Application Deadline:
Monday 25th July 9am

Awards Reception:
Tuesday 1st November

Eligibility

Interested in applying to the 2022 awards? This section sets out the eligibility criteria for each of the awards and some generic judging criteria that apply to all awards. A big thank you to our sponsors for their support in making the Social Enterprise Awards Scotland possible.

Who can apply?

Who can apply depends on the category that you are entering.

If you are a Scotland-based social enterprise organisation you can apply for:

Category 1 –Social Enterprise of the Year Scotland

Category 2 – One to Watch

Category 3 – Market builder award (also open to private and public sector organisations)

Category 4 – Health & Social Care award

Category 5 – Environmental Social Enterprise

You can nominate an individual working or volunteering in a Scottish social enterprise for:

Category 6 – Social Enterprise Champion (all eligible entries for this category will be recognised in the event)

You can apply for the market builder award if you are public sector, private sector or third sector/social enterprise organisation:

Category 3 – Market Builder Award (open to public and private sector organisations too)

Social enterprise eligibility criteria

If you are entering any of the above categories your organisation must be a Scottish-based business that defines itself as a social enterprise using the following criteria:

The business:

  • Has a clear social or environmental purpose that is set out in its governing documents.
  • Is an independent business and has a commitment to income generation. *
  • Is controlled or owned in the interests of the social purpose.
  • Reinvests or distributes at least half of its profit/surplus towards its social purpose.
  • Is transparent about how it operates and the impact that it has.

* This is generally set out as earning more than half of its income through trading (or working towards this) though we recognise this may have been more challenging in 2020/2021 and this will be taken into account by our panel.

Generic judging criteria

Please remember that your application will be judged against a set of generic criteria:

  • Business/Sustainability of the organisation
  • Impact/Evidence
  • Mission/values
  • Strength of reason to win

In addition to this in the appendix are category-specific criteria which you can find in the category descriptions.

Download our information sheet for a summary of information you will be asked to provide during the online application process.

Application Deadline: