Nicolette Dirk
IN A bid to help NGOs reach more people, a centre for social innovation will teach them a business franchise model in four free workshops across the country this week.
The workshops kick off in Durban tomorrow before moving on to Johannesburg, Polokwane and Cape Town.
Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s project manager, Tina Fisker Henriksen, said the workshops would focus on social enterprises and NGOs who want to increase their impact through “social franchising”.
“Social franchising is using a commercial franchising model similar to Spur or McDonald’s, by putting your business in a box. A franchisee pays a fee to run that business. We are trying to use that model on organisations involved in social impact projects,” she said.
By using this model, NGOs could reach more people.
“It’s about creating partnerships on a larger scale for your organisation. Instead of reaching only 100 people in the Western Cape, you can target 15 000 people in the rest of the country,” she said.
Ikumva’s community co-ordinator, Zoe Mann, was part of the programme run by Bertha last year.
The NGO started in 2003 and provides free tutoring for Grade 8 to 12 pupils from underprivileged schools.
Mann said a challenge with franchising an NGO was that social issues faced varied from area to area. This meant that one model couldn’t always apply to different regions.
“But things are developing very fast and we need this kind of expertise to form partnerships. The programme is very viable in helping to improve the quality of your brand,” said Mann.
nicolette.dirk@inl.co.za