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Real-life Tales of Earning - The Trojans Scheme

Managing organisational growth and development

Introduction

This is a story of an organisation that has taken advantage of the new opportunities since 1997 created by the Government for 'Out of School Clubs', and as a consequence has experienced phenomenal growth, but at the same time has never lost sight of its mission and its key reasons for being - to serve its beneficiaries' needs. However, growth has brought new challenges, both in organisational terms and in how the organisation functions, being as it is, spread across many different sites. Through continually referring back to its mission, Trojans has shown that growth can be both a positive and learning experience.

What is The Trojans Scheme?

The Trojans Scheme is the largest and longest running charity of its kind. It is a multi faceted organisation, which prides itself as being 'for the community, led by the community' through widening horizons and extending boundaries for all.

Trojans is a South London based educational and training charity providing out of school activities to children aged 4 - 11 years, activity schemes for teenagers aged 14 - 19 years, as well as volunteering, employment and training opportunities for adults. Trojans operates in areas that include wards that are ranked amongst the 10% most deprived in England, and were unemployment levels are persistently high.

In September 1994 Eardley Primary School in Streatham South London, appointed Jackie Nunns as the Community Development Officer to set up and co-ordinate activities for children outside school hours. Initially it was conceived as a joint parent and school initiative after the school identified the severe lack of 'out of school activities' for the local children and their families, it also helped to address the lack of accessible employment and training opportunities for people living in the surrounding areas.

Two years later Jackie founded The Trojans Scheme. Trojans has evolved into a highly organised scheme, involving 30 different activities from computers, science, and history to pottery, cooking, and a wide range of sports. Jackie notes that such activities underpin classroom subjects. "It's hard to persuade children to get involved in something called a homework club", she says. "We build activities which reinforce the academic pursuits of school and lead children into things which are recognisably enjoyable. We see communication skills as a key to success, and we build them into everything".

Trojans has grown in size and quality and now provides breakfast, after school clubs and school holiday activities to 14 schools in Lambeth and Wandsworth with 2,300 children using the service on a weekly basis. It has an impressive staff ratio of one adult for every five children, which could not be achieved without the input from its volunteers - many of whom are parents of the children.

The first Trojans site featured as a model of good practice in a 1998 Government Green Paper and continues to influence national standards. The organisation was recognised as a pioneering social enterprise 'acting as a community catalyst able to nurture and accelerate the learning of other organisations' in a publication by the government recognised think tank Demos in 2002. Most recently in November 2003 Trojans was short listed for a New Statesman Upstarts Award in the Community Care category.

Trojans Aims

To advance the education of school age children through providing recreational and educational activities during out of school hours and in school holidays so as to develop their physical, mental and spiritual capacities that may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society and that their conditions of life may be improved.

Trojans Mission Statement

Harness the skills, values, and energy of the local community. Provide inclusive educational recreational and play opportunities for 4-11 year olds. Provide safe recreational and development opportunities for 12-15 year olds.
Disseminate good practice through the provision of training and consultancy services.

Who Works For Trojans

Trojans employs approximately 85 staff, 14 full-time, and the remainder part time, and it utilises over 110 volunteers. All staff have recent current police checks, and centre staff are all trained and qualified in play work. All staff and volunteers have access to the fully accredited training programmes.

Trojans for all!

Trojans is for all children aged 4 - 11 years old, and is currently based in 14 schools in Lambeth and Wandsworth with 2,300 children using the service weekly. Most children come to Trojans once or twice a week to follow either an academic or recreational interest through participating in one of the 26 activities that are provided. They are supervised by parents and volunteers, although professional tutors are employed (many of whom waive their fees) and the skills of parents are harnessed where possible. Parents pay £4.75 per session, but those who are in receipt of income benefits only pay £2.50. In addition, it has a scheme whereby those parents who undertake voluntary work providing child-care support have the fees for their own children waivered.

Parents who volunteer also get a lot out of Trojans - working with children, training opportunities, social events, and involvement in a dynamic organisation. Moreover, unlike other council-run schemes, Trojans operates for six weeks in the summer, offering around eight activities a day with no advance booking needed.

How has Trojans managed growth?

In just ten years, Trojans has grown from providing services in one school for 176 children in 1995 to operating in 14 schools and working with over 2,300 children five days a week in 2004. Its income has grown from £97,000 in 1997 to over £900,000 in 2004 - a phenomenal growth by any standard. This growth was achieved through taking advantage of the new opportunities created out of the Labour Government's policies on 'after school clubs', and the immediate need for such arrangements in and around the local borough.
With this growth came a very steep learning curve. Trojans made the pretty revolutionary (for its time) decision very early on to charge for their services on a sliding scale, in relation to peoples' ability to pay, rising to £2.50 per session running between 3.30pm - 5.45pm. This presented many challenges, not least in putting in place a robust system to collect the payments. After a fitful first year of invoicing parents, this was replaced with a strictly 'payment in advance' only system, and things started to settle down, particularly in terms of a regular income source.

Mission, Mission, Mission

As Trojans grew, it wanted, above all else, to stay true to its mission and founding objectives. Mission drift is something that all organisations have to be constantly vigilant to, especially when they experience the kind of rapid growth that Trojans has. As the demands to grow and take on more responsibilities increases, there is a danger that additional projects, that sound interesting at the time, will take the organisation away from where they started out. Trojans remains vigilant by constantly referring back to its 'mission statement', ensuring that as its services expand it does not move away from its clients' fundamental needs. Having in place a robust constitution and founders that believed passionately in what the organisation does help it in avoiding this peril; as Trojans has found to its benefit.

Keeping together

With Trojans spread over several sites throughout the London boroughs of Lambeth, Wandsworth and Kingston-upon-Thames, the main challenge was keeping it together. In the early days, although there was a central office, what was lacking was a central communications system collating all the data; which is vital in ensuring that a strategic overview was in place for the organisation as a whole. Increasing demand for its services in all three boroughs led to 'organic growth' at each of the sites, but with little reference to the overall strategic aims of Trojans as an organisation. This led to the sites each having different systems in place and very diverse ways of working, which created real challenges for the organisation in terms of accountability and transparency of its commitments. 
Trojans realised that not all the sites could work in exactly the same manner, as each site served a diverse and unique community, but what was most definitely needed was some harmonisation in relation to the generic management tools such as invoicing and budgets. With each site having its own accounting system, it was difficult for the organisation to undertake a clear appraisal of its income and expenditure streams, which in the early days led to some fraught moments when balancing the books.

Hard decisions

Thanks mainly to the dedication and commitment of the staff and volunteers the quality of the services did not suffer, but Trojans accepted that if the organisation was to grow and not fragment, hard decisions had to be made. In early 2004 Trojans undertook a review of all its sites and systems and began the process of harmonisation where necessary, yet without stifling the individual approach that was needed by each site when serving the particular needs of its local community. For example, a robust invoicing policy was introduced, with all parents paying up when signing up, and common management structures were implemented across the sites. However, one difficult decision that came out of the review was to cease providing its services in the London borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. Trojans felt that it would be better in the long-term to concentrate its energies in the two neighbouring boroughs of Lambeth and Wandsworth, which from a logistics point of view would make it easier to manage the various sites.

As the organisation grew and more children and parents passed through its doors, it realised that it was accumulating a vast amount of information and knowledge, which was a valuable resource to both staff and parents. In order to manage this, Trojans is placing laptops at each of its sites and introducing an "intranet" system to enable its staff to efficiently communicate with each other in order share knowledge and learning. It has also put in place a "Field Operation Service" to provide advice and support to each site and to ensure, where appropriate, a uniform management approach is adopted. It also has a website to promote itself and through which potential staff and volunteers can find out about the Scheme and the numerous activities that it runs, www.trojansscheme.org.uk.

consolidating its position

As with many organisations that have grown and developed, Trojans recognised that it needed to consolidate its position and start to be in charge of its own destiny, rather than reliant on others, however kind they had been. In order to capitalise on its reputation and the recognition of the high quality of service it provided, it realised that its identity was very important to both itself and its clients. All staff and volunteers were encouraged to wear the organisation's bright yellow t-shirt, which allowed for instant identification in the centres, as well as providing additional security for the children. In addition, the distinct identity afforded good opportunities for fundraising and awareness raising, as well as creating ownership for the Trojans Scheme amongst the staff and volunteers.

The phenomenal growth that Trojans underwent meant that it out-grew its donated office space. Having identified the need to have a centre of operations, it realised that its own premises would not only give it long-term security, but also a greater freedom to utilise more effectively its office space than rented accommodation would allow. After much searching, it found premises that fitted its purpose very well. However, how could it afford to buy such premises?

To the rescue came Venturesome, who offered to provide Trojans with a loan on very favourable terms and conditions. Venturesome is a finance initiative that was set up by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) to provide finance to voluntary and community organisations that are unable to access money from commercial lenders or high-street banks, www.venturesome.org. Trojans were able to repay back the loan through the income that it earns from the fees that it charges for attendance at it's after school clubs. The loan offer gave Trojans the confidence to proceed to place all of its management and administration under one roof, which will lead to a more coherent structure for its strategic aims and service provision. However, Trojans have not taken out the loan, since their initial enquiry was some eight months beforehand, and by the time they signed the lease they realised that they did not need to borrow. Nevertheless, the mere offer of a loan ensured that Trojans could start to think seriously about the proposal of buying a building, which in turn gave it the ability to plan long-term.

Another important decision that Trojans made was the hiving off of the Arts Department to create a separate organisation - the Arts Community Exchange. The Arts Department was becoming increasingly popular and was getting involved in projects that were not directly related to Trojans objectives and mission. For this reason, it was decided that as the Arts Department was taking up a disproportionate amount of the organisation's time and resources, a separate organisation would be best for Trojans and the Arts project. As such, the Arts Community Exchange has flourished, and Trojans has more space and more time for its core activities.

Lessons learnt

The yellow t-shirts were an excellent way of raising the profile of the organisation. However, Trojans realised that without an effective merchandising system in place to manage the storage and distribution of the t-shirts, they quickly became soiled and damaged. In addition, there were no stock controls put in place, which meant that many of the t-shirts went unaccounted for. This "branding" opportunity that Trojans explored turned out to be an expensive exercise and failed in its potential of reaching a wider audience, through not having the skills and space to effectively manage the stock.

As Trojans grew the "skills gap" within the organisation also grew. Trojans was created out of the passion of Jackie Nunns and a few others to provide a safe and interesting environment for children to go after they had left school for the day. The early days were very exciting and dynamic, punctuated by frenetic activity, which left little room for formalised systems and evaluating skill needs. Consequently, as Trojans developed and became an ever more complex organisation it did not have the time to stop and think of what skill-sets and systems were needed, it was very much 'learning on the job'. Now after nearly ten years in the making those skills and systems that have grown organically are being embedded within the organisation, which in turn is becoming more "professional" and "strategic", but crucially without losing sight of the people who rely on it for its services.

Trojans earns around 50% of its income from the fees that it charges for attendance at it's after school clubs, and 50% is through voluntary means such grants from statutory bodies and charitable trusts. Trojans sees this as the optimal mix of income for itself, as multiple income streams spreads the risk of an income stream either drying up or becoming a trickle. However, Trojans offers a cautious note to the potential "hidden costs" of statutory funding, such as lengthy application forms and time-consuming outcome assessment reports.
Partnership working is fine, but Trojans says that it can be difficult to manage and organisations need to be aware of the "free-rider" problem, whereby one of the party's piggyback on the other's work and reputation.

How is Trojans doing?

Trojans evaluates the quality and relevance of its services that it provides to its beneficiaries through providing a sounding board via its regular newsletter and questionnaire. Trojans also provides a 'comments book' for both the children and parents to note down their thoughts and ideas.

Being part of the local educational framework, Trojans sites undergo inspections from OFSTED. They have also completed the Quality Assurance (QA) scheme for the sector  "Aiming High", and were involved in the pilot QA for volunteers entitled "Investing in Volunteers" All of these align with the government's 'out of school indicators' in measuring outcomes for schemes such as Trojans.

Where next?

Although Trojans has grown and developed at a heady pace, it is not standing still. It is looking at running programmes for children aged between 9 and 11, otherwise known as "inbetweenies" and offering "breakfast clubs" in schools to children before their daily lessons begin. In addition, Trojans are looking at providing Lunchtime Activities to children, which will further enhance the services for its beneficiaries.

In order to spread the good practice that Trojans has pioneered throughout its development, Jackie Nunns is writing management articles for the 'Out of School Magazine'. Admittedly, this is extending the mission slightly, but it is doing so whilst earning additional cash by undertaking some extra-curricular activity, and then using the income to help subsidise and enhance its service delivery role.

The one thing Trojans is definitely not is a static organisation. It believes in being as dynamic and as questioning about the future as are the children and parents it serves.

 

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