Pro-bono Support Helps at Grassroots Level
"Without the professional input we received through ProHelp, I fear we may have become insolvent within a year," says Chris Brown from Grassroots Training, a Brighton-based community interest company providing training and consultancy to support a community model of suicide prevention. Grassroots are specialists in suicide prevention and deliver training that saves lives. The organisation believes that suicide is a community health problem and that suicide can be prevented and works to educate and train to help achieve these aims. It's worrying to think that an organisation doing important work could face such a challenge especially since the solution can be as simple as access to professional input and advice. But it's a common problem amongst social enterprises where organisations don't typically have access to the type of expert business knowledge and professional support to make their operations the success they deserve to be.
"It's a common problem faced by social entrepreneurs," says Emma Mongan from Business Community Partnership. "Many of these organisations are adept at delivering the social outcomes of their operation, but either lack the experience, or don't have access to the expert knowledge and professional input that's needed to make the business side a success. This is partly what our ProHelp programme is here to address; providing opportunities, like free surgeries, so that social enterprises can engage with business experts to get the advice and support they need to make their ventures a success."
Grassroots were able to access this type of invaluable professional support through a ‘Make it Happen' session organised by ProHelp. This is a practical and supportive exchange which is designed to give organisations access to the input of social enterprise experts. Chris said: "At a time when the recession was hitting us hard, where we felt like we were floundering as a business and facing a real danger of insolvency, we were able to access professional support that enabled us to make changes to the way our business worked and gave us a much needed change of emphasis in our organisation. The strategic input of the experts was particularly helpful and highlighted the need for us to stop (unconsciously) identifying as a charity and to start thinking like a business. This helped us to realise that we were very social and not very enterprising and that we needed to put more emphasis on the business side of our operation."
As well as the ‘Make it Happen' session, Grassroots were also able to access business planning and accountancy advice through ProHelp surgeries. "We had been experiencing some cashflow issues, but through the surgeries we were given specific advice that gave us a better understanding of our organisation's difficulties and provided us with practical solutions. The BCP ProHelp process has resulted in practical actions that will help us to improve our financial monitoring and reporting and put us on the path to achieving our goals as a Social Enterprise."
The professional input of these experts helped Grassroots to take a step back and plan the business aspect of their operation more effectively. With the help and time, which is provided by these professionals on a pro-bono basis, Grassroots decided to free up capacity for the business side of their enterprise, focusing primarily on marketing and sales in order to generate more revenue to fund their social commitments. They also implemented the strategic advice that they received in order to help balance their strategy, focussing on business development and financial return as well as social return in less than six months. This change in emphasis has already helped to boost the organisation's bottom line and has resulted in a £20K contract to deliver training funded by Brighton and Hove City Primary Care Trust.
Chris said: "Our capacity is still very limited, but thanks to the input we've received we have more clarity about where we are going and have produced a three year business plan to get us there. Our aim is to be robust and resilient by developing a diverse range of long and short term income streams including sales, contracts and project funding; and we hope that by placing more emphasis on the enterprise side of our operation we will be able to deliver more on our social commitment."
ProHelp offers local businesses the opportunity to make a real difference to the success of community organisations that have big plans and limited resources. By offering ‘in-kind' practical advice and support, they can support the vital contribution those organisations make to the local community and help them to achieve sustainability in the long term. Nationally, ProHelp is the largest provider of free professional support to local communities through a network of over 1,000 businesses. Annually members provide £6m worth of ‘in kind' support to the community. The Business Community Partnership brings partnership expertise and local knowledge to enhance the ProHelp programme in Brighton and Hove.
For more information about BCP's ProHelp network visit www.bhbcp.org.uk or call 01273 770075.
Businesses that kindly offered their support to Grassroots include:
Ken Harrison
Rebecca Luff
Simon Bottrell (7 Creative)
Judith Cousins (JB Eventus)
David Martin & Cara Bushell (Mazars)
Total value of pro-bono support: £1225
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