IMBY develops and manages projects, provides services and representation, and offers consultancy, to grow the Social Firms Sector in Yorkshire and the Humber. Working closely with Social Firms UK’s ‘Building on the Best’ programme, it aims to facilitate the creation of at least 30 Social Firms over the next three years, offering a minimum of 120 jobs.  

IMBY has driven the ‘EQUAL’ funded Social Enterprise Partnership in Yorkshire and the Humber since 2002, supporting the development of social enterprises and social enterprise networks in the region (including Social Enterprise Y&H and Social Firms Y&H), and is specifically leading on the ‘catalyst entrepreneur’ model of Social Firm development in relation to enterprises across the region, including a coffee business, a pub/hotel, and a social business centre.

More locally, and following on from IMBY’s successful Social Firm European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project in South Yorkshire that finished in September 2004, IMBY is working with the Objective 1 Team and with Yorkshire Forward to launch Saddleback 2 in July 2005 – a refined version of the original Social Firm development project – and to replicate the approach in the rest of the region in 2006 and 2007.

‘Social Firms Yorkshire and the Humber’, a new network funded by EQUAL and by Social Firms UK, was launched in 2004.  IMBY provides an operational arm for the network which meets across the region twice a year.

Building on the Best – Yorkshire and the Humber:  As a result of a successful funding bid to the Department of Trade and Industry’s Phoenix Fund, and in line with developments throughout the UK, IMBY is working with Social Firms UK to identify Social Firms and models of Social Firm that can be replicated or franchised.  At the time of writing, IMBY is looking to import a soap products retail business to Whitby, a packaging business to Wakefield, an aquarium maintenance business to Hull, and to test out a Social Firm café model in South Yorkshire.  IMBY is looking to develop its own model of Social Firm Pub/Hotel and Temps employment agency for replication elsewhere.

IMBY has received European funding for the last four years, co-financed by the Learning & Skills Council, to develop organisational capacity and to co-ordinate the delivery of training, skills development and supported employment in the disability sector in South Yorkshire.