• Effective, affordable, local training and more!

Training & organisational support services

Cascade is the largest social purpose training organisation based in the South West, providing training and other practical support to businesses, charities, other community groups and the public sector. We are however, small enough to react quickly and flexibly to customers' requirements.

Hundreds of different organisations have used our services over the last 7 years and many return to us time after time, because we provide great value, high quality, practical and effective training solutions.

Cascade is a not-for-private-profit business & proud holder of the Social Enterprise Mark!

All of Cascade's trainers are knowledgeable professionals who are highly regarded in their fields of expertise and our courses are very participative in order to maximise practical application and shared learning.

In addition to ‘open access' training courses, we provide affordable ‘in house' and bespoke organisational development services across the region, marketing services, fundraising and income generation/business development support, a bursary scheme for small community & voluntary groups and we offer free help with training needs analyses.

Our main aim is to fill gaps in training provision and to respond quickly to the changing development needs of those we work with. Encouraging shared learning and the ‘cascading' of information within and between organisations is central to all that we do. Cascade is also the co-ordinating body of the Grassroots Social Enterprise Network in Somerset.

From time to time, Cascade undertakes work on behalf of other organisations. During 2012-13 we successfully delivered a contract, on behalf of CASAP, that included a training needs assessment of the city's ‘Third Sector', delivering training to the sector and setting up a training consortium to develop the skills, capacity and knowledge of VSOs to enable them to be more enterprising and secure a more sustainable future. This work was a TLI/BIG funded initiative and carried out in collaboration with other local providers. Further information about the project and the final evaluation can be viewed here.

Cascade was set up in 2007 by Founder Director Lindy Booth, an experienced Fundraising and Development Manager who is a graduate of the Cosmic Lively Pioneer Leadership in Social Enterprise programme. Fellow Directors are Lauren Evans, (an experienced HR Manager) and Patricia Marks (Somerset Business Agency Director and Chair of the Taunton & District Branch of the Federation of Small Businesses). Cascade's office is located in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Trading Since

2010