Yesterday the short-listed finalists in the CMS Missional Entrepreneurship competition pitched their ideas to a special ‘Dragons’ Den’ at Greenbelt Festival. After much grilling and deliberation, the dragons announced Miriam Goodacre as the winner.
The winning idea is for Clean Living, a social enterprise employing cleaners in the City of London for the London Living Wage of £8.80 per hour. Profits secured by the business will then be re-invested in personal development for those employed. This could include English language classes and the teaching of basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Miriam was awarded the prize of a free place on the Missional Entrepreneurship Week at Pickwell Manor in Devon which takes place from 16-21 November 2014, to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Miriam said of her win, “I’m delighted that the dragons liked my idea and I’m looking forward to learning some of the business skills that will be essential in seeing my vision become reality.”
Shannon Hopkins, co-leader of the Missional Entrepreneurship Week and also one of the Greenbelt dragons, said, “All of the finalists had fantastic ideas for positively transforming the lives of people in their communities and gave good, strong and engaging pitches. However, we thought Miriam made the clearest case for the potential of a financially viable business out of her idea. I hope we will be able to work with all of them though and see each of the innovative initiatives that were presented get up and running.”
Jonny Baker, director of mission education for CMS, commented, “Our winner is actually employed in the church where CMS appointed its first missionaries, St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe! It’s an exciting and unexpected reminder that even after over 200 years we are still enabling Christians, who’ve been inspired by the Holy Spirit, to develop creative solutions for challenging injustice and extending the Kingdom of God for the benefit of all.”