Hospice at Home West Cumbria wanted to open a charity shop in Workington, in a town centre location.  We wanted the unit to be well fitted out and run by a paid manager.  To achieve this was obviously going to be a significant capital investment, and we had little experience of how much money such a shop was going to take.  Our Trustees were unwilling to put so much of the charity’s money at risk and the project would not have gone ahead without external support.

The Hub provided a number of things that were essential to the project:

1.  £15,000 grant aid to cover the fitting out and opening costs.
2. Advice on other funders, and an introduction to staff in Cumbria County Council’s Economic Development Unit who were our other funder.
3. Advice on the setting up and running of the shop
4. Practical help setting up a trading company to run the shop and our other trading activities.
5. Providing a mentoring visit from Murray Winter, who had vast experience of running Oxfam’s charity shops.

Some of the above we knew that we needed.  Some things like the mentoring visit were things that we weren’t asking for and didn’t think we needed but were immensely valuable.

In addition we knew that the Hub were always there if we needed further help and advice.

 Bob Barnby

Fundraising Manager

Tags: CMS, Want to Grow your Business

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Growing your Business.