For Charities and NGOs

The skills, expertise and insight, to increase your impact and extend your reach, in new ways.

We all want to do more for our communities. This may be more of what we do already or it may be better to consider new avenues for programs and projects. However, it is likely that these will need new skills and expertise that we don't possess at the moment.

For example, more and more charities are considering a Social Enterprise model – running a business that is focussed on social impact rather than profit. These are designed to be self-sufficient and therefore more sustainable - than relying on grants and donations, that can be unpredictable. As the world changes, there are more and more new ways that charities can increase their impact and reach, to improve the lives of their communities. But they often require skills and expertise which are outside the norm for many charities. How can charities acquire these new skills and expertise?

WE² was founded to address this problem, by providing skills and expertise from other sectors to charities, to help them capitalise on these new opportunities to impact their communities.

WE² helps charities build new programs, supported by specialist volunteers and students.

They exchange their expertise and experience for the life experience of working on projects in the developing world.

How we can help

We can research what other organisations are doing
- They may be suitable partners to expand your offering
- What has been successful and what problems they faced
- What has been successful in other parts of the world?
- What support is available from governments and international organisations
- What is the recommended best practice
We can study your organisation and suggest :-
- New ideas for programs
- How you can best monitor and report your success
- Which activities have the most impact
- How you might improve your operation
- How you could better promote your programs
Help you expand your operation into new areas and ways of working
- Carry out a feasibility study to test your ideas and how you could proceed
- Provide expertise to help you implement and improve these projects
- Help you adopt a business/commercial approach to your projects
- Provide smart people to complement your knowledge and help you do new things
- Provide specialist expertise to advise, mentor and get you started

We recognise that you are the experts - with the knowledge of your community and what they need most. We are only here to help you achieve the best for them.

A more comprehensive list, to stimulate your ideas is here

"Busoga Trust and its community have benefited significantly from the projects and partnership with Westminster Business School.

The students have worked tirelessly to deliver exceptional projects whilst gaining valuable business, practical and life experiences.

These projects have enabled Busoga Trust to build its capacity and extend its reach into new areas that would previously been inaccessible.

Busoga Trust are extremely grateful to WE² for bringing the two organisations together and would highly recommend the model to other charities and Universities.

With the help of WE², Busoga Trust can look forward to many more successful projects with Westminster Business School and others." Nick Ives - Development Officer - Busoga Trust

Our Projects

Past, present and some ideas for future projects here -

How the model has been successfully implemented

Projects currently being developed

How our projects can help charities

An example project

Situation Overview

Young people in Uganda leave secondary school with good academic results. However, in a primarily rural community they do not have the vocational skills to become economically self-sufficient. The charity would like to establish a vocational training centre to give students the life, technical and business skills to build their own businesses and so become self-sufficient. This facility needs to be commercially self-sustaining as income from donations is not predictable over the long term.

Deliverables

A feasibility study and budgetary model, making recommendations to the charity on the best approach.

Follow on

This feasibility study will form the basis for subsequent WE² projects, which will progress the charity project through – design, implementation, review – to self-sustaining success.

Key considerations

What vocational skills are the most marketable in the specific region?
How can the centre become self-sustaining?
Resource requirements, finance, facilities, staff
Social impact and Government legislation
Collaboration with complementary organisations
Monitoring, evaluation and business reporting
Ongoing review processes to ensure market alignment

Timeline

Over a period of three months in the UK, the team spend time

Understanding the situation
Liaising with the charity
Researching similar projects across the world - their success, issues and critical success factors
Identifying and engaging complementary organisations
Planning and scheduling their time for the field trip

A two week field trip to the charity in Uganda

Initial in-country orientation
Review their findings to-date with the charity
Understand the practicalities and limitations of operating in a developing country
Interview and consult with local stake holders – community, partners, potential students, schools & universities, local government, companies, customers, etc
Evaluate similar schemes in the region
Present initial findings to the charity

A two week period back in the UK