An investment of £94,500 to help Wings South West set up a Heritage and Conservation centre to help young people develop skills, self-esteem and confidence through practical courses and initiatives.

This organisation serves North Devon and it is hoped the services will be purchased by the Learning and Skills Council, Local Education authority and the local college.

Wings South West is a rural based organisation with a Christian ethos, providing activities and training opportunities for young people in and around Bideford in Devon. It was set up in October 2000 by a group of local individuals concerned about the lack of facilities for young people in the area.
Wings currently houses a cyber café, a UK Online Centre, Parent and Toddler groups and a number of Sure Start and Connexions activities. In addition, Wings has developed several projects in heritage and conservation skills to provide an ‘alternative curriculum’ for young people who are struggling academically, who do not normally engage with traditional youth work, or who are unemployed.

Wings is a medium sized organisation, currently employing six full-time and three part-time staff. It has an annual income of £170,490 with net assets of £211,699.

One of Wings’ heritage and conservation schemes, the Transition Project, will receive Futurebuilders support. The organisation will expand the Transition Project by converting a former barn into a base for learning and training. The refurbishment will involve traditional building techniques and will in itself provide a training opportunity for the young people involved in the conversion.

Wings approached Futurebuilders for an investment to help establish the learning centre and for working capital while the organisation builds up the number and value of its contracts.

Many of the young people who come to Wings are ‘Not in Education, Employment or Training’ (NEET) and have poor basic numeracy and literacy skills. The Transition Project works with these young people to encourage attendance, increase confidence, skills and self-esteem with the overall aim of encouraging a more positive attitude to future plans. Young people are referred to the Transition Project from the local secondary school, Connexions or the Youth Offending Team, or are identified by Wings’ own detached youth workers. Wings aims to continue working with the local secondary school and also to expand its contractual income base, prospectively with the LSC.

Wings chose to apply to Futurebuilders because the risks associated with securing future income and lack of security mean that few if any commercial lenders would invest in the organisation. This is compounded by the additional running costs resulting from the organisation’s base within a rural area. These include increased transport costs and lower take-up of services due to sparsity of population.

The comparatively high costs associated with working in a rural area make it harder for rural based organisations to achieve full cost recovery, especially when statutory purchasers set prices centrally. This investment will help the organisation to build capacity so that it can challenge this and diversify its income sources by shifting from grant to increased contractual income.

Futurebuilders has offered Wings an unsecured loan of £75,000 at an interest rate of 6%.
A grant of £10,000 will contribute to working capital and construction materials for the barn refurbishment.

The capacity building part of the investment will pay for a review of organisational structure and governance and fund training for key staff and trustees. Training will cover full cost recovery and relationship building with key public sector funders. The capacity building support will also include input from another organisation with experience of securing contracts from schools and LEAs to help Wings develop a strategy for securing future public sector income.

Case study provided by Futurebuilders England Ltd