Like many social entrepreneurs, I find myself in the undesirable grip of the "recovery". The recovery, turns out to be much nastier than the recession. With public sector spending at 51% of GDP, I imagine it is not just my business that has found Government spending cuts to be having an enormous effect on their revenue. 25% cuts means a drop in GDP of ( gets out calculator) 12.75%.
How does that feel like a recovery?
What it means for us, as a training company, is that we are the first budget to be cut. We are seen as an auxilery, a luxury item. Even though the end user, the student at Uni with no employability skills, the redundant institutionalised civil servant , the young person bewildered by the education system and its value, has more use for us than ever, unless we can raise the cash for core costs through delivering services to better off businesses, or we find ourselves an Angel benefactor, I may not be able to afford to keep going much longer.
And it is the same for plenty other small businesses and charities I know. One digital media design colleague has just had the budget for his major project slashed to a quarter by the client. They have had to let freelancers go and are themselves fighting to stay afloat. Another friend, running a children's charity, is a month or two from the brink. CSr departments are telling her "there is a recession on", as if we didn't know! The projects based in our building have just been told the local council has pulled the Youth Opportunties Fund and risks pulling the Discretionary Grants, at which point, several unique services will no longer be available to young people in Brighton.
So why do we bother? I have a good degree, a prestigious career history, I don't have to do this? I think it is a combination of passion, determination and sheer bloodymindedness. Your project is your baby, you cannot just abandon it! You have to try everything to make it work!
So, my top tips to others in this position:
1. What have you got that is relevant, appropriate and useful to this climate? For us, it was short, skills based trainings for businesses (Power Hours - www.thelifeproject.co.uk/training)
2. Who can you partner with that has the capacity you lack? e.g. we are a training design and delivery consultancy, who do we know who has great connections or marketing skills?
3. Collaborative funding bids - more likely to be successful, less time spent groaning over a computer screen
4. Take time out - it is too easy to become obsessed with making it work and it only increases the likelyhood of burnout
5. Reach out - be honest with your funders, friends, colleagues, stakeholders about where you are at and ask for their support
6. Get onto your MP! They're still new enough to care - I've had calls from Glenda Jackson and Mike Weatherly and one of our colleagues is off to Number 10 tomorrow!
7. When you're pruning your mates hedge, look out for nasty nasty nasty red ants. I didn't and now my right arm looks like to belongs to the elephant man.
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