In the UK there is a foundation called UnLtd. It funds and supports social entrepreneurs to develop and grow their social projects.

Their network includes partners and funders who work together to provide support which, over time, has a positive impact on society.

Our friends at The London Orchard Project, a charity dedicated to replanting community orchards, have a similar story with their name. As they started working in cities outside of London, they changed their name to The Urban Orchard Project. Then when they started working outside of urban spaces, they changed the name for a third time to The Orchard Project. This is a lot of work! So avoid this from the start by choosing a more inclusive and adaptable name.

When we named the project Made In Hackney, it was influenced by the first funding bid we applied for which was about local food. If we’d been thinking about launching a national plant-based food education organisation – which we are today – we would have called it something else.

Made In Hackney does limit us but due to the fact we have a reputation we have kept the name so far. In the future, we may launch a sister/umbrella organisation for our national/international work with a less localised name.

When Made In Hackney started, it was a two-year project but we had to do a five-year business plan. This completely changed in the first two months which was quite a shock – but a great learning process in being nimble and dynamic!

We learned that the venue and people were vital in what we needed to do, which is why building a team from the start is so important. We also thought we would make income from selling products but that was not scalable to the level required, so we had to diversify our enterprise activities and we decided to bring in paid-for masterclasses instead.