Enterprise Gateway Bringing enterprise ideas to life through funding, practical support and capacity building.

About the Enterprise Gateway Fund

Enterprise Gateway Fund is a £6 million, three-year fund designed to help small voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations and social entrepreneurs develop new sources of earned income and strengthen long‑term financial resilience.

We are looking for at least four Intermediary Partners to deliver the fund. These partners will combine grants and practical development support to participating organisations and individuals.

Intermediary Partners can apply to Henry Smith Foundation for between £500,000 and £1.5 million over three years. 

Please Note – small organisations and social entrepreneurs cannot apply directly to Henry Smith Foundation for funding. Once our Intermediary Partners are appointed, they will recruit organisations and individuals to take part in the programme.

We know that smaller VCSE organisations and early-stage enterprises can have promising ideas for generating income but often lack the funding, confidence, expertise or practical support to develop them.

The Enterprise Gateway Fund will support organisations and social entrepreneurs at the beginning of this journey: helping them explore an idea, test whether it could work and build the skills and capacity needed to take it further. It will reach places that enterprise support misses, enabling VCSEs and individuals to access the support they need to realise their trading potential.

Enterprise Gateway is part-funded by Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, through the Dormant Assets Scheme. They work to make sure that charities and social enterprises can access the finance they need to sustain or grow their impact, including boosting the resilience of charities and social enterprises through enterprise development.

Key Dates 

Expression of Interest deadline: 5pm, Wednesday 25 November 2026.

What we want to achieve

We want more social purpose organisations and social entrepreneurs to have the opportunity to develop their enterprise model and increase their financial resilience.

Through the Enterprise Gateway programme, we want to:

• Help organisations and social entrepreneurs turn promising trading ideas into practical business plans.
• Help them test and develop new sources of earned income.
• Strengthen their enterprise skills, capabilities and longer-term financial resilience.
• Increase access to enterprise support in communities experiencing high deprivation, including IMD 1–3 areas and where enterprise development support is currently limited.
• Learn what kinds of support work best for organisations at this early stage.

All organisations and social entrepreneurs that this programme reaches must be working within one or more of Henry Smith Foundation’s three strategic priority areas:

• Getting Started
• Building Independence
• Safer Futures

For more details about these funding priorities click here

How the programme will work

Henry Smith Foundation will not make grants directly to individual programme participants.

Instead, we will fund a group of Intermediary Partners. Each partner will recruit and support a cohort of eligible organisations and social entrepreneurs.

We expect Intermediary Partners to offer a package of support that combines:

• Grant funding.
• Practical enterprise development support.
• Opportunities for peer learning and mutual support.
• Connections, networks and other support that can help participants develop their enterprise ideas.

We do not expect every participant to follow the same route. We are interested in approaches that respond to what organisations and social entrepreneurs actually need at different stages of developing their ideas.

Who can apply to us

This funding opportunity is for organisations that want to become Intermediary Partners for the Enterprise Gateway Fund.

To apply, your organisation must: 

• Have an established track record of supporting organisations or social entrepreneurs to develop enterprise or trading activity.
• Have experience of managing onward grants, including appropriate grant making processes, financial controls and data management.
• Be able to design and deliver practical enterprise development support alongside grants.
• Be able to facilitate opportunities for participants to learn from and support one another.
• Have established networks that enable you to reach organisations or social entrepreneurs that have traditionally had limited access to enterprise support.
• Be able to contribute to learning about how enterprise support for smaller organisations can be strengthened.

Intermediary annual income requirement: £500,000

Intermediaries do not need to operate across the whole of the UK. We welcome applications from organisations with strong reach into specific communities or geographic areas where enterprise support is limited.

What the funding can cover

Prospective Intermediary Partners can apply for £500,000–£1.5 million over three years.

Funding will support the delivery of a support package combining:

• Onward grants to participating organisations and social entrepreneurs.
• Enterprise development support.
• Peer learning and networking.
• Programme management, staffing or administration.

We will ask applicants to set out the balance between onward grant funding and the Intermediary’s own delivery costs.

What we will look for

We want to fund Intermediary Partners that can make the programme accessible to organisations and individuals that conventional enterprise support does not always reach.

We will look particularly at:

• Your enterprise development experience 

How well you understand the needs of organisations and individuals at the beginning of their enterprise journey.

Your track record of developing enterprise skills and capabilities.

Your track record of helping people turn ideas into viable trading activities.

• Your reach 

Your ability to reach organisations, individuals and communities that have had limited access to enterprise development support.

We are particularly interested in areas where need is high and existing enterprise support is limited.

• Your approach 

How you will combine financial support with practical advice, capacity building and peer support. We want to fund support that responds to what participants actually need, rather than following a single standardised model.

• Your grantmaking capability 

Your experience of managing onward grants fairly and effectively, including appropriate systems for assessment, payments, monitoring, financial management and data.

• Your contribution to wider learning 

How you will capture and share learning from the programme, including what works, what doesn’t and what could improve enterprise support for smaller organisations in future.

• Your legacy 

How your approach could leave stronger relationships, knowledge, networks or enterprise support capacity beyond the three-year programme.