Beam wins Queen’s Award and is expanding its team

Beam, the social enterprise that crowd-funds employment training for homeless people, has been awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise. Their growing and successful project is now expanding their team.

Beam uses crowdfunding to support homeless people through training and into stable work and housing. Each Beam beneficiary is referred by an established homeless charity or local authority within London. Beam gives them a dedicated caseworker -an employee who helps them develop a tailored career plan based on their unique strengths and interests. Participants then launch crowdfunding campaigns on Beam's website and the money raised removes financial barriers to their further training and development. Learners are then supported into a job with one of more than 50 employer partners. Beam recently received The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of their work promoting opportunity and social mobility.

Beam wasawarded a Ufi grant in 2018 and used it to move its crowdfunding platform from a proof of concept to a scalable digital solution which delivers not only the funding required for training but also peer support and mentoring to help learners into work.

Alex Stephany, Founder and CEO of Beam, said

“Ufi's support allowed Beam to develop a pioneering model and award-winning technology that's supported hundreds of people experiencing homelessness into homes and jobs."

Beam is currently recruiting staff as their project grows and supports more people.