Our team works regularly with social enterprises to help them develop and grow.
Like more conventionally owned businesses, the underlying business development needs of a social enterprise are the same. A good social enterprise wants to:
Become more business-like,
Operate more efficiently and effectively, and
Generate more income, ideally through trading, so as to
Become more sustainable which, in turn, reduces reliance on grants.
All while delivering their social aims.
We work with social enterprises at all stages of their development from pre-start to long established businesses. Needs vary so our services to social enterprises vary too.
Typical services the GAP team deliver to social enterprises include:
- Classic Growth, Development, Strategic and Business Plans: every business, including social enterprises need these classic development documents. We’ve extensive experience in providing these documents, along with robust financials, in formats suitable for both grant funding applications and for commercial lending.
- Options Appraisals: researching and presenting, if it exists, a robust business case for taking an idea or ideas forward.
- Feasibility Studies: is a proposed idea feasible . . . or not? We work with the social enterprise to determine, firstly, if the idea is feasible and, secondly, will it generate a suitable, sustainable income.
- Assets Monetisation: working with social enterprises to see if they can monetise assets whether physical (buildings or land) or intellectual (through licensing programmes, products or service models).
- Community Buildings: groups and communities often want to put heart back into their local community by re-purposing redundant buildings or creating new buildings. We know it’s not the initial fund raising that’s the real challenge – the real challenge comes in making a centre sustainable, day after day, year after year. That’s why we always work on a robust business case which vividly demonstrates the scale of the task needed once the building is up and running.
Community Asset Transfers (CATs) are a particular strength of the GAP team: here, we work with organisations to make sure their plans are robust and the financials stand up to scrutiny.
We’re realists and, if your proposed project doesn’t work, we’ll say so. It’s all too easy to be carried away with a project and ‘making it work’ but sometimes that project will never work. We often hear ‘We hated what you said at the time as it was cold water on our dreams. You were right though: if we had gone ahead, we’d’ve damaged the wider organisation’.
To talk social enterprises, call Jo: 077 333 94 641 or email jo@gapcomm.co.uk