Future Solutions

The Concept

The Open College of the Black Country is a not-for-profit company owned and controlled by the consortium members. It offers organisations in the community enterprise sectors these types of services:

• Accreditation
• Quality assurance systems
• Financial assistance
• Bidding for funds service
• Contracts and contract management
• Financial services
• Capacity Building

What Else Should I Know?

The company is limited by guarantee. No person’s own shares in it. All surpluses are covenanted into the consortium members for the benefit of the community.
The services cost your organisation nothing to obtain. The consortium works for the community and is funded by successful bids for delivery of services.

THE OPEN COLLEGE OF THE BLACK COUNTRY

The Open College of the Black Country is a community-based organisation serving the education and training needs delivered by these sectors:

• Voluntary
• Community
• Private

• 1. It aims to facilitate funding and contracts for education and training and other services delivered by community organisations.
• 2. Its objectives are to enable community organisations to serve their communities and channel more funder’s money through to its intended beneficiaries.
• 3. Assist the growth in the community enterprise sectors of the Black Country.
• 4. Provide services to the consortium that would not be available to individual organisations.
• 5. Obtain and manage contracts for work from Governmental sources.

WHO IS PART OF THE CONSORTIUM

Any Black Country based organisation working to improve its community through enterprise, training and investment.

WHAT IS COMMUNITY ENTERPRISE

The key objectives of Community Enterprise are:

• the generation of jobs;
• skill enhancement;
• provision of necessary goods and services which the market is unable to provide; and,
• the empowerment of individuals and communities to take control of their working lives.

These objectives have special relevance in deprived communities, where more conventional kinds of business organisation do not provide either enough jobs or a good enough quality of life and people do not have a voice in local matters.
The Facilities House that works for the community by investing all profits into the consortium.

COMMUNITY ENTERPRISE AND LOCAL REGENERATION

Three defining features distinguish social enterprise from the private sector:

• it is owned and controlled by the local community;
• it aims to serve the interests of that community rather than generate private gain; and
• any financial surplus it produces is used for community benefit, not distributed as private profit.

A further characteristic of social enterprises is one they share with the private sector: they are involved in commercial activity, directly or indirectly producing goods or, more commonly services, for which they charge, and the resulting revenue is their main (if not only) source of income.
There is not the same wide variation in size as there is in the private sector between micro-business and the multi-national corporation. Community enterprises range in size from businesses providing care services with up to 100 employees, to community organisations that carry on some trading to supplement their income from subscriptions and grants, and food co-ops that are run entirely on a voluntary basis.

A non-profit organisation interested only in the consolidation, growth and enhancement of the community.

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