A guide to third sector trading - WCVA

It’s an idea, but is it business? A guide to third sector trading
1: Getting
started
2: First steps 3: Business
planning
4: Legal and
governance
5: Funding
and
resourcing
6: Financial
controls
7: Managing
growth
8: Management
and
governance
9: Social
enterprise
10: Sources
of support
• You need to put in place:
− clear systems and criteria which specify standards to be
achieved, and how tasks should be carried out to achieve the
best results
− training and information to make everyone aware of legal
requirements, external standards and internal policies
− staff training on quality control generally, and the precise
requirements of their jobs in particular
− defined staff responsibilities for monitoring quality and
taking action
− independent means of assessing the quality of services
provided and expected – eg through regular customer or
client feedback.
Managing business risks: Risk management has traditionally
been a low priority for third sector organisation, although it is
recommended for financial systems by the Charity Commission.
Its value for social enterprise is that an initial review process
identifies and helps to alert staff and directors to weaknesses
in their systems and activities which need to be addressed or
monitored. The approach is based on common sense, but it can
help to improve communications between responsible workers,
and allows difficulties to be pre-empted by better planning.
Ask your accountant or a business advisor for suggestions on how
to go about it in your organisation.
Dealing with the social enterprise tensions
Changing your own priorities – even if you don’t want to: It
is sometimes necessary or desirable in organisations involving
both grant-dependent social activities and sustainable income
generating businesses to give priority to the business activity. This
can amount to the downgrading of a social project which was
previously the heart and soul of the organisation when it started.
And this step can be very difficult.
• Doing what you want: When you start developing social
enterprises, the activities you are most committed to preserving
may not be the ones which earn the most money. They are the
projects and services which provide the motivation and focus
for the directors, staff, volunteers, partners, supporters and
funders. This is probably where the idealism of the organisation
resides, its raison d’être, and its formal charitable objects.
Plenty of people want to be involved in a financially struggling
community newspaper, for instance, but what is the attraction
of its sister printing service producing advertising leaflets
commercially – other than the profits?
209