Last week our Head of Expansion, Melanie Robinson, spoke to the Guardian, saying that despite the unfortunate name, social franchising could offer a way of building capacity in the social enterprise sector.
I have been reading the flurry of articles on social franchising with interest. We seem, perhaps accidentally, to have jumped on that bandwagon.
As a relatively small but successful London-based organisation, we’ve been feeling the pressure to expand for a number of years now – from potential customers getting in touch from right across the UK, to supporters and advisors and requests for us to set up MyBnks in such far flung locations as Nigeria, Sweden and China.
Around a year ago we started looking at our options, with an initial focus on the UK. With the help of some MBA students we set about examining models others have used.
To a certain extent, we have an advantage in being in the education sector – our programmes have aims, outcomes, a clear methodology and set of materials – it’s pretty easy to define what we do. And key to that success is the on-going, face to face contact young people have with our specialist trainers. If a young person doesn’t like something, you’ll soon know about it.
Click here to read the rest of this blog post on the Guardian’s online Social Enterprise Network.
