20,000 extra tenners up for grabs for enterprising uk students
by James Agate
Enterprise UK’s eagerly anticipated second annual Make Your Mark with a Tenner campaign is doubling in size, offering twice as many students the opportunity to make money and make a difference with a £10 loan.
Thanks to a grant of £250,000 from the Big Lottery Fund there will be more opportunities than ever this year for young people to flex their entrepreneurial muscles; making a profit and social impact.
Bigger and better than ever, the additional funding that Make Your Mark with a Tenner has received from the Big Lottery Fund will enable 20,000 more students to take part in this years campaign bringing the total number of potential participants to an impressive 40,000!
Margaret Cooney, Big Lottery Fund’s Deputy Director Policy and Partnerships (England), said: “BIG has a proud history of supporting projects for young people which give them the skills and ambition to make their lives better. This is a unique opportunity to get some real hands on experience of entrepreneurship with real money, and offers a chance for initiative and creativity to shine through.
“We want Make Your Mark with a Tenner to reach even more young people in the future and this investment will help Enterprise UK to build a solid foundation for the initiative to grow.”
The Make Your Mark with a Tenner ‘bank’ now stands at £400,000 thanks to the £200,000 funding that has already been donated by Dragon and Enterprise UK Chair Peter Jones and social network, Bebo, founders Michael and Xochi Birch.
Commenting on the Big Lottery Fund grant Peter Jones, Chairman of Enterprise UK said: “A bigger Tenner bank is brilliant news as it enables thousands more young people across the UK to make their entrepreneurial ideas happen. We want to empower as many young people as possible to experience entrepreneurial success for themselves. More Tenners mean more young people will get the opportunity to show that age is no barrier to business success, as they use their own ideas to make money and make a difference.”
An incredible 97% of all tenners handed out last year were turned into profit and returned to the tenner bank. Enterprise UK hopes for even greater results this year with twice the number of students participating in the campaign.
