Dot Dot Dot’s big win with the Big Venture Challenge!

We’re excited to announce that Dot Dot Dot is one of the winners of this year’s Big Venture Challenge, a social ventures programme run by UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs.

The competition was tough. With over 450 social ventures applying to the programme, Dot Dot Dot is one of only 40 organisations selected to be part of 2015’s Big Venture Challenge.

In the final stage of the challenge, our very own Katharine and Peter presented to a Dragon’s Den style panel of investors and business leaders on:

• what Dot Dot Dot currently achieves
• the growing demand for our award-winning property guardian service
• our strategy for growing Dot Dot Dot.

The panel were looking for social enterprises with successful existing models that could be further scaled up, to make the most of the programme’s support and investment.

What does winning mean for Dot Dot Dot?

The Big Venture Challenge has given us a bespoke support package to help us scale up further and spread what we do to more areas of the UK, to work in more communities and to work with different types of building owners.

Last year our guardians gave 20,000 hours to more than 100 different charitable causes. We house more than 100 people at around a third of private sector rent in buildings that would otherwise be empty. Expanding Dot Dot Dot’s work will help us to:

• offer affordable housing to more great volunteers
• provide building security to more to building owners of all kinds
• spread the social impact created through volunteering to more communities and more voluntary and charitable organisations.

We’ll also be able to pitch for up to £100K of match funding which can be used to lever in more social investment. The support package and the investment combined will help take us to the next level and to expand our reach and increase our social impact.

Expanding Dot Dot Dot’s work also means expanding our team!

We have several new roles we’re recruiting for, and pretty excited about the next few months… subscribe to our newsletter to stay tuned and up to date!