What is The Sarah Dodds Enterprise Accelerator?
The overarching aim of this fund is to contribute to the development of inspirational initiatives and individuals that Sarah would have committed time and resources to.
The aim of the SDEA is to match early stage social initiatives with high-quality MBA graduate calibre individuals for internships that will focus on capacity-building and investment readiness. Internships and associated costs will be financed from funds raised in Sarah’s memory and supported in a wider context by pro bono commitments from her network. The purpose of these matchings will be two-fold:
- To prepare the social initiative for scale – moving it towards sustainability, success and greatly increased impact, and
- To inspire and educate MBAs, influencing their career choices and further ‘mainstreaming’ social and environmental change into the MBA process.
The fund was set up in 2008 and is managed by the following Advisory Committee: Rachel Dodds, Ben Metz, Jessica Shorthall, Paul Cheng.
To find out more, including how to apply or how to support the fund please navigate using the links above..
Sarah Dodds was a social innovator who was passionate about capacity building for early-stage, high potential social enterprises and social businesses. Through her work launching Accenture’s well-known ADP (Accenture Development Partnerships), her work at Crisis and boutique consultancy projects and later her role as Director of Ventures for UnLtd, the UK’s foundation for social entrepreneurs, Sarah identified a crucial gap in the current support mechanisms available to social entrepreneurs. She focused on early-stage enterprises that had achieved some level of “proof of concept” but which were in need of business thinking and operational improvements to create a platform for growth.