Swansea based 2B Enterprising Ltd has set an ambitious target of working with 2,000 primary schools and educating more than 250,000 children over the next 4 years.

The company creates learning and development solutions designed to teach young children to be enterprising whilst introducing them to valuable life skills. Their core proposition, ‘The Bumbles of Honeywood’, is delivered in primary schools in collaboration with community and corporate partners. During the recent lockdown periods 2B Enterprising have also engaged young learners and their parents from all across the UK through the provision of free online learning resources.

Set-up as a part time volunteer group by Sue Poole and Mark Hindmarsh, with the purpose of helping to inspire young children in the local area to be enterprising and entrepreneurial, the two founders have far exceeded original goals. In the last 3 years with help from brand design agency Waters Creative and other friends, the team has published 9 books and created a comprehensive package comprising over 250 activities and learning resources which closely align with the national school curriculum. More importantly they have helped educate over 1,000 children in 20 or so early adopter primary schools in and around Swansea and Cardiff.

Sue Poole comments: “2B Enterprising has flourished and grown to such a point that last summer during lockdown we decided it’s time to turn our little philanthropic venture into a commercial ‘for profit for good’ business that can scale internationally. We’ve experienced incredible interest in our Bumbles of Honeywood proposition both locally and globally including attracting the attention of potential investors who share our future vision. As such we are ready to scale our offering and build the team to support growth and demand”.

By taking a collaborative community approach, much like the honeybees at the heart of the company’s series of books, the company has found ways to overcome barriers that prevent adoption of its programmes in schools, particularly relating to lack of budget funding.

Mark Hindmarsh explains: “Budgets continue to be tight for schools, however we believe lack of budget should not be an impediment to providing children with a quality education, nor should it limit the benefits of access to resources which can enhance their life skills and future aspirations. To remove budget constraint barriers, we developed a novel subsidy model, that we call the Corporate Engagement Partnership Programme (CEPP), by which we identify companies that are willing to subsidise our programmes in the local schools they choose to support at a cost of less than £80 per month per school”.

The company’s CEPP model has enabled 2B Enterprising to support over a dozen schools so far, benefiting hundreds of children to date. On the flipside their Corporate partners including the likes of the Wolfestone Translation, Bevan Buckland LLP, Peter Lynn & Partners to name a few, now have a highly impactful way by which to engage with schools in their local community, in many cases supporting the children of their employees in the process, as part of their wider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) remit.

Mark adds: “As business leaders and employers we are in an ideal position to play a critical role in helping to prepare youngsters for a brighter future, especially as many of them could well be our future employees and customers”.

If you would like to learn more about 2B Enterprising then please visit their website – www.2BEnterprising.co.uk

Or if your business would like to understand how it can support a local school/s via their CEPP model then please contact info@2BEnterprising.co.uk.