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
• Improving the effectiveness of charities and community
groups: Trading can have a massive impact on the effectiveness
of the parent body by
− introducing more business-like management practices
throughout
− widening the range of specialist management skills: just one
new management job can bring in an array of new talents,
often in areas such as business and personnel management,
and finance
− improving the flexibility of staff at all levels simply by making
more people available
− improving technology and other resources – eg by making
new shared equipment available.
• Job creation: Intermediate labour market projects, social firms
and some community businesses are established wholly or
largely in order to create jobs and training opportunities for
unemployed people.
• Informal training and personal development: It is seldom
a primary motivation of trading organisations to improve
skills and confidence by creating voluntary work and informal
training opportunities. But this is one of the most widespread,
immediate and effective products of 30 years of community
development, both in deprived communities and among
charities serving the needs of disadvantaged groups of
people. Far from being second best, this type of training is
frequently the only viable building block for lives blighted by
high unemployment and social isolation which mainstream
government schemes have failed to address. Beneficiaries
frequently include:
− young unemployed people
− adults who have experienced redundancy
− women returning to the labour market
− unemployed people from ethnic minorities
− people with learning and physical disabilities
− people with mental health problems.
22