SSE Bespoke
In-house support for charities and social enterprises that want to unlock their entrepreneurial potential and generate new income.
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The problem…
Charities need to diversify income. But we know charities face barriers to achieving this:
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Skills deficitCharities often lack the skills and mindset to move to a more commercial business model. |
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Risk aversionOrganisations are cautious about moving away from ‘business as usual’. |
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Top down decision makingDecisions are seen as autocratic, leading to a lack of staff buy-in and ownership of new products and services. |
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Internal politicsInternal blocks can prevent new products and services gaining the momentum needed to get off the ground. |
The solution:
SSE Bespoke is a series of in-house workshops that supports a charity to transition to a more diverse income model. By acting as a trusted partner, SSE will support your senior leadership to enact culture change in a way that gives staff ownership of the issues in hand.
Your charity will develop a more entrepreneurial mindset and generate new income through new products or services.
Here’s how it works…
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We’ll conduct a detailed briefing with your CEO and senior management to understand your organisation’s situation and the outcomes you want to achieve.
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Based on the briefing, we’ll put together a series of workshops for you and your team. Taking place over a number of months, these workshops will walk your team through the process of generating new income through new products and services. Topics will include idea generation, developing your value proposition and how to win new business through sales.
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Throughout the process, we’ll use industry experts and third sector leaders to share their own experiences and bring the subject matter to life. |
The SSE Bespoke process:
DEFINE
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Discovery + defining the problem We’ll work with the CEO and senior management team to understand your organisation’s specific situation and design content to meet your requirements. |
Scene setting + idea generation A one-day workshop that will bring your team together, allow them to understand the organisational context and generate ideas for new products or services. |
DISCOVER
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Market research
Desk based research that will build your team’s understanding of the market in which they operate and research the viability of each new product or service idea. |
Picking a winner A workshop that will turn an idea into a reality. You’ll develop a value proposition, establish a revenue model and define who your customers are.
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DELIVER |
Testing and refining Piloting the new product or service, gathering feedback and refining where applicable.
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Securing sales A workshop that will build confidence within your team and create a collaborative culture of sales, helping you get deals done and generating new income. |
“The workshop yesterday was well planned and very professionally delivered. You were able to get so many people engaged, many who attended with a view that social enterprise was not something that was not compatible with the third sector delivery models.”
Tariq Haider, Luton Advice Network Transition Project
How SSE Bespoke will help you earn new income: |
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Outcomes for your organisation |
Outcomes for your team |
 Understand the key issues in developing new income streams |
Staff work more effectively as a group, stretching each other’s knowledge, understanding and skills |
| Identify and brainstorm potential new opportunities for income diversification |
Failure is reframed as learning |
| Develop new ideas for products / services / markets and evaluate the viability of different options |
Staff are more confident to experiment and take considered risks |
| Understand and navigate the needs of your organisation though a period of change |
Staff have increased personal resilience |
| Identify strengths and assets in your organisation and develop a high level assets audit |
Staff feel more energised to develop new business opportunities |
| Create a high level plan for diversification |
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| Get your organisation to a point of action |
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Our track record
Since 1997 we’ve worked with 1000s of individuals from across the charity, social enterprise and public sectors to develop the skills, strengths and networks needed to tackle society’s biggest problems. We’ve helped them to build sustainable, impactful organisations.
We’ve worked with the leaders of 100s of charities to increase their income from trading and sales. We’ve run ‘Transition to Trading’ courses, and our ‘Match Trading’ pilot course saw a 92% increase in year-on-year income from trading.
As a charity, we have experience of having to diversify our income model (from 95% grant dependency) and understand the challenges that it presents.