Signposts to further case-studies
Signposts to case studies produced outside the SFP that look at taking a sustainable funding approach
NCVO's Collaborative Working Team has compiled a series of case studies profiling organisations working together to deliver public services. Read more about joint working for public service delivery.
Case studies from Social Enterprise magazine
Trailblazers is a 32-page publication profiling young social entrepreneurs to enthuse other young people and provide pointers on how to get started. Trailblazers: Download (PDF 2.04 MB).
Further inspirational stories can be found in the publication profiling the winners of the Enterprising Solutions Awards 2006. See what impressed the judges in Enterprising Solutions 06: Download (PDF 2.04 MB).
Loan finance
The Charity Bank website includes a Loans Portfolio page. The case studies provide information about the investees, their need for loan finance and how Charity Bank helped. You can search their portfolio by area of interest (for example health or education organisations) or geographically.
Futurebuilders England produces case studies of selected Futurebuilders investments, to illustrate unusual or interesting projects, organisations or investment packages.
New and Alternative Financial Instruments
Mission, Models, Money, working towards a more sustainable arts and cultural sector, has produced fourteen imaginary case studies to show how you can enlarge your financial toolbox. Each example highlights the benefits for both the investor and the investee. Visit the Mission, Models, Money case studies webpage.
Growing Community Enterprise; case studies from the Cambridgeshire Fens by Chris Lee.
Grass-roots case studies, key resource identification, general demystification of social enterprise, 20 pages and photographs and well worth a read. We also thought it a sound contribution because perhaps less attention has been paid than it might to the role that community enterprise can play in rural areas. A good buy at £5 from Cambridgeshire ACRE 0135 386 0850.
John Pepin & Associates produce free periodic on-line profiles of examples of social entrepreneurship.
They arrive in an e-mail, and each one features an interesting, entrepreneurial, social sector organisation, which can be used to help generate ideas and compare best practices for your own organisation. To subscribe e-mail profile@pepintranquada.com.
The Liverpool-based Furniture Resource Centre.
The centre is an inspiring example of a Social Firm creating sustainable jobs and providing affordable furniture to those who need it most. You can get hold of a short book all about the transition from grant-dependent charity to self-sustaining Social Enterprise. It's a great story. Call the Liverpool, Furniture Resource Centre on 0151 330 4300 and ask them to send you the inspiring 'Furnishing Homes, Furnishing Lives'. (They'll doubtless send you details of the Cat's Pyjamas at the same time. Intrigued?)
Community Action Furness ( CAF )
A network of social enterprises including shared workspace, a cyber café, IT centre and training programme for young people. CAF grew from 'an unlikely band of vicars and voluntary workers' responding to the decline of the Vickers shipyard which, in the early 1990s shed 9,000 jobs in a town of 70,000. Inspiring stuff and The Guardian produced a feature on them.
Royds Community Association
This association in Bradford that has set up its own consultancy on New Deal Programmes. 'New Deal contains many of the ingredients that made Royds work originally, particularly in terms of resident leadership, consultation and accountability,' says the head of the consultants team that employs 5 local consultants. The voluntary sector exploiting intellectual property? Marvellous! See the article in the Guardian.
The Big Issue
The Big Issue 'Coming up from the streets' is the enjoyable and eminently readable history of the Big Issue, written to mark its tenth anniversary. Now the largest selling weekly current affairs magazine in Britain, this is an inspiring story of a self-sustaining social enterprise. £12 from Earthscan on 0190 382 8800.
Forum for the Future's Sustainable Economy Programme
Forum for the Future's Sustainable Economy Programme (which looks at ways in which economic development can be achieved jointly with environmental sustainability) have a range of case studies of diverse successful community enterprises which are available at £2.50 each or £40 for the set of 25 from lbertenshaw@forumforthefuture.org.uk or by calling 0207 251 6070.
Three international examples
Three international examples of NGOs which have moved significantly away from grant-dependency are available from the April 2001 edition of the US-based Changemaker's Journal at www.changemakers.net (you can search the archive). Not perhaps of immediate relevance to your own funding scene but interesting reading and potential thought prompts.
