The Rural Social Enterprise Network meeting held on 28th May 2025 focused on crisis support for social enterprises and communties.
We are seeing more social enterprises asking for help as they face growing challenges, from cuts to funding and staff shortages, to rising costs and increasing demand for services. The recent Storm Eowyn had a big impact too, showing once again how important it is to help communities stay strong in difficult times.This session gave people a chance to talk about practical ways to manage these challenges and learn more about the support that’s available for both social enterprises and the communities to navigate through crisis.
We were joined by Joanne Slater (InspirAlba) and David Connor (Kintyre Recycling) as the speakers for the first session. They shared their experience in managing crises for social enterprises supporting the Just Enterprise program by the Scottish Government. The presentation also included some tips on early identification of crisis for enterprises so that they can make informed decisions at the right time to build resilience and recover.
The second session was led by Megan Elliot and Rosalynd McGhee, who works on the Household Resilience project at InspirAlba, sharing their experience supporting people in communities facing crisis, with a particular focus on community-led trusts and organisations. The recent extreme weather events were another strong reminder of how isolated rural communities are from support and why they should be resilient to prepare for the future.
Detailed meeting notes, links to the presentations and resources can be found here: