CAN³ - at last a fast-growth programme that focuses on organisations looking to boost their mid-stage development fast!
A key barrier for organisations is often the physical cost associated with growth. CAN³ has approached this head-on by saving organisations 80% of office costs and business advisory support.
CAN, the established national charity and social enterprise, is better placed than almost anyone else to throw its financial weight and commercial clout behind medium-sized VCSEs and give them a leg up to the next level of growth.
“It’s great that there’s support for start-ups out there but in our experience, young charities, social enterprises and VCSEs find the support just stops – much too soon after the start, often almost the moment they’re over the first few hurdles,” says Rohan Martyres, Head of Social Impact and Investment Strategy for CAN Invest. “So we’ve been thinking hard about how to help with genuinely cost-effective support that delivers real growth and impact.”
The result is the launch of CAN³ – an ingenious combination of CAN’s sector-leading acumen in providing high quality, affordable charity office space (CAN Mezzanine) with CAN Invest’s unrivalled expertise in social impact, business advisory and investment services.
Together, these add up to much more than the sum of their parts – a vibrant new space has been created, occupying a designated area of CAN Mezzanine’ latest five story office block in Borough, dedicated solely to promoting the growth of high-achieving VCSEs that are ready to go to the next level.
And to prove their commitment, the costs of setting up and running CAN³ including all the support for the very best growing social enterprises will be underpinned by the group’s own financial reserves, meaning organisations coming onto the new CAN³ floor can benefit from office costs and business support with a saving of 80% of market value!
“We are very excited about this as we really believe we’ve hit on something unique; backing the most ambitious post-start up social enterprises with fantastic organisational development and impact monitoring support from our CAN Invest team alongside great office space at an incredible 80% discount on market value – all in one package”, comments Matt Stevenson-Dodd, CAN Trustee and Chief Executive of Street League. “We really want to practice what we preach at CAN – we are all about providing a great service for Third Sector organisations – whatever their journey and wherever they are on that journey. This new initiative just extends that ethos to a part of our community that has previously been underserved.”
CAN’s innovative new office space is designed with fun and positivity in mind – an inspired and stimulating setting for 1-to-1 ‘wrap-around’ social impact and business advisory support that will help organisations develop and implement impact-led strategies that increase their sustainability, impact and growth over a 1-3 year period. At the same time, CAN will be piloting an exciting new peer-coaching model by which organisations ‘learn by doing’ the processes other organisations go through when they make key organisational decisions for growth.
It all adds up to a big boost, even bigger impact and bigger growth for ambitious medium-sized VCSEs.
“I think it’s important to point out that this isn’t just an academic model based on ‘blue sky thinking’ and idealism. What we’re offering here is a proven methodology for success in the social enterprise sector, measurable in both financial and social impact terms. I can say that with confidence because it’s modelled on our own track record,” adds Andrew Croft, Chief Executive of CAN. “We aim to help VCSEs emulate our own success: over a period of eight years we moved from grant dependency to 99% trading income, raising over £40M in assets and over £18M in commercial finance. We have also provided expert advisory to a range of VCSEs, to revamp their business models, enhance their impact, win multi-million pound contracts, secure social investment, or scale their services.”
CAN³ are taking expressions of interest now – so if you want to develop your business growth and social impact fast, go to www.can-invest.org.uk/can3 right now to find out more and apply to be considered for a place.
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Notes to editors:
Please note that CAN (formerly known as Community Action Network) is always written with capital letters.
1. Prices for CAN³ start at £3,500 (ex. VAT) for an organisation’s first desk and then just £1,000 (ex. VAT) for subsequent desks. For example, if you take the maximum of ten desks, you pay just £12,500 for office space and advisory services normally valued at £67,500. That’s a cost of only 19% of the market value.
2. CAN³ should always be written as CAN³ and referred to as ‘CAN cubed’ verbally.