Lincoln based Social Research and Campaign Company awarded growth grant to launch new service and create city-based jobs.
Social Change UK, a Lincoln based social research and Campaign Company based in Lincoln has been awarded £34,398 from the Lincoln Growth Fund to launch a new nutritional service for small businesses and create five new jobs at its city centre base.
The company, which was founded in 2010 by Kelly Evans, works with government departments, local authorities, charities, police and fire services, NHS organisations and social businesses across the UK, to design and deliver innovative research programmes and campaigns that inspire change in people and communities.
The company, based at Sparkhouse Studios in Lincoln is currently working with the Government in Wales to prevent smoking in young girls aged 11-12. The team are also lobbying for restrictions on the advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes following research with children which found that e-cigarettes are highly appealing to young people. Other current projects include reducing home drinking levels in Derby and raising awareness of HIV nationwide. The company is also behind campaigns on teenage pregnancy, obesity, smoking in pregnancy and climate change as well as the successful healthy takeaways project that featured on national TV and in national press.
Money from the Lincoln Growth Fund and an HSBC bank loan will now allow the business to expand its team and operations and launch a new nutritional information service for small businesses selling food.
Kelly Evans, Director at Social Change UK said: “This is a very exciting time for us. Securing money from the Lincoln Growth Fund and a business loan from HSBC to take forward our growth plan means we can continue to make a difference through our work and put in place the resources needed to design and deliver innovative campaigns”.
“In addition, we can launch a new service that we have designed on the back of a very successful healthy takeaways campaign we launched four years ago which will help small businesses selling food – such as cafes and takeaways, schools, hotels and residential care homes - to display nutritional information on their menus and websites, meeting the needs of their customers such as information on the number of calories in a dish, the fat content and whether it is gluten free or if it contains nuts. Currently, very few small businesses are providing customers with this information because it is either too expensive or they are not required by law to do so, however this is changing and as well as customers now wanting this information, new upcoming laws will force businesses selling food to display this information. We have set up a new service that is affordable to small businesses and will help forward thinking businesses to create new, fresh and appealing healthy options menus for consumers”.
The new service will launch in July in the East Midlands and a nutritionist will be on hand to provide advice and guidance to small businesses.
New job roles will be created within the company over the next 12 months including a new sales role, account manager and marketing role, researcher and creative advertising role.
For more information contact our Marketing and PR Executive Elaine Brown
