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
8.5 ‘Community ownership’
Not all enterprises in the third sector are community based. But those that are often taken their initial impetus,
objectives, drive and support from disadvantaged communities where they are based. This gives them a particular
need to try to turn the much abused term ‘community ownership’ into some kind of reality. And there can be many
advantages to doing so.
Company membership and community
participation:
• The need for engagement:
− Membership: Many community-based companies such as
development trusts have membership arrangements designed
to involve people who live and work in the areas where they
operate. Membership – and therefore the theoretical control
of the company – is sometimes open exclusively to these
residents. But there is rarely time or energy to sustain and
develop this engagement.
− Support: Evidence of local support can be a critical factor in
persuading backers to provide grant or loan funding.
− Validation: Enterprises need to ensure that their development
proposals chime with their users or with local opinions and
needs, and to take suggestions into account.
− Customers: Enterprises providing local services – such as
crèches, after school clubs, luncheon clubs, community cafes
etc – may need to appeal to potential new customers on a
regular basis.
− Community cohesion: Bringing people together can in itself
be good for communities, and social enterprise trading can
provide the catalyst which goes well beyond the business
activity itself.
• Options: There are many opportunities to meet the public,
though some take more effort and resources than others to
organise. Some of the activities on the following list can often
be combined, particularly to make the Annual General Meeting
into a more substantial and worthwhile event. Options include:
− annual general meetings
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