Fit for the Future: Harnessing the winds of fortune for social impact

Pioneers Post Podcast

What makes a ’Social Business Champion’? In this Fit for the future podcast, produced in partnership with Buzzacott accountants, we explore the brilliant and blustery journey of Point and Sandwick Trust, a social enterprise based in the Outer Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland that built and operates the UK’s biggest community wind farm. Point and Sandwick – winner of this year’s NatWest SE100 Social Business Champion award – has been recognised as leading the way in community renewable energy. Not only does it generate power, but with the income this makes, it also provides significant support for projects and amenities within the local community. One such amenity is Bethesda Hospice, which must find more than £400,000 revenue to provide its crucial services to the islands each year, a significant part of which is provided by the wind farm. In the podcast, Pioneers Post’s Tim West and Eddie Finch from Buzzacott speak to Point and Sandwick director Calum MacDonald about how they have built, funded and sustained this award-winning successful social business through good times and bad – and they also hear from Bethesda Hospice general manager Carol Somerville and finance development officer Joanne Ferguson about the work of the hospice, and the importance that Point and Sandwick has to the local community.