“We had to re-jig our services” T3SC on Income Diversification and Collaboration

Making our “Funding Stories” videos has been a great way to learn more about how organisations are coping with the recession and budget cuts. 

Tameside Third Sector Coalition have been doing some really interesting work to save money and gain new income.  What’s more, they are one of our Sustainable Funding Beacons, helping NCVO get the Sustainable Funding message out to different parts of the country. Have a read and watch the video to learn more about what they’re doing.

Naomi Sampson is T3SC’s Support and Development Manager, and she began by telling us about some of the many ways T3SC have diversified.  Much of these activities come together under the banner of T3SC Plus, a sub-brand to help mark out their charged-for services.

Naomi gave us a rundown of the different income-generating services, which included:

• Helping organisations with their strategic planning
• Fit for purpose reviews
• Performance coaching for senior managers
• Civic participation work to help communities have a stronger voice in the local area and contribute to consultations
• Administering grant funding on behalf of Tameside Council
• Training for organisations on how to embrace equality and diversity

This diversity has helped T3SC bring in additional sources of income at a time when traditional grant funding for local support work has been reduced. Not only that, the range of services all fit with their strategy and values, and enable them to have confidence that they are an independent and strong organisation.

Collaboration for sustainability

And Tameside’s approach has not just been about bringing in new income. They are also collaborating with Voluntary Action Oldham and the local Age Concern to ensure they make effective use of scarce resources.  As Naomi says in the film, “The shared development team is fantastic! We’ve bid for resources jointly, such as the NCVO Beacons scheme” and she goes on to say, “It has helped staff development as people get a chance to work on different areas and swap ideas.” An example of this is the Oldham community accountancy service which is now available in both areas. Naomi concludes, “Overall, the experience of collaboration has been really positive”.

But it is not effortless. Some team members who used to cover one area are now working in both Tameside and Oldham, and the challenge is maintaining quality with reduced staff hours, and this takes extra effort. In addition, both sides have worked hard to ensure they have a common understanding and are bought in to working together.  As Naomi puts it, “Communication has been paramount through everything that we’ve done.”

Tips for collaborating

Naomi also gave us her top tips for other organisations considering collaborating:

• Think about the drivers and motivations for the collaboration, and make sure they fit with your mission, aim and values
• Make sure you don’t reduce the quality of what you’re doing in order to save money
• Get strategic buy-in from the Boards of both organisation – it makes it much easier to be confident in the collaboration
• Don’t expect the benefits or cost-savings straight away – you have to be in it for the long-term and have that commitment
• And good communication really helps, with staff and also stakeholders such as grant funders

Talking to Naomi at T3SC gave us some really great ideas for how other infrastructure organisations could save money and generate income, while still providing a great service to their local people.

Find out more about collaborative working, trading to generate income and our Sustainable Funding Beacons.

Also pay a visit to Tameside Third Sector Coalition’s website to find out more about their evolving services.