Business Plan
for
OPENDOOR
An emerging social enterprise project
presented by
Good4you is a registered charity for disabled and homeless people.
- Contents
2. Executive Summary 4
3. Why? 5
Specialists Required 5
Social Exclusion 6
A Solution 6
Make the Pound go Round 6
4. Organisational Structure 7
The Project Profile 7
Project Organisation 7
Partners 7
Professional Consultants and Advisors 8
5. Mission, Vision, Values 9
Our mission 9
Our vision 9
Our values 9
6. SWOT Analysis 10
7. PEST Analysis 11
8. Risk Assessment 12
What are the risks? 12
Lack of funding. 12
Lack of partners. 12
Lack of trainees. 12
Unacceptable drop-out rate. 13
9. Service Provision. The Internal Perspective 14
Create Value 14
Develop and Add Value 14
10. The Customer Perspective 15
Target Market and Customers 15
Customer Benefits 15
11. The Financial Perspective 16
12. Budget Outline 17
Figures overall 17
Where the money comes from 17
Salaries. 17
Future Jobs Fund 17
Training fees. 17
Gift Aid from HMRC. 18
Train to Gain 18
Office costs, Admin, and Staff salaries. 18
13. Customer Value Proposition 19
14. Market Development 20
15. Action Plan / Timetable 21
Tasks To Do 21
Gantt Chart 21
Enlist an umbrella organisation that links many small charities. 21
Get 200 small charities to contract into the project. 26
Apply for funding. 26
Enlist Trainees. 26
Link trainees to small charities 26
Enter trainees into training and education classes 27
Focus on motivation to keep the ball rolling. 27
16. Training Courses 28
Undergraduates 28
Postgraduates 28
17. Contact us 29
2. Executive Summary
Opendoor is a Social Enterprise Project, being developed by Good4you, a registered charity, which will raise money by providing a range of fundraising services to other charitable organisations. Opendoor has been designated as an ‘emerging’ social enterprise because its primary purpose is aimed at overcoming the social exclusion of disabled people by creating remunerated professional employment opportunities.
Social exclusion is experienced when a door of opportunity is shut in a person’s face and therefore Opendoor is so named because only the person behind the door can open it – the nondisabled person. Business, government and charitable bodies need to invite disabled people into the workplace. Good4you advocates this policy and Good4you practices what it preaches.
On one hand social exclusion is routinely experienced by many of the approx 11 million disabled people in Britain, many of them living in poverty and many of them jobseekers. On the other hand there are 168,000 registered charities in Britain, many of them having a serious problem with fundraising – due in part to a shortage of trained fundraisers. Good4you proposes to match the surplus of disabled jobseekers to the shortage by training them as professional fundraisers with a formal qualification from the Institute of Fundraisers.
This creates a unique niche for Good4you because no other organisation in Britain offers disabled people on-the-job training and education as professional fundraisers.
Over the first three years this self-funding project will cost 12 million Pounds, it will create 200 new jobs, it will train and employ 200 disabled people, and it will generate a net income of 40 million Pounds for 200 small charities (£200,000 per charity).
3. Why?
Specialists Required
Every business in the world has sales staff – people who sell, and who generate income for the business. Survival depends on sales and income, but in the charity sector the income generating function is severely neglected, as though the pursuit of profit, income and money is somehow improper. The notion of “Charity Mugging” causes charities not to ask individuals for funding. Worst of all, the smallest charities are the last to have a trained expert who generates income, and they suffer most. Small charities tend to focus so narrowly on Trust Funding that most of them have more active volunteers than private donors who regularly give with Gift Aid.
The fundraising function in very small charities is very problematic. The work falls on the shoulders of a person who already has a different full time job (e.g. the CEO), and who lacks not only time, but also skill, training or experience in fundraising. Funding trusts claim that application is as easy as filling in a form (easy for them because they know the form and are used to it, but the small charity is faced with a vast array of bewilderingly different forms, each with its own set of instructions, requirements and protocols). Fundraising is a complex, difficult and very taxing job[1].
One cannot be a bus driver because one ‘has been driving for 20 years’. To be a bus driver requires special skill and training, as all modern jobs do. Fundraising is no exception, and traditionally neglected specialist training is sorely lacking in the charity sector.
A shortage of skilled fundraisers represents a serious problem for virtually all charities in Britain.
Social Exclusion
Social Exclusion of disabled people means that they have restricted access to education and jobs. It means that disabled people tend to be poor. Half of Britain’s 11 million disabled people live in poverty. Being poor causes further social exclusion because socially excluded people lack the money to attend movies, parties, hikes in the countryside, seaside resorts, business conferences, and every other kind of normal social event, including visiting friends and family. Their social networks are poorly developed, leaving them more vulnerable to crisis. All these things conspire to further social exclusion, in a vicious circle.
Unemployment rates are higher than normal for disabled people. There is a correspondingly higher rate of jobseekers among disabled people – a surplus of jobseekers.
A Solution
Apply the surplus of jobseekers to the shortage of fundraisers. It is fairly clear that training disabled jobseekers as fundraisers will ease pressure with regards to both problems.
Make the Pound go Round
Make the Pound go Round refers to the Good4you policy of trying to keep money circulating in the third sector. Fundraising deals with the difficult job of coaxing cash to cross over from business to charity. By creating jobs in the third sector Opendoor will help to prevent the flight of money out of the third sector.
4. Organisational Structure
The Project Profile
This venture has both charitable and business aims and objectives. Its primary charitable aim is to train and educate disabled people, because as education levels increase, so the rate of unemployment decreases. A secondary charitable aim is to invest in the ‘third sector’ of the economy by training people to work that sector. Achieving these aims will be funded by donations and grants.
The business aim is to provide fundraising services to charities that find fundraising difficult because their staff lack the specialist skills required for the job. These services will be funded by correct budgeting in the fundraising activities that the fundraisers do. By that it must be understood that every project should, correctly, include a proportion of overhead and staff costs. The fundraiser’s salary is included in the staff costs. Not as a commission, but in the same way as all other salaries (managers, receptionists, clerks, etc).
Project Organisation
This will be a joint venture for 200 small charities. Each charity will be allocated a dedicated fundraiser who will do fundraising for that charity and its allies (i.e. the charities it supports). Each small charity will guide and mentor its fundraiser.
The small charities will not pay the fundraiser, Good4you will. This means that the payroll, leave register, PAYE, insurance, and management functions are centralised instead of duplicated. Good4you will act as fundraising broker for all the small charities, in exactly the same way as CAF acts as a broker for all Payroll Giving transactions. As CAF is funded from the cash that flows through its account, so will Good4you.
Each fundraiser will be employed by for Good4you, but will work for the benefit of one of the small charities. Consequently all funds raised will be processed via Good4you, in exactly the same way that CAF works. The difference, however, is that the fundraiser may well end up being based at the small charity because that is where the fundraiser will become part of the ultimate benefitting organisation and project. Fundraisers will get actively involved with the small charity, its finances and activities in at least three ways:
1. Trust applications
2. Organising sponsored charity events
3. Organising regular giving from individuals
In return the small charity will make the fundraiser a part of their team, guide, mentor and train the fundraiser. the relationship between the fundraiser and the small charity will be an interactive reciprocity.
Partners
There will be two kinds of partner, Organisational Partners and Small Charities.
Organisational Partners will be those partners who help to make the project happen.
Remploy will help to recruit trainee fundraisers.
London South Bank University and the Institute of Fundraising will provide education.
The Department of Work and Pensions, through the Future Jobs Fund, will provide funding.
Merton Volunteer Centre will provide volunteer staff for the project office.
The Small Charities Coalition will be asked to help recruit small charities.
The small charities will enter into one to one relationships with the trainee fundraisers.
Professional Consultants and Advisors
It is exceedingly difficult to name, acknowledge and thank all the people and organisations who have contributed, and will contribute, valuable help and advice to the project. Most of them do so on a one to one ad hoc basis, in quiet interviews over cups of tea.
There are several regular consultants and advisors to Good4you:
David Jackson, Chartered Accountant (Retd)
Prof Geoff Turner, PhD, MBA, BA (Acctcy), CMA
James Dixon, M.St in Community Enterprise (Cantab), Dip.M. Social Enterprise Practitioner
Kathleen Trigg, Business Analyst
Lauren Hannon B Sc, Multimedia Consultant, Moomedia
Loïs Acton, Television Producer and Director, Founder of Urban Unlimited
Dr Philip Timms, Psychiatrist
Richard Gordon BSc, Multimedia Consultant, Moomedia
Dr Steve Hazell, Pathologist
Dr Toni Hazell, General Practitioner
5. Mission, Vision, Values
Our mission
Is to end the social exclusion of disabled people.
Our vision
Centuries ago all disabled people were socially excluded to the point of homelessness and blind beggars were common. Two world wars caused society to address disability and so to remove people with obvious disabilities from the streets. People with unseen disabilities are still socially excluded to the point of homelessness. By addressing their disabilities we can remove them from social exclusion, just as blind people have been emancipated. Ending sexism and racism are way ahead of ending disabilism. We work toward ending disabilism.
Our values
Practice what we preach. We strive to provide ethical employment that includes enhancing education, work from home, and flexitime for disabled people.
6. SWOT Analysis
StrengthsThe people driving Opendoor are competent and experienced and the proposal:
· Has been well researched.
· Complements stated Central Government strategic initiatives.
· Has support from the Future Jobs Fund and charities.
· Will utilise substantial User Input and Co-production principles.
· Has a flexible innovative design.
· Demonstrates ‘public value’ and will offer a Social Return on Investment.
· Has long term benefits for 200 disabled people.
· Lacks creditable competition. / Weaknesses
· New business start-up
· Lack of established market presence or customer base
· High investment costs in paying for education and salaries
· Attempting to manage a wide range of conditions
· Untried combination of elements
· Need to develop a new staff team
Opportunities
· Government’s focus on critical needs is creating demand for new services that socially include severely marginalised people
· Erosion of statutory sector provision
· Emerging demand for bespoke customer
services delivered in a community setting
· To develop the third sector to relieve pressure on Government services
· Failure of commercial sector to meet demand
· To utilise the abilities of disabled people / Threats
· Clients may not engage with new service
· Clients might drop out
· Client resistance because of security of benefits vs risk of employment
· Dependency on raising new start-up capital & project funds
· Lack of enthusiasm from organisations that might be able to help
· Possible resistance from Charity Funding Trusts who dislike professional fundraisers[2] as ‘middlemen’
7. PEST Analysis
PoliticalOpendoor is a direct response to several UK Government Strategy Initiatives:
· Social Exclusion Task Force
· Unemployment
· Social impacts of the recession
· The Future Jobs Fund
· Access to Work
· Train to Gain
· Third Sector Development
· Gift Aid
· The Payroll Giving Scheme / Environmental
· Disabled people often have Freedom Passes and thus use fewer cars
· Work from home by internet elements will reduce transport requirements
· The nature of fundraising means that the job has a relatively low carbon footprint
Social
The enterprise will:
· Meet the increasing demand for professionally qualified fundraisers.
· Reduce the time spent by trustees and ‘front-line’ service providers in writing funding applications.
· Enable some currently unemployed people to obtain paid employment.
· Enable people to continue with their further education and to obtain recognised professional qualifications.
· Provide people, who are participating in employment and educational programmes, with an attainable career opportunity.
· Encourage participating ‘trainees’ to develop new interests generally and so increase confidence and self-esteem. / Technological
The enterprise will:
· Use IT technology in a positive and constructive way to improve the efficiency of fundraising by making use of on-line funding applications.
· Use social networking technology to access and maintain contact with potential and actual donors.
· Develop a dedicated website as a means of maintaining contact for participants, donors and other supporters and for publicising events and information, recruiting staff and volunteers and for promoting the service.
8. Risk Assessment
What are the risks?