Real-life Tales of Earning - Kids Cookery School

Using a variety of funding streams

The Kids Cookery School

The origins and aims of the school.
Services they provide.
The property.
Non-financial assets and resources.
Planning.
Funding.
Earning.
A recipe for success according to the Kids Cookery School.

The origins and aims of the school

The Kids Cookery School "aims to promote the advancement of education in the field of cookery and nutrition for children and their families in the area of West London".

This is the story of the schools journey towards financial sustainability. It is sprinkled with quotes of tips and explanations that they shared with me when I went to see them in November 2003.

The school started in the kitchen of its founder Fiona Hamilton-Fairley in 1995, where where she taught a handful of young children basic cookery skills. In 1998 she decided to turn KCS into a registered charity, and then set about trying to find a suitable site where she could teach more children, particularly those with special needs.

"It takes approximately 6-8 weeks to acheive Charitable Status. Plus there is a lot of paperwork and a lot of foundation work that needs to be completed before applying, so don't forget to account for this time."

Services provided

The School runs a range of cookery classes, and other projects varying from after school clubs to special needs tailor-made cookery sessions. They have taught 6500 people since April 2000.

The key aim is to promote the importance of healthy eating to all children from aged 3 and onwards, and when they got the building they were able to pursue their mission of inclusion more easily. So that in their first full year in Acton from 2000-2001, 52% of their students were awarded assisted places, 42% were from ethnic minorities, and 25% had special needs. These figures have further improved to 66% assisted places, 45% from ethnic minorities, and 30% special needs in 2003.

The classes involve a small group of children creating a savoury dish which they eat at the School for lunch or take away with them. New groups start by making a home-made pizza, which enables them to discuss the need to be healthy, and the origin of all the ingredients they use.

"There is a legal requirement for the ratio of adults to children in teaching environments. We find the optimum number to be no more than 12 children to two teachers, or at least one qualified teacher and one assistance. The ratio changes should a child have special needs and need one-to-one supervision or additional help. All courses are tailor made, therefore the ratio of children to adults changes constantly."

There is also an outreach worker and nutritionist funded by the New Opportunities Fund who visits schools and plays games with the children where they have to smell and taste different types of food.

"KCS is not totally building based and we deliver outreach work to other schools and organisations. However it is very difficult to do cookery work in other peoples premises due to insurance and health and safety, and the lack of appropriate facilities."

They run after school clubs which are usually publicised through community groups and existing after-school clubs. They also run a course for over 14 year olds, through which they can gain a qualification accredited by The London Open College Network. These are just a few examples of what they do, and they have added to these projects gradually over the last few years, getting involved with nurseries, community groups, refugee groups and local schools. They now have as many as 18 different projects running at anyone time.

The property

Fiona found a property in 1999 in Acton. She then almost single-handedly raised £100,000 to equip the property with a large kitchen and the facilities necessary to accommodate physically and mentally handicapped children.

"There was a lot to be aware of because obviously, when working with children, risk assessment, and health and safety are paramount. We had to meet fire regulations and have regular inspections from environmental health."
"When developing a property all the health and safety issues have to be factored into the costs at the beginning. Not just the costs of the materials, and labour at the time, but also the time it takes for a member of staff to be around each time the place is inspected. Similarly, because we keep up to date with all our own basic first aid and basic hygiene certificates you have to take account of the fact that you have to pay for people's time to do these courses, as well as the fees."
"We had to register under the Children's Act, because even though we are a registered charity we couldn't receive money from the local authority unless we were inspected by OFSTED. Being registered with them also means that we don't have to pay to have all our staff police checked, which is crucial when working with children, and normally costs money."

The School is smaller than its reputation implies. It is split into 3 sections: An office which is also the reception area and doubles as a dining room where children can enjoy the food that they have created. A wide corridor which houses toilets which are fully kitted out for people with physical disabilities, and the kitchen. This is split into green, yellow, purple and red areas, each of which are fully fitted self-contained kitchens.

The office is small for three full-time staff so in 2003 they rented some space in an office next door for £600 per quarter. This cost is manageable, because along with all other overhead costs it is factored into the budget for each of the individual projects they provide. This is a key reason why KCS have been successful. They don't separate their 'core' or overhead costs from the cost of teaching each child, but have calculated the total cost of teaching that child. This includes a percentage of the heating costs, wages for the teacher, property rental and so on.

"Funders find this 'unit cost' approach much more palatable because they can clearly see that for this amount of money we can teach this amount of children, with no hidden costs."

Non-financial assets and resources

The school has been successful because they have utilised all the resources available to them, aside from money. Every organisation has assets which it can use to its advantage which may be not be obvious in the accounts, such as staff experience, and contacts.

Experience such as Fiona's for example has clear benefits for the School. She has set up her own catering company in Germany, and established a party catering service back in England, which gave her the skills to plan the early stages of the School. She has also had training in delivering presentations, media communications and public speaking, which all mean that she is able to successfully market the School and negotiate corporate sponsorship deals.

She has taught in Adult Education in many different London boroughs, and therefore has the skills necessary to plan classes, and also to negotiate with the local schools about fees. Perhaps most importantly she has a love for education which has given her the drive and determination to ensure the success of the School, proving that personal determination can itself be an valuable resource.

Between them the five full-time staff have experience in teaching cookery in colleges and universities, training in working with special needs children, training in Food Hygiene, and guidance and counselling skills.

Plus many of their patrons come from the world of cookery, and bring to the school culinary expertise and media experience.

"We are very privileged in having a team of people who are extremely competent in their duties as well as being highly dedicated to their cause."

Contacts, and personal relationships can also be crucial. In the case of KCS, the local community have been behind them from the beginning because they were not competition for any other local business, and most of the service users are local people. This has helped in local fundraising, and also in the marketing of the schools projects through community groups.

A trustee has negotiated for Nicola the fundraiser to be able to work in their office in central London, because KCS are short of office space. Translated into monetary terms this is a valuable favour.

The School's contacts in the cookery world are also very valuable in marketing terms, because several celebrity chefs have become involved directly with the school and become patrons. This has led to media coverage of the School and its services, which not only leads to more students, but also directly achieves their mission by raising awareness nationally of the need for children to learn basic cookery skills.

The social environment can also be an asset to a new organisation. In the KCS's case the fact that Home Economics is no longer on the national curriculum, was crucial because there was a clear need for the service KCS provides to schools. The school is unique, so they were able to fill a gap in the market.

Food and cookery are trendy subjects at the moment, with a glut of cookery programmes on television, so people are increasingly aware of the fact that many people lack basic cookery skills. Also there are many celebrity chefs around which is making cookery a popular hobby, which in turn creates a market for KCS's classes.

There is a great worry in Government, and among the population about the increasing levels of obesity among children, so the project, which addresses healthy eating was able to apply for a wide range of grants.

Non-financial support received is also crucial when an organisation starts trading. A Charity called Pilotlight introduced to KCS to their Chair, Treasurer and the Secretary, who are both management consultatants, and initially gave pro bono help with writing the business plan, then later became trustees. Pilotlight also helped KCS to get in touch with an finance and asset management expert who helped to design new financial systems.

KCS has also received pro-bono help and advice from Brunswick Group Ltd and Trinity, and has a number of volunteers who help in the office and the kitchen.

The School has received many gifts, particularly when they were first set-up, from corporate companies. For example: Kitchen equipment from Electrolux, Magimix and Morphy Richards; paint from Dulux; or furniture from Focus-Do it All. Utensils have come from Ainsley Harriott, Madhur Jaffrey and Ken Hom.

Planning

The Governance Structure has stayed the same since the charity was founded, with Fiona as the School Principal and four trustees. The original trustees were personal friends of Fiona, but have since been replaced by a solicitor, an accountant, and two management consultants. They are very proactive and meet once a month, which means that they are very involved in the planning process. All parents whose children attend KCS are invited to the AGM. All staff and volunteers are consulted and involved in major decisions.

Strategic Planning is undertaken by Fiona and the trustees. They have firm goals planned out for two years ahead, and because the timescales are based around their main funding bids, they are very time specific. This process also involves a regular risk assessment.

"Early on we conducted a review of the major risks to which the charity was exposed, and then implemented systems to mitigate those risks, which are periodically reviewed."

Quality improvement has been addressed formally through the process of implementing the quality framework of Investors in People. They also work on the Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations (PQASSO) which allows them to carry out a self-assessment of all their practises and policies.

Financial management structures at the school were radically improved by the introduction of a new accounting system.

"The introduction of the Sage Accounting system has contributed to enhanced office efficiency and management reporting systems. We needed a new system so that we could always see exactly how much is in the bank and what the reserves are at any time. All three of us in the office are aware of the budget, and all have responsibility over monitoring it."

A reserves policy was implemented in early 2003 in order to build a contingency fund which would enable the charity to continue to offer its services for several months, should its current levels of funding be curtailed or severely reduced.

Funding

Trusts and Foundations
KCS applies for funding on a project by project basis, which includes all over-head costs, this means that they are never solely reliant on one or two grants, which may end at the same time, but have a range of grants coming in, all of which overlap. They received 9 such grants in their first year, and 18 in 2002-2003. Some of these grants were achieved in partnership with other organisations. This pro-active grant diversification is one of the key reasons for the School's success.

"We network with other community and voluntary groups, because KCS is always keen to establish the possibility of joint funding applications".
"Most of our funding is project based, such as a monthly workshop for refugees and asylum seekers, which is paid for by one funding stream. We include our basic running costs in every bid. In that bid for example we included the cost of the utility bills, the rent and the salaries of all the staff for that hour per month."
"Funding bodies go for specific projects depending on their criteria. For this reason we always specify what beneficiaries we are aiming to serve with each project in the bid. This means that our evaluation has to be very specific about who has benefited from the project. We try to measure progress in the students by getting them to fill out questionnaires in their first lesson, and then later on. This is hard with children, but the results do show a general improvement."

Lottery
They received a New Opportunities Fund grant in April 2003, which paid for 2 part time posts.

"There is a real move towards outcome funding now. Depending on the Funder we have to do various forms of evaluation, to show how we have used money. Some, such as the New Oportunities Fund need lots of details. We fill out their forms and on top of that we provide qualitative information, such as quotes from the children, and photographs."
"One of our members of staff, the part-time nutritionist, is funded entirely by a project grant. We didn't just apply for her salary, we included the administration costs of another member of staff, and the cost of having another person in the building."

Local Government
They have received various funds from the London Borough of Ealing, Acton Community Chest and Neighbourhood Renewal Funds for kitchen equipment, and free places for local children. They have also received money from Education Partnerships.

Individual Giving
The School has received over £40,000 in private donations over the years, which they use to offer more assisted places, and put towards their running costs. They have also run wine tasting evenings, and taken part in fun runs to raise extra cash.

Corporate sponsorship
The School has received generous gifts from various companies over the years, but Waitrose are the official sponsor for the school. They regularly deliver food, magazines, recipie cards, carrier bags, and boxes for the children to take what they have cooked home in. They also provide members of their staff to ocassionally run workshops on specific food types, which means KCS can provide more free places in workshops to children from low income households.

Earning

Fees
All the parents of children who join the School pay £2 to cover the costs of brochures and the mainatanance of the database in which there is about 353 members. The School charges £15.00 per 1¼ hours for classes. They also run 5 hour study days for £50.00. This fee covers the cost of all tuition, ingredients, recipe cards and food to take home.

All the fees raised go to towards their assisted and free places, which are offered to children whose families are unable to pay the private fees. These families usually pay a small fee, which can be from 50p to £5.00.

"Our experience has shown that it is better to ask for a small contribution to the charity than for nothing at all. This way the students respect the work we do as well as the fresh food. When we have offered workshops for free, we often find that some students do not turn up as they feel that the service we are giving must be poor and they do not want handouts."

Other trading
KCS have produced aprons for which they charge £6, and tea towels which are £3, and feature pictures drawn by the children. They are also planning to produce a cookery book which will feature recipes from KCS, and will be designed by all the staff. This merchandising is an important source of income, and is also a useful marketing tool.

They also run Children's birthday parties to generate income, which cost £28 per person, and can accommodate up to 12 children depending on age. Some of the most popular themes include: Curry party, Thai & Asian cookery, and a taste of Italy with 'the quest for the perfect pizza topping'.

They are also planning to start running evening classes for fee paying adults, and 'yummy mummy' cookery workshops for mother & toddlers within the West London area.

Future ideas
Their goal is to expand into other areas of the country, perhaps through a franchise deal, because they have already had lots of interest from people who would like to open Kids Cookery Schools. They could sell individuals, or organisations a certain project or module that they currently deliver, and then act on a consultancy basis to ensure that they are successful, and more importantly that they stick to the mission and ethical stance of the School.

"We are afraid of jumping into the franchise idea because they may be certain business people who just want to make money from the brand that we have built up. Our goal is to maintain all of the important squeaky-clean processes and standards, and to send out our message, aims and objectives to anyone wishing to set up a similar project."

A recipe for success according to the Kids Cookery School

Take a unique idea.
Blend it into a well planned organisation whisking in equal opportunities to all beneficiaries.
Knead in a talented and inspiring team of staff.
Hygiene, health and safety should be accurately measured and included early on.
Invite the local community, and fold their ideas into the organisation.
Stimulate and coat the service users with a pinch of kindness and season with funds, spice and flavour.
Dust lightly with enthusiasm and an appetite to return.
Infuse the organisation with inspiration and a desire to rise to all challenges.
The final dish should be garnished with encouragement, and served without limitation to a host of imaginations.
For added zest stir in a handful of flexibility and inclusivity.