Innovative Volunteering Social Enterprise For Sale | | Undisclosed Relocatable | | Skills Venture is an innovative company that serves a largely untapped market: people with business skills who want to use those skills volunteering overseas for short periods. Clients are self-funded individuals and employers wanting to develop staff. Business for sale Innovative Volunteering Social Enterprise For Sale is located in Relocatable. | | BUSINESS FOR SALE ADVERT DETAILS ADVERT NUMBER : 57198
ADVERT IMPRESSIONS : 18,488 TIME(S) | | | | BUSINESS SECTOR: | Services | | TRADE TYPE: | Travel Agencies | | SALE: | Private Sale | ASKING PRICE: | Price On Application | | | | | | | | | | Add this business advert to your: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | BUSINESS DETAILS: | Skills Venture operates volunteering assignments in Kenya, where it employs one staff member on a casual basis and procures other services (accommodation, transport and so on) through a network of suppliers. In the UK there are no paid employees or offices. Currently one Director is based in the UK and works on business development, and another is based in Kenya and oversees service delivery. Running costs are very low. The concept and operations are very scalable and easily transferable to other countries. Skills Venture has excellent growth potential; it is operating in a market that is still immature, but rapidly growing, and has substantial intangible assets that make it well placed to acquire a significant share in this market.
Having started Skills Venture at the peak of the economic downturn, the Directors have built up the company on a part-time basis to a point where there is real potential for rapid growth. However, we are not currently in a position to commit the time that is needed to take it to the next stage, and we believe that others will be better placed to grow Skills Venture to its full potential. The company is therefore offered for sale on a full or partial share transfer basis, with pricing negotiable depending on the buyer’s preferred sale structure. The buyer could choose to focus on either or both of the market areas served.
BUSINESS ACTIVITIES
Skills Venture was founded in 2007 on the premise that skilled professionals in developed countries, in particular business people, can have a genuine impact on poverty in developing countries by providing appropriate, targeted mentoring support to individuals in those countries.
The company matches people with business backgrounds from the UK (and elsewhere) with entrepreneurs in Kenya who need mentoring support in specific areas such as marketing, HR or financial management, and organises short-term volunteer assignments in Kenya for those business people. These typically last for between one and four weeks and are spent providing practical, one-to-one mentoring to one or more entrepreneurs.
The Directors have 12 years’ experience of running a charity in Kenya (Harambee Schools Kenya, www. Hsk. Org. Uk) that has raised over £700, 000 and is continuing with an ambitious programme of school building.
Skills Venture recruits mentors either as individuals, or as employees of companies (for whom the assignment is a means of developing, motivating and retaining top staff while meeting corporate social responsibility goals). It recruits entrepreneur mentees in Kenya directly and via partner institutions such as banks and NGOs. We therefore have three sets of ‘clients’, and charge a moderate fee to self-funded individuals, a higher fee to companies, and nothing to Kenyan entrepreneurs.
We provide a comprehensive service that includes skills matching, induction training, logistical support and mentoring support for each placement. Much of this is provided by our team in Kenya, with support from the UK as needed.
We differ from other employee volunteering providers in a number of ways:
• Our programmes are based in Africa, where needs are great, and the opportunities to make a difference are correspondingly significant. Volunteers learn a lot by working with these dynamic, innovative people.
• We place volunteers with business people, not with NGOs. We believe that this not only allows for more effective skills sharing and capacity building, but also provides more relevant learning for the volunteer.
• We combine the targeted individual benefits of a programme that is based around the skills and learning needs of individual volunteers with the team-building and team-working benefits of a group assignment.
• The duration, size and focus of our programmes is completely flexible to the needs of the employer and identified employee groups. We can design an intervention to achieve a bespoke set of benefits.
TRADING HISTORY
After an initial period of market research, Skills Venture commenced trading in FY 2008/9. So far we have taken out 13 mentors to Kenya on trips of 1-3 weeks, of which ten have been self-funded. Our focus between 2007/8 and 2009/10 was on individuals who have self-funded and have been motivated by a combination of wanting to travel to new places, to give something back, to learn more about themselves, to find out more about emerging markets, and to build up their CVs. Previous clients include the Department of Health (Skills Venture is an approved provider for their Executive Talent Scheme), the Military Stabilisation Support Group (a tri-service unit of the UK Armed Forces), and numerous individual mentors from companies such as JP Morgan and WPP.
Having built up a track record with individual mentors, our focus in the last year has shifted to corporate clients (see below for detail). However, Skills Venture could be a viable business in either or both of these sectors. There are a number of interesting possible variations on each of these models, such as a focus on arranging volunteering placements for high net worth individuals.
Skills Venture works in partnership with a range of leading organisations in its project destinations. These partnerships ensure that our projects have an impact that is sustainable and meaningful, because they are designed in response to a genuine need. Our skills mentoring partners in Kenya include Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Technoserve, the Kenya Youth Business Trust and the Kenya Association of Women Business Owners. We also have good relationships with the Government of Kenya.
To read a selection of case studies and testimonials, please visit www. Skillsventure. Com/about/casestudies. Htm.
FINANCIALS
The figures below show actual P&L for 2008/9, provisional P&L for 2009/10, estimated P&L for 2010/11 (assuming no further sales between now and FY end on 31/07/11), and forecasted P&L up to 2015/16. Note that the forecasts assume that the new owners focus entirely on employer-funded sales. We have separate profit projections for a business strategy focusing on self-funded volunteers, and for a mixed model.
Year 2008-9 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16
Self-funded mentors 6 1 3 0 0 0 0 0
Employer-funded mentors 0 4 0 15 30 50 100 200
Total Mentors 6 5 3 15 30 50 100 200
Turnover £5, 003 £8, 262 £5, 614 £83, 984 £176, 367 £312, 501 £668, 407 £1, 403, 654
Gross Profit £1, 656 £3, 522 £1, 200 £36, 447 £81, 292 £152, 476 £343, 657 £754, 154
Gross Profit Margin 33% 43% 21% 43% 46% 49% 51% 54%
Total Fixed Costs £4, 511 £3, 026 £1, 700 £25, 000 £55, 000 £95, 100 £212, 200 £368, 800
Net Profit -£2, 855 £496 -£500 £11, 447 £26, 292 £57, 376 £131, 457 £385, 354
Net Profit Margin -57% 6% -9% 14% 15% 18% 20% 27%
Skills Venture has a positive bank balance (as a result of cash injections from the Directors in 2007/8, which are not expected to be repaid). It has no trade creditors or debtors, or other liabilities. There are no fixed assets. We have one verbal commitment to an individual mentor in April 2011, but no other contractual commitments.
ASSETS
Sales prospects
As of mid-2010, we have been focusing primarily on engaging with companies, especially those with more than 2, 000 employees (starting with FTSE 350 companies). So far we have had excellent response rates from prospects. We are in discussions with several FTSE 100 companies about setting up volunteering programmes, and have had expressions of interest from a number of other FTSE and AIM-listed companies in the UK, as well as Fortune 500 companies in the USA. We are also in discussions with one of the largest volunteering organisations in the UK about delivering short-term volunteering assignments on their behalf on a sub-contractual basis. In addition we are negotiating with a leading Canadian employee volunteering agency to set up a virtual volunteering network that will link employees of blue chip companies from around the world with Kenyan entrepreneurs for internet-based mentoring assignments.
Sales leads
As well as a healthy pool of sales prospects, we have an extensive database of sales leads. Our online CRM system contains 507 leads in relevant senior positions in 461 companies in the UK, of whom 50% have been contacted by us in the past, 131 individual mentors who have expressed an interest in a self-funded assignment, and over 5, 000 Kenyan entrepreneurs. Most of our marketing has been targeted at companies with 5, 000 or more employees. We believe that there is significant potential to sell our service to companies with 500-5, 000 employees.
Brand profile
Our brand awareness among the HR and CSR communities in the UK is very strong. We have recently been featured in a range of trade publications (HR Magazine, Director, African Business Review) and consumer titles (Wanderlust, Real Travel, Oxford Today). Our white paper on CSR has been downloaded 153 times (with email addresses collected for each downloader). We have 250 email subscribers. Our website (www. Skillsventure. Com, with a site for individual mentors at www. Skillsventure. Com/individuals) receives up to 580 visits per month from up to 430 unique visitors (53% are in the UK, and 70% are new visitors). Of these, 35% visit the site directly, 45% are referred from other sites, and 20% find us via search engines. We have a strong profile among individual travellers as well, with good listings on leading travel and volunteering websites such as responsibletravel. Com.
Operational expertise
Perhaps our most important intangible asset is our hard-earned expertise in how to set up and manage a volunteering placement that allows a skilled individual to pass on his or her experience and knowledge, and to learn a great deal themselves in the process, during a placement in Africa that is as short as one or two weeks. We have learned what works in practice, and what does not. We will work with the buyer to ensure that this knowledge is passed on.
Marketing materials
We have built up an extensive collection of digital images and documents. We also have a stock of approximately 2, 000 A5 brochures, some branded folders and a quantity of stationery items.
GROWTH POTENTIAL
As our future profit projections show, we believe that Skills Venture has excellent growth and earnings potential. Our market is growing as interest in volunteering continues to rise, while the corporate focus on both talent development and CSR recovers strongly following the economic downturn. Of our competitors, a number are targeting a similar area within companies, but few offer the type of service that we can provide for clients (alongside our flexibility). We operate in a complex, though not yet crowded, market, and as a result there are significant opportunities for growing the market as well as our share of it. We have carried out very limited marketing to both individuals and companies; a buyer who is willing and able to market this service more comprehensively will be able to grow the business rapidly.
Our model is extremely scalable to countries outside Kenya (and outside Africa). All that is needed to deliver this service in other countries is a small number of experienced and reliable employees, an agreement with one or two accommodation providers with suitable facilities in appropriate locations near major cities, and partnerships with NGOs and/or banks to source entrepreneurs. These partnerships are not difficult to set up since they entail obvious benefits for the partner organisations (i. E. Free mentoring support to their small business clients or beneficiaries).
Running costs are minimal. In the UK our overheads are primarily insurance, communications and marketing. A buyer who already covered these costs would therefore take on few, if any, extra overheads. In Kenya we do not have any assets or debts to service, or contractual commitments to employees.
SALE STRUCTURE
Skills Venture is run as a social enterprise, but its legal structure is a company limited by shares, and it is entirely owned by its two Directors (on a 50:50 basis). The company is offered for sale on a full or partial share transfer basis, with pricing negotiable depending on the buyer’s preferred sale structure. In the case of a partial share transfer, the current Directors would be looking to resign as Directors but would be willing to put a limited amount of time into the business as minority shareholders. | | | | | | FOR SALE | | | | | REFERENCE: | 57198 / RightBiz | | | | | | Request more information about this business.. | | ENQUIRIES: | | | | CONTACT SELLER TO GET THE SELLERS DIRECT CONTACT DETAILS AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS ONLY | | | | | | | | | | | |
