Project Focus: Ten Green Bottles

Starter investments are available to provide a mixture of grant and loan investment.
    
Ten Green Bottles received our first starter investment. They were set up as a social enterprise in Powys in 2007 to research and develop ways of recycling glass and at the same time offer work and training to people with learning disabilities and others excluded from the mainstream workplace. They secured a £30,000 starter investment (grant/loan mix) which they are using for new equipment and improving their business skills.

As their Managing Director tells us, this type of investment will enable the organisation to grow:
 “It has been relatively straight-forward to gain funding for workshops and road shows, but it was much more of a challenge to secure sustainability funding, until we discovered Charity Bank which has enabled us to do real business. They are different, and have given us the tools to become a sustainable business – they have helped us to fly and take our project to the next level. It has been an elegant and seamless process.”
Lorraine Powers, Managing Director.


Social impact
•    Providing volunteering, employment and training opportunities for almost 300 people (many with learning difficulties)
•    Working with the local community, they try and find new and interesting ways to recycle glass
•    Creating innovative ways of using waste glass to reduce amount of waste going into landfills
•    Inspiring people to recycle more of their waste goods, thereby securing a greener future for everyone
•    Providing accredited training in stained glass for people of all ages and abilities