Social Enterprise – Youth Sector Amar Abass, CEO

ABOUT YOUTH ACTION JOURNEY TO SUSTAINABILITY FUTURE LANDSCAPES THE LEADER GROWING THE TEAM

Youth Action… Youth Action is an award winning, dynamic young people’s charity providing a wide range of services to young people aged 8 to 24 years old from across Lancashire and the North West of England. Youth Action was established in 2003, and now has over 6,300 youth members – and this list is growing all the time! Youth Action wants to work towards developing communities where young people are valued, respected and happy. We are committed to helping vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, through our campaigns, research and bespoke projects. We seek to influence policies to ensure that they are more youth friendly and therefore young people have better opportunities in life and have a greater voice in their community. We also passionately pursue the organising of bespoke opportunities to meet the varying needs of young people.

WHAT WE DO Community Engagement Youth Volunteering programmes Mentoring Training courses accredited Social Action programmes Social Enterprise Community Engagement Consultancy Interpretation & Translation Online Virtual Cloud service for sector (cloud computing)

THE JOURNEY TO SUSTAINABILITY Historically most VCFS organisations were grant reliant Labour increased this dependency but did not embed sustainability effectively – current Coalition is seeking to end reliance on grants once and for all (in one Term) New areas for income: Commissioning Trading Contracts Services Classical donations High Net Worth Individuals CSR

THE JOURNEY TO SUSTAINAILITY Youth Action’s journey was: From Destination 2003 to 2006 = 100% grant reliant 0% new areas 2006 to 2009 = 93% grant reliant 7% new areas 2009 to present = 61% grant reliant 39% new areas Going forward – 2015/16 = 0% grant reliant 100% new areas The key ingredient was that there was strong strategic leadership by the Board and the CEO that recognised the issue in 2006/7 and began to implement a new Business Plan from a new vision. We built up our reserves and diversified – in line with our mission and vision!

THE JOURNEY TO SUSTAINAILITY How? CONSORTIUM

FUTURE LANDSCAPES Very challenging environment In 7 to 10 years time the VCFS will most likely shrink to 10% to 15% of what it is today (Canada and USA model we are following) Either you will be very big (national), regional (significant geographical coverage) or very small (volunteer only run) Enterprise (social) will be one of the key avenues for sustainability and growth for our sector Need to embrace change now – we are already a little late, but there’s hope, yet!

KEY CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Become more effective and efficient! Diversify income Develop specialisms and start to Business Model your ‘business’ e.g. FCR, profit margins etc Leadership and legacy strategy Remain true to your mission and vision Don’t forget your service users! Quality standards and effectiveness Benchmark and celebrate!

THE LEADER

THE LEADER "People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives." - Theodore Roosevelt

MY LEADERSHIP JOURNEY Age: 30, married & two adorable children 1 previous job (Public Sector) No real role models (apart from mum!) Grew org from 1 employee to 22 staff and over 125 volunteers Went from Project Manager to ‘CEO’ Steep learning curve Met peers and networked (good support network)

MY LEADERSHIP JOURNEY Attended various training programmes, looked at the same literature about importance of leadership Attended YOSELP and it finally ‘clicked’ – I needed to STEP CHANGE! From my first session I went and did lots of Step Change Culture in Youth Action now much more embracing, developmental, progressive and empowering for all I now focus on leadership and strategy, with a fantastic team helping me and they’re focused on operational management and also stakeholder engagement

GROWING THE TEAM A critical role for any organisation – but you must have the right people in your team! At Youth Action we conducted a Skills Audit and developed a 24 month Development Plan for each member of staff (we also did this for Volunteers too) – linked accredited training to it Embraced the team & formed future plans in consultation Provided leadership at key junctures to ensure progression and overcome stagnation ESSENTIAL!!!

Step Change in leadership, growing the team and business planning Think outside the box Network and join others (grow or die) Have a team to lead! (is there anyone behind you?!) Stick to your mission and vision Believe in yourself!

@AmarAbass @youthactionuk

@AmarAbass @youthactionuk THANK YOU! KEEP IN TOUCH. @AmarAbass @youthactionuk