Helping people to develop skills for a changing world

Black Pound Day (BPD) is a social enterprise encouraging consumers to #SpendBlack on the first Saturday of every month. Since 2020, Google has partnered with BPD to raise awareness of the movement and offer Black entrepreneurs mentoring and training to support their growth.

Together, BPD and Google took over an issue of TimeOut, launched branded gift guides and an influencer campaign, and partnered with the Guardian to drive the #SpendBlack message.

Over the course of the partnership, 2,600 Black-owned businesses in the UK have been trained.

Google and Enterprise Nation joined forces to help local businesses across the UK reach more customers by improving their online presence. Every business that requests a mentor gets all the benefits of Enterprise Nation membership, including invitations to flagship festivals, and access to groups of like-minded owners.

In 2022, Enterprise Nation ran a 5-day digital bootcamp specifically for Wandsworth businesses. They hosted webinars on topics designed for existing small businesses with little or no digital presence, and new businesses looking to boost their online profile.

Google has partnered with BT to offer free 1-to-1 mentoring and virtual digital skills training for Small Business owners and entrepreneurs. To date, we have trained and mentored over 9,000 users in the UK.

The mentoring programme pairs users with digital experts from BT and Google - offering advice and support on topics related to digital marketing, keeping businesses safe online, and more.

Google has joined forces with Visit England, the UK’s national tourism agency, to deliver a series of free Business Recovery webinars, developed with tourism at their core and designed to address the specific challenges faced by the industry in a post-pandemic world.

The webinars discuss business needs, and provide users with practical insights, tips, and guidance to help drive the nation’s tourism recovery forwards.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) partnered with Google in 2020 to support 9,000 UK candidates in career development. The partnership provides individuals with Google Career Certificate and delivers a series of remote webinars to help users build their CVs, write stronger cover letters, and define their career goals.

Uptake was positive - over 5,000 users in 5 regions were trained in 2020, with webinars continuing remotely through 2021. Face-to-face training resumed in 2022, when Google Digital Garage mentors visited JobCentre Pluses in Watford, Ashford, Maidstone and Alloa to help guide mentees on their career development journey.