“A chance meeting with Nicola from OCE at a funding event led to a relationship which has helped us raise over £40,000 over the last 4 years, and their business advice has been invaluable. I have always been impressed by Nicola’s quick and enthusiastic response to any request for advice, and her ability to make us think in different and innovative ways. As any small charity, we face financial challenges but thanks to OCE we feel more confident in our future.”
“It’s been great working with OCE. They did a very good job promoting our share offer, commissioning an excellent share offer website and getting it delivered rapidly, helping us think through our comms well and then promote them well to get media coverage and good social media content, and to help co-op members tell the community about the share offer. The launch event was excellent and gave us the start we needed. They were good at helping us work out our main messages and who we wanted to reach, and then getting on with doing it, and their excellent local contacts and commitment to clean energy also made a difference.
They did a good job behind the scenes too – completing our business plan ready for publication, and administering the payments, pledges receipts, and share documents as the investments came in.
OCE are also very experienced fundraisers. They successfully spotted the opportunity for MaidEnergy to bid for grant funding for piloting a new clean energy partnership with businesses and universities, and then wrote a successful bid which we were able to deliver. I recommend them.”
“Michael Beaven has been truly brilliant. Thank you so much for the introduction.”
“Very calm and very knowledgeable…the help with the business and impact plan was invaluable.”
“Really good at listening. Honest about what we could go for, what would work for us and what wouldn’t work. Happy to share their IP with us; the creative ways of making funding applications. Shared their expertise”
The Royal Borough has worked with Our Community Enterprise for a number of years. For a small team, they punch above their weight, accessing and securing a wide range of funding for the benefit of the borough’s residents.
“Getting OCE involved in the Chalvey 360 project bid was fundamental to its success. They were able to come in relatively late in the day, understood what we were trying to do immediately and hit the ground running. Using information we had already collated and identifying other information that would add to the impact, they quickly developed it into a cohesive bid. Michael and Maria made the process very easy for us and turned around the successful bid quickly. We were delighted to have worked with OCE and are especially pleased with the outcome. It also makes sense to have OCE write the evaluation because they are honest and critical friends who know us and the project well and can deliver the analysis it deserves.”