1. Social Enterprise – Youth Sector
Amar Abass, CEO

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

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. 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

6. THE JOURNEY TO SUSTAINAILITY
Youth Action’s journey was:
From
Destination
2003 to 2006 = % grant reliant
0% new areas
2006 to 2009 = % grant reliant
7% new areas
2009 to present = % 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!

7. THE JOURNEY TO SUSTAINAILITY
How?
CONSORTIUM

8. 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!

9. 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!

10. THE LEADER

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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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!!!

15. 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!

16. @AmarAbass @youthactionuk

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