Strategic Partners

We at EDW aim to provide the best possible solutions to tackle the issues facing our clients and frontline partners.

To this end we have strategic partnership arrangements with key organisations in order to provide a seamless and integrated package of support unparalleled in this area of work. This enables us not only to bring to bear the combined expertise of our individual EDW team members, but also the organisational capacity and resources of our strategic partnership team.

Our Strategic Partnership Team

Charity Bank

The Charity Bank has worked with the EDW team on its UK and international projects, assisting our partners in the development of financial models for their sustainability.

Now in its seventh year of operation, Charity Bank is the world’s first registered charity to also be an authorised bank, and the first bank to exclusively support the third sector. The Bank offers loans or guarantees from £5,000 up to £500,000 for not-for-profit organisations that other banks are either unwilling to consider or offer terms which are too onerous. Working with EDW, the Charity Bank provides expert, timely and highly knowledgeable financial advice and support to our clients and partners in order to help finance and build towards sustainable projects.

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment

EDW is working with the international arm of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment’s Projects and Practice Department.

This department has a multi-disciplinary team of architects, urban designers and urban planners. One of the main aims of the Department is to develop a number of exemplar projects. These will vary in terms of scale and setting and should reveal that attention to timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building can improve the quality of people’s lives. Working with the Foundation facilitates the blending of environmentally sustainable regeneration with practical business support and incubation.

Youth Business International

The Prince’s Youth Business International (YBI) is an international network of programmes that help disadvantaged young people to become entrepreneurs by providing business mentoring, through volunteers and funds.

Through working together, YBI can assist in providing the support necessary to set up volunteer mentoring and access to start-up funds in the form of a loan, without the need for guarantees or collateral. EDW can assist with the training and support required to set up community engagement, outreach and business counselling, training and incubation programmes for young people.

UK Business Incubation

UKBI focuses on high quality, professional incubation, including universities, science parks and social regeneration projects, and has worked closely with the EDW team for many years.

In the context of our collaboration, the combination of EDW’s front line expertise and UKBI’s wider policy expertise provides a complementary offering in the field of ‘community empowerment incubation’ or ‘socially focused incubation’.