Our social enterprise model – By Anita van Mil

It’s almost a year now to the date MLA London transfered its training programme to Hopkins Van Mil: Creating Connections. We set up a separate training arm Creating Capacity, which we run as a social enterprise. Over the last 12 months we have worked incredibly hard to develop a viable business model. We’ve hired Lucy Auger as our Administrator and first port of call for delegates and trainers; we’ve invested in a online booking system for ease of use; and we’ve developed a network of highly experienced trainers. What we do is backed up by a User Panel comprising stakeholders and staff working in the museums, libraries and archives sector.

A challenging journey

The journey hasn’t been without challenges though. We probably set off in the worst possible economic context. The Collections Trust had already abandoned its training programme and in December we learnt that the Museums Association is about to pull its entire events programme from April 2011 onwards. From national research we know that 77% of public sector organisations describe their situation for staff development as worse than before; and training budgets decreased by 52%. Many people working in the sector were facing conference freezes, travel freezes or total spending freezes, so no wonder it’s been challenging for Creating Capacity to break even.

Endorsement

MLA and Renaissance London have endorsed Creating Capacity from its inception. Their grants have not only enabled staff working in museums to take up Creating Capacity courses for free, but also provided us with the time needed to establish Creating Capacity as a credible brand. We’re very pleased with Renaissance London’s vote of confidence. They’ve extended their support for the programme in 2011-2012 and we have agreement on closer collaboration regarding the Regional Training Offer, which is very good news for the museum sector in London. However, other public sector support is not easily found in a time when everything seems to be in transition. So Henrietta and I have had to think very carefully whether we should continue running Creating Capacity from April, yes or no.

Mad?

I remember Henrietta saying in one of her blogs last year ‘Are we mad?’. And perhaps we are a little bit. The truth is we have not been remunerated financially for the time we’ve put into managing the programme and marketing in 2010-2011. We do however both passionately believe that staff working in the culture and heritage sector do need access to affordable learning programmes to inspire them now and for the future. With anything and everything changing around us, how do we keep up to speed if not through training and upskilling?

Our social enterprise model

We feel we can change the world for the better through enterprise, so the social enterprise model is right for us. Over the last 12 months  Hopkins Van Mil: Creating Connections has been the trading arm which kept Creating Capacity going. To ensure future sustainability of both Hopkins Van Mil and Creating Capacity we will continue to draw on our entrepreneurial skills and develop a lean and mean business model to fit Creating Capacity’s core idea: to provide affordable, high quality training for the culture and heritage sector.

We don’t rule out attracting external funding but will focus first of all on developing  a cost effective, needs based training programme building on excellent relationships with sector representatives. This will mean continued collaboration with our User Panel, creative and tailored marketing of our offer, and efficient operations using hotdesking facilities for Lucy, a virtual office space, value for money training rooms at The Cube and trainers who are as committed as we are and don’t charge the earth because they understand the constraints of the sector.

We’re up for it and hope you are too!

Do let us have any thoughts/ comments/ ideas you may have regarding our business model and programme. Do you agree we’re doing the right thing? What does it mean to you that Creating Capacity will continue to programme training post 2011?