For charities, securing enough funding to deliver meaningful, long-term work can be one of the biggest challenges.
Grants and government-funded programmes can provide vital support, and they will continue to have an important role to play. But at Strive4Purpose, we don’t want our future or the future of the people and projects we support to depend entirely on whether the next funding application is successful.
We want to build something sustainable.
That’s why part of the Strive4Purpose model involves using commercial and wholesale activity to generate income that can help cover our core costs and support our projects.
It is about taking a more entrepreneurial approach to social impact.
Creating Income With a Purpose
The principle is straightforward.
Where we can develop legitimate commercial income streams, we want to use them to strengthen the organisation and help fund the work we exist to deliver.
Our involvement within the wholesale industry provides opportunities to generate revenue rather than relying exclusively on donations, grants or public-sector funding.
That income can help contribute towards the everyday costs involved in running an organisation, while also supporting the development and delivery of our projects.
For us, that represents an important step towards becoming more self-sustainable and financially resilient.
It also means that commercial success can directly contribute towards social impact.
Reducing Reliance on Funding Cycles
Traditional funding can sometimes be restricted to a particular project, outcome or period of time.
The work of a charity, however, doesn’t stop when a funding period ends.
There are premises to maintain, people to support, projects to develop and day-to-day operating costs that still need to be covered.
Building our own income streams gives Strive4Purpose another tool to help meet those challenges.
Our ambition isn’t to reject external funding. It is to create a balanced model where grants, partnerships, donations and commercial income can work alongside each other.
The stronger and more diverse those income streams become, the more confidently we can plan for the future.
Commercial Activity Can Create Employment Too
There is another important reason why this model matters to us.
Our commercial activities don’t just have the potential to generate money.
They can generate jobs.
As those income streams grow, they create real work that needs to be done from warehousing and logistics through to recycling, stock handling, administration, customer service and other operational roles.
That gives us the opportunity to connect our commercial activity with one of our wider aims: helping people move towards employment.
Where possible, we want the work created by our enterprises to become part of the pathway.
Someone may begin by developing confidence and practical skills, progress into work experience and eventually move towards paid employment either within one of our activities or with another employer.
That is the kind of progression we want to help create.
From Trading to Social Impact
This model changes the way we look at commercial activity.
A warehouse isn’t simply somewhere to hold stock.
A recycling contract isn’t simply another collection.
A wholesale transaction isn’t simply another sale.
Each can contribute to something much wider.
Commercial activity can help pay for projects. Projects can help people develop skills. Skills can create routes into employment. Employment can help people build greater independence and stability.
That’s what enterprise with purpose means to us.
Building for the Long Term
Strive4Purpose is still building.
We have ambitious plans, and developing sustainable income streams will be an important part of turning those plans into something that can last.
We want to create an organisation that is financially responsible, commercially aware and able to generate more of the resources it needs to deliver its mission.
We will continue working with funders, businesses, community organisations and supporters. But alongside those relationships, we will continue developing our own trading activities and looking for opportunities to create sustainable revenue.
Because long-term social change needs more than a great idea.
It needs a sustainable foundation.
And our goal is to build one.
If you’re a wholesaler, retailer, commercial organisation or potential partner interested in working with Strive4Purpose, we’d love to hear from you.
By doing business differently, we can create commercial value, employment opportunities and lasting social impact at the same time.
Business with purpose. Income with impact. Opportunity that lasts.