eBay Foundation also supports eBay employees with meaningful giving and volunteering opportunities.
eBay Foundation’s Global Give grant making program supports inspiring nonprofits worldwide that work to foster entrepreneurship in local communities. In 2023, eBay Foundation is proud to provide nearly $3M in grant support to nonprofit organizations around the world.
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland were a recipient of a 2023 eBay Global Give Grant.
Panel 2: Environment Panel
GIY is non-profit social enterprise on a mission to encourage people from all walks of life and of all ages to grow their own food at work, at school and in the community.
Aoibheann O’Brien & Iseult Ward, Founders of FoodCloud, a social enterprise with a mission to transform surplus food into opportunities to make the world a kinder place.
With 4 school aged children, the founder of Education for Sustainability became alarmed at the lack of environmental education in schools given we are in a climate crisis. Although young people are aware of the climate crisis, there was a lack of opportunities for them to take action and to make a difference on these issues.
The vision is to create a world where young people are actively engaged in taking action for sustainable development by making environmental education & sustainability a fundamental part of the national curriculum
Pocket Forests have crafted a transformative model that empowers communities to create and cherish natural spaces in their neighbourhoods, schools, and workplaces. Their approach involves retrofitting urban environments, influencing public discourse, and rekindling community bonds with nature. They achieve this by offering engaging soil health workshops and planting biodiverse, native forests in the heart of neighbourhoods, within schools, and amidst the hustle and bustle of workplaces.
Watch back the performances
Sinead Ryan and beneficiaries of Little Fitness.
Little Fitness addresses the physical, social and developmental needs of children experiencing homelessness through fun, inclusive and non-competitive fitness activities and games, delivered through an eight-week programme.
Helene Hugel and beneficiaries of Helium Arts.
Helium Arts aim to reduce the social isolation of children living with long-term health conditions. They do this by developing children’s creative skills in the heart of their communities and providing them with often their only opportunities for developing social connections.
Shane McKenna, co-founder of Dabbledoo.
Dabbledoo is an independent Irish company dedicated to providing primary schools with the resources, training and support to deliver high-quality and accessible arts and music education.
We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our community.
Thank you to our network of individual supporters, corporate supporters and philanthropic foundations who provide a combination of direct funding, skills and expertise to advance the work of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and grow the impact of the social entrepreneurs that we support. Our supporters are as passionate about backing people with ideas and solving social problems, as we are!
Supported by DCCThe SEI Gathering 2024 is supported by DCC plc.
