Being Enterprising St Vincent Support Centre

St Vincent’s – charitable activities Free support for families experiencing poverty & disadvantage. Core services include: Debt advice (500 beneficiaries p.a. Costs £60k) Counselling and CBT (100 benef’s. Costs £35k) Adult education, job support, ESOL (500 benef’s. Costs £40k) Supported volunteering programme (100 benef’s. Costs £40k)

Income 2011/12 (approx £300k) 55% 10% 12% 15% 8%

Enterprise attempts to date… Community Cafe Second hand shop High volunteer costs, staffing costs. As above, more of a service than a business due to client group Struggles to break even. More of a service than a business due to target audience Charging for counselling Compromised ethos of St Vincent’s Commissioning debt services Charging social housing providers for priority access for tenants to our debt services, provide financial literacy education to tenants, and basic debt advice training for housing staff. Working with 2 s.h.a. so far. Developing Yorkshire Community Co-operative (Y-CoCo) Great potential but lack of track record making it difficult to secure first contract Hour Leeds Good launch last month, positive media coverage and in the first 2 weeks generated over £2k. Corporate launch planned with Ed Balls fronting.

Becoming enterprising Using and building upon our existing retail experience,volunteer workforce, and access to donated goods… Launching an trading operation

Becoming enterprising Building on a service we currently run internally only at St Vincent’s: Develop a Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) service

The last 3 months….

Advertised & shortlisted for social enterprise co-ordinator Verbal agreements for PAT testing contracts with: –Locala CIC (formerly Kirkless Community Healthcare Services) –Eight voluntary sector organisations across Leeds Ebay regular goods collections agreed with: –Johnston Paints –RING automotive –Food & Environment Research Agency –Yorkshire Bank –9 churches in Leeds Securing staff and contracts:

Looking ahead… Begin trading Secure more contracts

Looking further ahead… Expand staffing resources to allow growth Develop and nurture more contracts Become an ebay ‘broker’ for organisations and individuals Provide more unemployed adults with training opportunities as a route to employment Sustain St Vincent’s charitable work through social enterprise activities.