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Charities at risk

Happy seal
The recent publicity about charity executive salaries, the high profile TV ads and the plethora of charity shops in every high street are giving a distorted view of how the majority of small and medium sized charities operate

Posted by Sarah Brown on 27 Aug '13 | Tags: charity business planning strategic development

Is seeing believing?

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The power of the brand. Once people have a belief then it can be very hard to shift so it is critical to protect your brand by acting consistently at all times and being true to your values. I think many people will be surprised about where this picture was taken - I hope I am wrong.

Posted by Sarah Brown on 16 Jul '13 | Tags: marketing inspiration local authority strategic development

Better Decision Making

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We make decisions every minute of every day even if the decision is to keep doing what we are doing but scarily too many decisions can work out wrong. Based on Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath I've developed a tool "The Decision Improver"(c) to help you make better decisions. Firstly be aware that it is rare a decision should be whether or not - widen your options, then test your assumptions, reduce the emotion, get your distance and then prepare to be wrong in either direction - overly successful or failing.

Posted by Sarah Brown on 25 Jun '13 | Tags: entrepreneur charity goal setting social enterprise strategic development inspiration business planning action decision making

How understanding people is critical to business success

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If we don't understand how and why people change then how can we attract new customers? I've just finished reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath it was great, with some really powerful examples of how to help people change, make decisions and bring about change in organisations or even countries.

Posted by Sarah Brown on 17 May '13 | Tags: entrepreneur goal setting social enterprise strategic development marketing inspiration aspiration

The three ways to grow your organisation

Collaboration
There are only three ways to grow your organisation: organically but this takes time and money; mergers or acquisitions but this is high risk and difficult; collaboration and partnering which can be quick and effective if done right

Posted by Sarah Brown on 03 May '13 | Tags: collaboration goal setting strategic development entrepreneur charity social enterprise community interest company

U-Mix opening - a day of social enterprise in practise and theory

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Having been involved with U-Mix project supporting with funding bids, business planning and the practical development it was great and quite emotional to see it open today. The event was well supported reflecting the mix of people that have helped to make it successful and a credit to FURD who organised it. Before that I was at the Working Capital Conference which had some interesting comments from the head of Bid Society Capital.

Posted by Sarah Brown on 12 Apr '13 | Tags: charity social enterprise business planning strategic development inspiration collaboration local authority public sector

The five top risks for a charity becoming a social enterprise

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Any charity moving to income generation needs to be aware of the dangers - here are our five top risks from our experience of 2 decades working with social enterprises

Posted by Sarah Brown on 14 Nov '12 | Tags: social enterprise charity marketing feasibility study business planning strategic development goal setting

Creating successful charity partnerships for new funding

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With the new Advice Services Transition fund being launched, even more charities will be considering how they can work in partnership. In my experience if you don't have strong strategic input in the beginning you can waste months in fruitless talks

Posted by Sarah Brown on 02 Nov '12 | Tags: charity strategic development collaboration local authority

An opportunity to learn how to build more legs for your marketing platform

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More businesses will be getting together to inspire each other on the 12th November. They'll also be listening to me speak about how to develop a strong marketing platform without spending a fortune

Posted by Sarah Brown on 26 Oct '12 | Tags: marketing entrepreneur inspiration aspiration strategic development mihm

Finally eating that frog

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In time management and goal setting Brian Tracy's Eat that Frog is both simple and compelling and I've finally managed to eat a rather large one in the form of a mammoth business plan of almost 30,000 words

Posted by Sarah Brown on 23 Jul '12 | Tags: business planning strategic development time management socent

First application sent in for the investment and contract readiness

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After just a week we're really pleased we've already been able to get an application into the contract and readiness fund. A social enterprise with lots of potential and no time or resource to pursue their ideas.

Posted by Sarah Brown on 18 Jul '12 | Tags: social enterprise strategic development funding and investment charity feasibility study business planning collaboration investment contract readiness

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