Key dates and achievements

• Social enterprises and their networks discuss establishing a national voice
  
  
• Baroness Glenys Thornton hosts an initial meeting of founding members
  
  
• A national charter for social enterprise calls for the creation of a national voice

• The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) is legally constituted as a Company Limited by Guarantee
  
  
• The All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Enterprise is established
  
  
• SEC website is launched
  
  
• Jonathan Bland is appointed as SEC's first Chief Executive and a staff team is recruited
  
  
• SEC consults on how the Community Interest Company should be established

• SEC takes on the Enterprising Solutions Award, the national awards for social enterprise
  
  
• SEC holds the first national conference for social enterprise, Voice, which sells out with 800 delegates and is addressed by three government ministers
  
  
• SEC launches a manifesto for social enterprise
  
  
• Social enterprise appears in both the Labour and Liberal Democrat election manifestos
  
  
• SEC helps to create and promote 'Social Enterprise Day' as part of 'Enterprise Week'

• SEC organizes a social enterprise tour for David Cameron MP and the Conservative Shadow Cabinet
  
  
• Voice06 sells out for a second time and is opened by former Prime Minister, Tony Blair
  
  
• Successful lobbying ensures social enterprise is included in the Health White Paper
  
  
• A social enterprise unit is established at the Department of Health
  
  
• SEC mounts a major campaign promoting social enterprise as a business model
  
  
• SEC coordinates input into the HM Treasury 'Third Sector Review' and into a new social enterprise action plan with the Cabinet Office
  
  
• 300 people attend the Enterprising Solutions Awards
  
  
• The former Prime Minister hosts a social enterprise roundtable discussion
  
  
• Gordon Brown MP hails social enterprise as the "new frontier for British business"
  
  
• Voice07 features the competition "New Ideas New Business" and sells out for a third time
  
  
• Ivan Lewis MP announces the creation of a £73m investment fund to support social enterprise in the health and social care sector