 |
|||
Helping community groups understand how they can grow and diversify incomeCommunity sector trading project: trading to create new income streamsIncome generation workstream, led by acevo, are running a project which aims to help third sector organisations, especially community groups, understand how they can grow and diversify income, by helping them explore trading activities to generate new income streams. The participants will come from voluntary and community organisations who want to consider trading, and their advisers who want to improve the support they offer. Both groups will become more confident and skilled in assessing the viability and sustainability of earned income options. Rather than discussing the issues around transition from grant dependency to earned income, the group will focus on how it can be and has been made to work - what to look for in a business plan, the crucial importance of sensitivity analysis, sources of start-up capital, and the features of a ‘fit-for-purpose’ and ‘ready-for-market’ organisation. We want the project to lead to more informed decision-making about trading, thereby enabling more third sector organisations to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing context. We believe that people learn best from exploring real examples and practicing their own probing and problem-solving skills with inspiration and experience on tap. Understanding enterprise is like art or sport – you need to practice and you need to reflect, preferably with the encouraging input of someone with far more experience in an environment structured for learning. To engage with people all over the country we also want to test the new opportunities offered by the Internet to do the ‘capturing and sharing’ online through Internet conferencing, film, and document sharing. We will be testing both these approaches through a small Test Group made up mainly of DTA staff, before embarking on the action learning set in November 2008. Who should participate?
Timetable20th October 2008: residential session* *to be held at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, in London What is involved?The Action Learning Set will meet face-to-face at the beginning of the programme for a residential session, and the rest of the learning will take place on-line. This initial 24 hour residential will help us to get to know each other and become familiar with the technology we will be using. We will then meet online 6 times in the next couple of months. Each session will last 1.5 hours and will focus on real examples of community organisations that have developed trading. What you will need
Interested?For more information and to apply, contact Vicki Papworth on 07525 236 796 or V.Papworth@dta.org.uk. Deadline for applications: 10 October 2008. |
Search newsNews items can be filtered below or by workstream |
||
 |
|
||
 |
|
|
|
