Action Learning through real examples
This project, funded by the Finance Hub, 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 & 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.
The Learning Style
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. DTA’s Community Enterprise & Investment Manager will act as overall ‘online tutor’ for the learning set, with smaller groups being led by facilitators.
To engage with people all over the country we also want to test the new opportunities offered by Web 2.0 technology to do the ‘capturing and sharing’ online thorugh webinars, internet conferencing, 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 pilot action learning set in January 2008. It is hoped that the approach will be further cascaded following evaluation of the pilot.
Who should participate
- National, regional and local VCS infrastructure organisations
- CVSs and local Change Up partnerships
- Business Link franchise holders
- Regional social enterprise agencies
- SKiLD (Skills & Knowledge in Local Development)
- Trustees of small community groups
- Lead managers of small community groups
- Non-finance specialist managers and generic workers
- We are particularly seeking participation from BME and rural community groups
Why you should participate
Will your organisation or those you advise still be needed after current grants run out? There are fewer and fewer grants available so if you want to survive you need to be planning a different approach, that will need new skills. Most of all you need to be able to recognise a viable trading opportunity and know how to work it up so it’s ready for market.
What is involved
The Action Learning Set will meet face-to-face at a launch session in London or Yorkshire during December 2007 to get to know each other and become familiar with the technology we will be using. We will then meet in a ‘virtual classroom’ online three times during January 2008. Each session will last 1.5 hours and will explore real examples of community organisations that have developed trading activity. The sessions will be interactive with participants presenting the examples in Dragon’s Den style and others providing a constructive assessment.
We will come together again at the end for a fun session where we’ll vote on the best trading idea, the best presentation and the best assessment as well as considering how this learning approach can be cascaded out to others.
How to apply
If you would like to participate in the Action Learning Set, please complete the form Trading to create new income streams flyer.doc and return to Clare Prout on c.prout@dta.org.uk or fax to 0845 458 8337 by the deadline of
Friday 16th November 2007.
A deposit of £100 will be payable from all participants on joining the Action Learning Set. This will be refundable on completion of the programme.
