The right space: Open Door’s journey from a small shop to Joy

When Lee Pennington founded Open Door in 2011, he wasn’t thinking about buildings – he was thinking about people. But the Birkenhead-based mental health service has become nationally renown not just for the innovation of its services, but for the boldness of its space and knack for using arts and culture as catalysts for change.

The idea came from personal experience – anxiety Lee never felt before, a close friend’s loss, and a growing conviction that what young people really needed wasn’t a clinical leaflet but someone who genuinely knew what it felt like. “I’d exhausted plenty of other job options,” he admits. “But I really felt like I’d make a really good person to sit with and talk to someone to say, ‘don’t worry about it, it’s gonna be okay. Just do these things and you’ll feel okay’. I knew what it actually feels like rather than the signs and symptoms that are written down or stuff. I thought, ‘if I can prevent families living through the horror of suicide, that would feel amazing.’”

He took that idea to the Job Centre and was turned away, so applied to the National Lottery instead, who also turned him down. But he kept on knocking on doors with a plan to provide free immediate access to creative therapeutic support for like young people and young adults who were depressed or anxious or stressed or panic attacks. And then, with £29,440 from the Fair Share Trust, he set a modest target: support 50 people in a year. “My expectations were low but I thought ‘even if we can prevent prevent one person from killing himself out of that 50, we’ll have made a difference…’ I still feel like that now and, because we’ve gone so far past that, it really feels like we can shoot for the stars.

“I guess I felt like I had to do it, in terms of where my life was at. But if someone have given us £5,000 rather than £30k and we couldn’t have a premises, I would have found a different way to do it. I needed to. I’ve committed and I want to do this thing – the space didn’t come first, it came second. And, once someone’s said they’ll support you, you’re accountable to them.”

Starting small

The first space was a small shop in Liscard, on the Wirral. “I knew that it had to be in Liscard, where I was living…” says Lee. “And I wanted it to be small, so it didn’t feel empty.” The logic was simple – if nobody came, it wouldn’t feel empty. But they did come and have kept coming ever since. “Mental health has become the biggest conversation in the world since we opened,” he admits.

What Lee built wasn’t a traditional mental health service. From the start, Open Door was designed to feel different – peer-led, creative, rooted in music and real life, with volunteers who’d been through it themselves. No waiting lists or clinical corridors. “It’s the most normal thing as well, isn’t it?” he asks. “The most common sense thing in the world.”

For seven years, the Liscard shop was the place for community to meet, ideas to develop and relationships and contracts to grow. Then Open Door’s need outgrew the space – its reputation had grown, but without the income to move, they were stuck.

The funding trigger

The turning point came through commissioning. Lee spent years attending the right meetings, building relationships and waiting for the right moment to act. When a contract for adult talking therapies came up, it became the trigger for a move. Three years, £50,000 a year – enough to grow significantly, but impossible to deliver from a small shop.

The move to Bloom – a larger building, industrial in style and more of a blank canvas in which Bloom’s bold aesthetic began to emerge – was, by Lee’s own admission, a huge risk. “The risk, when we moved in, on reflection, was absolutely astronomical. I think we had it around 12 grand in the bank and with three staff we moved in here.”

But Bloom became the making of Open Door – the vibrant environment wasn’t just a backdrop; it became part of the model. Bold, colourful, designed to feel like somewhere you’d want to be. “It fills me with pride and I think we’ve proven over 15 years or so what you can do with a good idea if you’re given the right platform and the right spaces. Bloom is really about its look and feel, isn’t it?” he asks. “When people talk about Open Door, it conjures up a picture of all of this – the boldness.”

Joy – and the case for owning your space

Now Open Door is on the move again. Joy is its biggest step yet – a building it will own, not rent. Over seven years at Bloom, Open Door has spent more than £250,000 on a building that was never theirs – Joy changes that.

But ownership brings new risk. The numbers are bigger and the stakes are higher. “The risks changed and all the numbers are bigger,” admits Lee. “We know that if the boiler needs fixing in a building that size, it could cost £25,000…” But what’s also changed is the confidence that comes from 15 years of evidence. “I just don't worry about how we would fill a space anymore…” he says. “We’ve proven that. People’s initial question is how are we gonna get people here? How are we gonna fill it? And in my life and my career and the life of Open Door, the opposite has always been true. You fill it far too quickly.”

Joy is designed to extend Open Door’s vision across health and wellbeing more broadly – a building bright and loud enough to make you forget you’re walking into a mental health service. Lee says: “All we are doing with joy is make a building that is loud, proud, colourful, joyful, interesting – ultimately it’s designed to confuse you about what’s going on in there.”

More than anything, it’s about permanence. For the young people Open Door supports, having a home that isn’t going anywhere matters enormously. “That place where they feel comfortable – so important that they have a core,” he says.

Lee’s advice for those starting out is straightforward: “Start small,” he says. “You don’t have to leave your job tomorrow. Space matters – but it doesn’t have to come first. What comes first is the idea, the commitment and the willingness to find a way.” The space follows. And when the time is right, it can change everything.

Giving clothes a second life

Worn by Us was born from an unexpected place. When founder Nicola Gleave was diagnosed with breast cancer, she made a decision that would shape everything that followed. The diagnosis was out of her control – but how she responded to it wasn't. With a strong background in economic regeneration and a network built over nearly 30 years, she channelled that energy into something new.

The idea was simple: ask celebrities to donate clothing, sell it and use the proceeds to raise money and awareness for breast cancer charities. Nicola didn't know any celebrities – and it took her well out of her comfort zone. But the cause was bigger than the discomfort – and the response surprised her.

Celebrities donated. Then friends and acquaintances started coming forward too – people with beautiful, barely-worn items sitting in wardrobes, too good for the charity shop but never quite making it onto eBay. Worn by Us gave those clothes, and their owners, a better option.

From passion project to purpose-led business

For several years, Nicola ran Worn by Us without really treating it as a business. She collected clothes, sold them, gave the money to charity and talked about what she was doing. But she always knew there was potential to scale – and that scaling meant volume, sustainability and a commercial model that could support the social mission long-term.

That led her to start conversations with retailers about unsold stock. Most of it, she discovered, ended up with textile recycling companies buying job lots at rock-bottom prices and shipping palettes overseas – often because brands were anxious about their reputation and didn't want discounted stock on the high street. Nicola began building relationships with retailers willing to try a different approach, donating or commercially partnering to get stock into real customers’ hands, honestly and fairly.

Then COVID hit, conversations stalled and the pause gave Nicola time to sharpen the model. What emerged was clearer and more scalable than before.

Now, Worn by Us offers a simple service, nationwide. If you have quality items that are gathering dust, you can get in touch, describe what you've got and Worn by Us sends a bag with a prepaid label. Send it back and they handle everything else – checking, photographing, listing, and selling across eBay, Vinted, their own website and their new physical store in Birkenhead.

That store has become the beating heart of the business. What started as a pop-up planned for just six to eight weeks has grown into a permanent fixture in the Pyramids Shopping Centre – a real catalyst for local trade and a genuine community space. A client in London might send in a beautiful coat; someone in Birkenhead buys it at a price they can afford –quality, branded clothing circulating in the local economy, putting money back into the community. The shop has also become, almost by accident, an informal hub – somewhere customers come to chat, where community consultation happens naturally over the rails.

Triple impact

Kindred's investment came at exactly the right moment, allowing Worn by Us to fit out the Birkenhead shop and turn a temporary pop-up into a real, welcoming retail and community space. Fittings, equipment and some wonderfully on-brand donations – including mannequins from River Island – came together to create something the local community could genuinely use. Funding also went towards social media and marketing support, helping more people discover the service, which brought a wave of collaborations with other local businesses, too.

Before Kindred, Nicola had spent nearly two years pursuing private investment, receiving consistently encouraging – and consistently frustrating – feedback: come back when you’re further along. Kindred felt entirely different.

Nicola pitched twice for her Kindred investment. The first time, she arrived with a pitch honed for private investors and quickly learned it needed to speak a different language. With support from the Kindred team, she refined her approach and came back stronger.

What struck her most wasn't just the practical guidance – it was the culture. “It was totally different to anything I'd experienced before, but in the most positive way. The help and support was there from the outset. It’s not a failure – it's a process,” she says. “There was a whole community of people rooting for you. You can talk openly about what worked, what didn’t, what went wrong.”

Kindred didn’t just invest money – it provided confidence, connection and a community that understood the journey.

A café rooted in place, community and purpose

When Nettle Café opened its doors in Port Sunlight, it was more than a new spot for great food – the social business signalled the arrival of fresh energy and new community connections in one of the Wirral’s most historic villages.

Within its first year there, Nettle has grown from two staff to 12 developed a network of local suppliers and begun to shape a new social hub. But behind the momentum, 27-year-old-founder Julia Strelczuk is honest and ambitious about the reality of running a growing socially-trading organisation (STO).

Julia describes the move to Port Sunlight as intentional, strategic – and serendipitous. “Port Sunlight was a very calculated decision. This place is perfect for a café. You could see the demand at the garden centre down the road,” she explains. “It’s really unique and gorgeous – perfect for my brand. I wanted to be closer to nature and this spot offered exactly that. A huge part of my decision was the team behind Port Sunlight. They’re really intentional about who they want here and how they build the village.”

A café with community at its core

From the beginning, Nettle was never just about food. It was about creating a place where people could gather, learn and reconnect. “You notice the absence of connection when there’s not shared space,” Julia says. “Third spaces give people somewhere to meet, talk, work and pause. It’s about far more than coffee. Even within our team, those small shared moments can make a real difference to morale.”

“February is when I want to kick off the social impact side of our work – collaborating with Grow Wellbeing, wood carving clubs and making it easier for local skill-sharers to teach what they do. We’ve got a herbalist, a fisherman, beekeepers.”

Nettle already offers free venue hire for local makers and therapeutic sessions. “Tomorrow we’ve got Amy teaching people how to make rings from scratch – 14 people sitting together for four hours, relaxing and making something by hand. A traditional, fading skill, coming back to life.

One of Nettle’s key metrics for measuring its impact is simple but powerful: How much space can it give away for free to create social value?

From Kickstarter to Kindred

Julia didn't set out intending to run a café. Her journey wound through filmmaking, cafés, banks and a difficult period with her health. Everything changed when she typed ‘nature jobs’ into Google and stumbled upon a ‘Kickstarter’ apprentice role at Grow Wellbeing. “That was pivotal,” she nods. “I didn’t even know what a socially-trading organisation was. It has helped me realise that my own health journey – finding healing through nature – could become something bigger: a business that does good. Turning a difficult chapter into a physical space that supports others has completely changed how I see that part of my life. I’m genuinely grateful for it now.”

Now, she describes herself as the ‘granddaughter of Kindred’ – shaped by early exposure to STOs, mentoring and the community of businesses around her. And then the opportunity to run the café at Make Hamilton, where Grow was based, appeared. She started with almost nothing: “I was in my overdraft. I borrowed £1,000 from an ex-boyfriend. But I decided the worst thing that could happen was I’d get a normal job again.”

The low-risk model let her experiment, learn about margins, test menus and build confidence. “People kept coming back simply for fresh cooking,” she says. “Now our staff are trained to talk about our food, our farmers, our suppliers. People want to know the story behind what they’re eating.” When Make relocated to its new Argyle Street home she made the decision to close – and within half an hour, Port Sunlight came calling.

“It was probably one of the most difficult and stressful times,” Julia admits. But support came quickly. “I got a boost of confidence from Port Sunlight’s commitment to lending me money for the renovations and Kindred’s investment supported the move. I didn’t have anything confirmed when I started looking around – I just said, ‘I’ll figure the money out somehow.’”

Mentors helped her replace doubt with data: “Collecting as much data as possible eases the anxiety – seasonal patterns, customer behaviour, forecasts. Seeing it visually made me feel okay.” She also reached out to business owners – “people I barely knew” – buying coffees, asking questions, building a network. “Most of my friends are business owners now,” she laughs.

As the new café was approaching its launch, Julia joined Wirral Council’s Accelerate Wirral programme and was matched with a mentor. “Planning permission was delayed; there were problems with the meter; I was in charge of the electrics and the floor plans and it was bonkers. I really needed someone to speak to and it was so good to have that grounding element – to be able to talk about launch strategy,” she says. “I ended up paying for more coaching myself,” she adds.

Within a year, Nettle’s impact is already clear:

• 13 jobs created, including opportunities for people new to hospitality
• Training pathways for people struggling to access work
• Free venue hire for makers, creatives and therapeutic practitioners
• A growing peer community of local suppliers and skill-sharers
• A physical hub for connection in an increasingly digital world

“Even though we’re so easily connected, we’re more disconnected than ever,” Julia says. “I’m hoping this helps a little.” And the business is working commercially too: “We make people happy and are profitable as well,” she says. She knows how important diversification is for the business: the bookshop, venue hire, workshops and a social media presence reaching more than 250,000 people around the grand opening.

Julia is clear about the tension between momentum and sustainability. “There’s always the balance between going with the momentum you’ve got and making sure you don’t fall,” she says. “Founders take things so personally. I’m learning to rest – I literally have to book trips away or I’ll override any time I book off to relax.”

The future is full of possibility: more workshops, a larger skills programme and an upstairs studio ‘if things go to plan’. But the message she wants others to hear is simple:

“If I can do it, anyone can do it.”

For too long, dementia care has overlooked the cultural and social needs of the global majority. Families from Black, Asian and other minoritised ethnic backgrounds have found themselves navigating a system that often misunderstands them or excludes them entirely. One nurse, with over 35 years’ experience and deep personal insight, set out to change this.

Michelle King began not as a business leader, but as someone driven by compassion and lived experience. “Having done some work in the Liverpool area, I heard, witnessed and was involved first-hand with the experiences that people shared with me – the feeling of being let down, the mistrust in services that are meant to protect them,” she says.

With her first Active Minds dementia day centre already open in Crosby, she was determined to offer something complementary to the reputation she had established – and different from existing facilities in central Liverpool: care that recognised culture, respected lived experience and built trust. But bringing this vision to life required more than passion – it needed the right support, networks and investment.

Through her role as an advisory board member at Liverpool City Region’s Race Equality Hub, Michelle connected with Innervision, joining its business support programme, led by BlaST director Joanne Anderson. “It’s been absolutely amazing. Within a year – the networking, the coaching, the training sessions – there was no holding back,” she smiles.

Through the programme, she was introduced to BlaST and Kindred and met Erika, Adele and Nicola. Initially, the idea of taking on investment was daunting. “I was very apprehensive about investment – I’ve never taken investment in my life. The fear, and apprehension. What if this goes wrong?” she says.

Kindred’s mission is to increase the impact of the social economy across Liverpool City Region, and Michelle’s work addresses a critical gap in dementia care, with clear impact. Nationally, nearly one million people are diagnosed with dementia, yet ethnic minority communities remain vastly under-diagnosed. “In Liverpool, there are about 42,620 people. The dementia register with the Memory Clinic has 4,000 people, but not one person is from an ethnic minority background,” she explains. This is despite research showing that dementia rates in Black communities are 20% higher than in white communities.

Barriers range from communication gaps and cultural misunderstandings to a historic mistrust of healthcare systems. “They walk into a GP surgery and are often dismissed. Or they are told ‘nothing is wrong with you’. People don’t follow up. So this constant rejection has made the community withdraw.”
Michelle’s approach is holistic: providing therapy through interaction, cognitive stimulation and community connection rather than defaulting to medication. “Our communities don’t want to be bombarded with anti-psychotics or dementia drugs that have never been tested on them.

“What they want is therapy: cognition, interaction, engagement,” she says. Through patient, transparent guidance from the Innervision, BlaST and Kindred teams, Michelle’s confidence grew.

“They instilled confidence in me, helped me understand what a cash flow is, how you put it together. Erika worked with me, and Ryan. The positive support was incredible. There was such a big trust that I developed with Kindred – I felt transparency, very honest. The wraparound support was still there. And there was no pressure.

“The bigger benefit from investment is 0% interest. They were very clear as to how the payments would be taken. Everything was explained in such a manner that it was a win-win situation. There was no way I was backing out.”

But this was about more than finance. For Michelle, the partnerships gave her a network she could rely on – something that had been missing in her previous experiences of professional isolation and discrimination. “I was lonely, I was isolated,” she says. “I found there is so much support, but communication is disjointed and it can be hard to identify it. Since I’ve started, there’s no holding back.”

Beyond dementia care, the centres also provide respite for carers, addressing loneliness, burnout and social isolation. “It’s about enhancing the quality of life for everybody concerned, no matter what community or background and allowing carers to have a life of their own,” says Michelle. The first Active Minds Centre opened in 2018, proving the concept worked. Michelle had a model that communities trusted and valued. With the support of Innervision, Kindred and BlaST, she took the leap to expand her vision.

In May 2025, Michelle received social investment from Kindred to open the second Active Minds centre – and she has plans for seven more across Liverpool City Region: “Change is going to happen,” says Michelle.

Wirral-based STOs cluster to secure £11.8m additional investment.

The pre-Kindred pilot, Wirral’s Festival of Beautiful Ideas, created a vital early spotlight on Birkenhead and its potential as a creative-led, socially-trading cluster. Wirral Council and Wirral Chamber of Commerce commissioned the programme, creating an investment pot of £12,000.

The programme, in April 2017, brought people together to share ideas for making Birkenhead a better place to live and work. Craig Pennington, founder of community music venue Future Yard, took part in the Festival of Ideas as a facilitator, before the Wirral New Music Collective was one of the ideas funded. He explains how it began: “It was simple, really. We asked who were the protagonists? Who really, really believed that Birkenhead could use music and the story it tells about itself to change what Birkenhead means in the world? It was pulling those people together – some who still lived here, some who’d moved away – and having a conversation.”

The pre-Kindred pilot created a space to bring people together and imagine something better, using microgrants as a catalyst for those ideas. From that, the New Music Collective shared £3,000 to run a series of shows. “The New Music Collective was very much, ‘let’s do a run of shows’ – I’m still a strong advocate of microgrants to get something started,” says Craig. The Collective tested the water with Future Now Festival before, just three and a half years later, Future Yard, the product of Wirral New Music Collective’s vision, opened on Argyle Street.

Early recognition from the council of the power of cultural organisations in the town was vital. Craig says: ”It wasn’t a conversation with the council about culture for culture’s sake. It was about how music could drive regeneration and the economy. That was the change.”

As the industry talked about ‘Music Cities’, and the power of culture to shape places, Birkenhead built its own grassroots version. “If you anchor your regeneration framework in a permanent asset like a music venue, you can change the narrative about your town. You can tell a different story about who you are,” he adds.

Make CIC, which gained a meanwhile space in the council’s former Treasury Building as part of the Beautiful Ideas Festival programme, has now moved into its forever home, too. It bought a building next door to Future Yard in 2024, with money from Birkenhead’s £29m Town Fund allocation. Open Door Charity is opening Make’s former home as its Joy building.

Eleven Birkenhead-based STOs have collectively-received more than £700,000 investment from Kindred across three cohorts and a £29m investment in Birkenhead from the Towns Fund has been spearheaded by the social traders.

Next, attention turns to the streets outside the venue. With new cycle lanes, pedestrian crossings and lighting on the way, the Argyle Independent Quarter is taking shape as a creative, independent part of town. “In ten years’ time, it’ll be a completely different place,” admits Craig. “And it’s really important that it stays a designated area for arts and culture in the local plan.”

Future Yard has been joined by Make, Joy, Make It Happen and Start Yard to work with Wirral Council, create a manifesto and encourage food vendors, creative spaces and community businesses to cluster in what it calls an ‘urban village of creativity’.

Their links with Kindred were vital, says Craig: “All but one or two of us have been on that Kindred journey together. We’re all cut from the same cloth. We’re there to deliver on social outcomes as well as provide financial stability and sustainability and working collaboratively has been there from the start. It’s placemaking and regeneration as much as it’s cultural development.”

Social investment from Kindred was critical in taking Future Yard from dream to reality. “Kindred’s been absolutely transformational in every sense,” says Craig. “The money was important – at the right moments it made the difference – but it’s more than that. It’s a view of the world. There’s a real confidence from being surrounded by peers who are trying to achieve similar kinds of things as you, within their own discipline. It’s painting a picture of the possible,” he says.

The emergence of the Argyle Independent Quarter demonstrates the maturity of Birkenhead’s STOs, which have taken a lead in supporting other social businesses.

Their impact over the past five years has been remarkable. Wirral STOs have grown their combined turnover from £912,584 to £2,556,558 – and have created 76 new jobs. Their work demonstrates what's possible when social and creative enterprises cluster in areas where property needs new purpose.Their work demonstrates what's possible when social and creative enterprises cluster in areas where property needs new purpose.

Every place has its own unique set of skills that makes that place different – not every district wants a Tesco Metro any longer and towns and areas want to be known for the things that make them different. 

We're currently working in St Helens at Street and a Half and with an amazing cluster of alternative CreativeCare providers in Knowsley; in Halton a recent Ideas Festival highlighted a network of people with ideas, whereas in Sefton our job is to support organisations like Safe Regeneration, Expanding Horizons and Sefton Council by matching growing social businesses to surplus space. 

In Liverpool too, there is now a network of STO-run spaces spanning the city, while BlaST offers Liverpool and the wider region a steady stream of Black and minority ethnic entrepreneurs who have demonstrated that, with the right money and space, they grow at 45% year-on-year.

Each place, each cluster, has its own identity and is a rich source of jobs and innovation. As the region reaches for growth, home grown social entrepreneurs are making sure Liverpool City Region’s communities are connected and part of it. 

Vauxhall Health Centre in north Liverpool is a good example of how a small amount of financial support from Kindred and peer support from the STO community has embedded a vital idea what tackles, health, wellbeing and loneliness.

In north Liverpool, Vauxhall Health Centre (VHC) has set up a community garden for its patients, staff and volunteers, with support from Kindred. “We put a simple proposal to the partners, knowing that Kindred would match it,” says Dr Barry Green, one of two GPs at the practice with responsibility for the garden.

This microgranting model allows Kindred to support community activity to try new ideas, with STOs providing peer support and expertise though the social prescribing cluster.

The money was enough to start the practice with a bench, storage, a greenhouse and two raised beds and it began advertised for volunteers – four or five regulars now tend to the garden on a weekly basis.

Kindred recommended a connection with Bootle-based Gateway Collective, which has provided a range of expertise and events. “It’s a good model for any new startup project to be linked with an established community garden – with people who know what they’re doing and their expertise,” says Barry. “Ali or Jan [from Gateway] came every month through the winter to do a seasonal workshop, whether it was jam making or apple pressing, seed bombs or Christmas wreath making. It really tied everything together.”

The garden’s volunteers are a mixture of patients and local community members. “It’s particularly aimed at patients,” says Barry – “to get them out in nature; hands in the soil and knowing about what healthy food is. Plus all the benefits of green space – community, socialisation and specific health benefits. There are also gains for staff morale and even people walking past, to see a flower in an area where there’s not very much green space. The tree equity score around here is about 35 out of 100.”

Now, VHC is starting to build links with other organisations, including the NHS Forest, which helps healthcare sites to transform their green space for health, wellbeing and biodiversity, the Mersey Forest and Myerscough College (through gardener Nina Dale) and its local primary school, whose students comes to play games and learn more about the natural world. The League of Welldoers, next door, is Liverpool’s oldest independent charity. “We’re networking with other local support groups,” says Barry, “so we’re trying to tie it all together locally, with walking groups. It’s a way to help us talk to each other effectively.”

The garden is full of familiar products – “things people will eat: onions, beans, peas, tomatoes, potatoes… We grew kohlrabi last year,” he says. “And we have plans for a green wall with jasmine, passion flower and clematis. Community growing spaces reduce pollution, run-off and the urban heat effect.”

Barry’s colleague, Dr Nadja van Ginneken, is a GP at the practice and is responsible for sustainability across Central Liverpool Primary Care Network (PCN). “We know there are potential wider community impacts – not just for North Liverpool, but across Liverpool City Region and Cheshire,” she says. “For us, it fits with the prevention pledge and the ‘anchor framework’, which looks at how practices can best deliver not just day-to-day care, but do the best for the communities that they’re living in.”

Five other practices within the PCN have now also set up gardens, and Nadja has accessed funding through Liverpool John Moores University and organised a collaboration with Liverpool City Council. “In Liverpool, there’s no other surgery doing this except the ones that we’ve networked through,” she admits. “Some have been donated trees from the NHS Forest – but no-one else has yet set up a garden with a gardening group. Suddenly, things like this start to knit things together and join some dots,” she says.

Kindred has also supported the team to create a toolkit to share with other practices, to help them get gardens started. “To have a community garden for patients to go and exercise and spend time is great,” says Barry. “We’ve made a little logo called Growing Health, Liverpool. So hopefully other practises – and we’ve got a few in our network – will sign up. It has to be an organic thing.”

“We’re running sustainability walks, called the Vauxhall Ventures,” adds Nadja. “It’s a walking group for patients that started a few weeks ago with the health coach here. And there’s tea and toast that happens here on a Friday – that’s mainly been indoors so far, so we’re going to encourage them to come outdoors
as well.”

Feedback from patients – while in its early days – has been overwhelmingly positive, supporting community events and practice open days. The PCN’s impact prompted a bid to the regional Integrated Care Board, with Greener NHS providing £20,000 to start ten pilot projects across the region last year: “Not just gardens, but asthma, de-prescribing and period poverty projects,” says Nadja. “One of those pilots, in Tuebrook, has been able to show people reversing their diabetes – coming off medicines because they’ve cured their diabetes with this approach, in just six months. The results have been fantastic. It’s a very bottom-up approach.”

Brazuka (which trades under the name Katumba) develops intercultural learning, artistic exchanges and projects within communities in the UK, Brazil and internationally. It runs the community-based drumming and movement project Katumba, which fosters mental health and wellbeing in local communities.

Its initial pitch for money to Kindred was designed to establish new Katumba communities across the country, replicating the Liverpool events model, alongside resources to support this expansion. However, through the process, the team realised the importance of strengthening its internal structure first. This led to an inward focus – hiring a manager, refining policies and embedding more sustainable business practices.

As part of this shift, Brazuka introduced outreach and training programmes to empower more people to lead workshops and events and reduce the load on the founders. Authenticity remains central to its mission, particularly in carnival arts, deepening connections to its Afro-Indigenous heritage.

Prior to investment from Kindred, funding was competitive, bureaucratic and time consuming, with limited access to flexible investment. Its restrictive, project-based nature made long-term planning difficult, impacting growth. Co-founder Juliana Landim says: “We’ve been able to really see where we were, where we are now and where we need to get to. Having someone on our side to work out what we need to do next has changed our attitude to money immensely. It’s a mark of confidence in the business.”

By securing money from Kindred, rather than restricted funding, Katumba has been able to focus on strategic growth, building internal capacity, hiring essential staff and developing robust policies. This shift allows it to strengthen community’s involvement, ensuring that underrepresented groups play a role in shaping the work that directly affects them.

Cultural immersion trips to Brazil allow the team to reconnect to their Afro-Indigenous roots and the community to experience the origins of the music and dance they practise. These trips also support sustainable social economies in Brazil, provide CPD opportunities and deepen the understanding of carnival’s healing and cultural significance.

With its internal structure strengthened, Brazuka is now focused on maintaining sustainable growth. Rather than expanding rapidly, it is taking a staged approach – building a more robust team, planning long-term and ensuring financial stability. The process of understanding financial sustainability, combined with external belief in their potential, has given them confidence to continue growing.

Brazuka’s impact is clear – improving mental wellbeing, increasing self-confidence and providing a sense of belonging by centring underrepresented communities, ensuring they feel heard and celebrated. With an engaged and invested community, the organisation is in good shape to make a lasting, meaningful impact.

Adding Value provides specialist financial support to socially-trading organisations (STOs), helping them grow and make better financial decisions. Based in Merseyside but working nationally, its reputation has been built purely through client recommendations and word of mouth and its rapid growth reflects a real demand for services. The team is a trusted advisor, known for its values-led approach and commitment to long-term partnerships.

Many STOs struggle with financial management because mainstream accountants focus on profit-driven businesses and often charge high fees when clients are struggling, and need their expertise the most. This creates a cycle where organisations lack financial confidence and struggle to scale effectively. Investment from Kindred gave Adding Value the working capital to employ additional staff ahead of new business: “Kindred’s support has helped accelerate our growth by investing in staff before we’ve won work from clients. The alternative is operating hand-to-mouth and never being able to do that development,” founder and chief executive Matthew Brown

Adding Values offers a different model – specialist financial support tailored to STOs, with flexible, fixed-fee pricing. Their services include financial planning, cashflow management, business coaching, and investment support. Focusing on long-term relationships rather than one-off transactions, helps clients move beyond day-to-day financial firefighting and into strategic decision-making and their own journey mirrors that of their clients.

Resilience is central to the Adding Value model, which works as a cross-covering team. If one team member is unavailable, others step in – making them a more stable, knowledgeable option for STOs. Clients report increased confidence in managing their numbers, making better strategic decisions and securing new funding. By offering business coaching alongside financial services, they empower STOs to achieve sustainable growth.

Kindred investment has supported them to grow revenue by over 40% per annum for the last five years. More recently, they acquired a book of accountancy practice work with support of a loan from Key Fund in order to diversify sources of income. However lack of working capital is a constraint to high-growth organisations.

Looking ahead, Adding Value’s future growth is focused around supporting more STOs with their finances, developing social value reporting structures, exploring broader corporate support services for STOs, creating training pathways for new accountants, and developing a financial education offer for STOs.

Other plans include achieving B-Corp status to reinforce its commitment to ethical business practices and to become a powerful advocate for the social economy, giving it a voice nationally. Adding Value’s ambition is to become one of the UK’s top 100 accountancy firms, demonstrating that finance can be a force for good in the social economy.

Make is home to over 130 makers across Liverpool City Region with spaces in Birkenhead, Liverpool’s North Docks and Huyton Village. It provides a place for makers, creatives, independent businesses and social enterprises to ‘turn their passion to prosperity’, with flexible space alongside support.

The ‘Made by Make’ programme commissions work from local artists to create installations for clients nationwide. This supports Make and its community, creating jobs for a hyperlocal workforce, feeding social businesses in the supply chains of larger organisations, encouraging collaboration and reusing materials. Recently, Make purchased its first building, moving from a meanwhile space to a permanent home in Birkenhead.

Socially-trading organisations (STOs) operate in a financial landscape where property-related costs vastly outweigh revenue. For example, Make turns over approx. £500k annually, and the purchase of its Birkenhead building cost £2m to develop. With an average annual surplus of just £10k, it would take 200 years to accumulate enough reserves for the project. This makes social investment crucial.

Make’s priority is accessibility through affordability. Raising rent contradicts its social mission, so instead it leverages external funding to cover its annual deficit of approximately £100k. Nonetheless, demand for space is overwhelming, with three times more requests than availability. Owning property unlocks more favourable lending terms, but securing long-term finance is complex.

Ownership isn’t just about stability for Make – it changes perceptions within financial markets. Kindred’s interest-free, patient loan is an exception, as traditional lenders scrutinise organisations without assets, making borrowing more expensive and sustainability harder to achieve. A revolving credit facility with Key Fund has already improved Make’s position, but greater asset ownership would make operations significantly cheaper – and create more impact.

Without ownership, ageing properties become liabilities rather than assets, draining revenue through maintenance costs. Long-term viability depends on securing structural investment, but without assets, STOs struggle to access it. This issue didn’t matter five years ago, but as Make scales, it has become critical.

Make’s model differs from traditional business because it doesn’t generate large surpluses. In the social economy, risk is defined by the inability to generate profit rather than the ability to pay back loans – this structural issue limits access to money.

The goal is to replicate Make’s Birkenhead model with new projects, including securing ownership of Make Huyton. Currently operating under a short-term peppercorn lease with the council, Make must now demonstrate demand to attract public funding and buy the property. The investment required – £3-£4m – is relatively small in government terms and could be acquired through grants and strategic financing.

Make plans to expand using the ‘wash, rinse, repeat’ model it’s demonstrated in Birkenhead, moving from temporary to permanent spaces. Its approach is based on turning evidence into action – demonstrating demand and using that data to secure funding. A key opportunity lies in the North Docks creative cluster, where Make can collaborate with similar organisations to optimise production, performance and experimentation spaces. By working with partners who have complimentary strengths, Make’ can grow strategically rather than duplicating current facilities.

A similar opportunity exists in Huyton, where it currently operates a temporary space. Make already has more financial security than most arts organisations, yet the sector is known for its short-termism. It plans to break this cycle by building a model that fosters long-term sustainability rather than rapid but fragile expansion.

PLACED specialises in education and engagement around ‘place’ and the built environment, facilitating knowledge and community insights for developers, regeneration specialists and the public sector.

“Everyone’s an expert when it comes to the places where they live, work or spend time,” says founder Jo Harrop. Its work supports people who are traditionally underrepresented to have their voices heard, creating meaningful conversations around the built environment that shape the places we live and work, while supporting and mentoring young people through education programmes that break down barriers to jobs in the built environment.

PLACED is high growth, increasing turnover by more than 40% since investment. Initial investment of £28,000 was used to develop a new website and communication strategy to strengthen its positioning, and the recruitment of an administrator. This involved refining messaging, updating narratives and clarifying objectives to ensure alignment across the team. That investment – alongside corresponding external development – has resulted in steep growth over the last four years: the team has grown from four to eight staff, plus freelance support, reflecting its evolution and increased capacity.

Previously, PLACED faced several challenges. Messaging lacked clarity, making it harder for new team members and external stakeholders to understand the value of PLACED, and administrative burdens placed a strain on Jo’s leadership. And externally, the landscape was shifting, too. Post-Covid, the demand for engagement has surged. PLACED needed to position itself effectively to capitalise on this shift, while safeguarding sustainable growth and long-term impact. PLACED’s investment has made it easier to attract opportunities and articulate its value and the website redevelopment played a crucial role in reinforcing credibility. Additionally, having administrative support has freed Jo up to develop new business opportunities.

The process of securing money from Kindred was itself transformative. It required reflection on the business model, identifying the need for additional capacity and reinforcing the importance of marketing as an essential investment. This mindset shift provided the confidence to hire administrative support, freeing up leadership to focus on strategy and growth. PLACED also used external facilitation sessions to ensure internal alignment, strengthening the team’s cohesion and purpose.

With a larger, more resilient team, PLACED is now focused on solidifying its structure rather than expanding headcount. Promotions and additional responsibilities have increased accountability and organisational capacity. Looking ahead, the team is committed to refining how it measures and communicates its social value and impact. The goal is to influence the sector more effectively and advocate for better practices, particularly in how engagement is commissioned. Advocating a shift towards holistic, integrated commissioning models could deliver greater impact and efficiency, reducing fragmentation while saving valuable resources for public sector clients.

There is also a focus on ensuring that social value commitments translate into genuine, long-lasting hange. PLACED aims to challenge and improve existing practice, advocating for a more accountable and sustainable approach to engagement.