The Company
What is Helping Hands?
Helping Hands is an events company who organise fundraisers for small UK charities. The aim will be to help small charities raise money whilst providing them with advertisement. This in turn should allow them to become more recognisable, allowing them to raise more money in the future.
Who is Helping Hands for?
Currently in the UK, the largest number of registered charities are those with an annual income of £0-£10,000, taking up 38.8% of the industry. This bracket is also spending more money than they are making, meaning they aren’t fulfilling their aims. Helping Hands wants to change this by providing a service that focuses on the needs of these small charities.
What are the value propositions?
It is important to make sure our clients’ needs are met, to do this the key value propositions will be;
1) Cost As our clients will be small charities, it is important for them to keep costs down as much as possible. Helping Hands will be able to do this by using collaborators such as venues and caterers to keep the events at a low cost.
2) Convenience
Helping Hands will plan and organise the events for our clients because we know they don’t have the time or resources to do so.
3) Branding
Our clientele currently doesn’t have much/any recognition or networks. Helping Hands will provide opportunities for our customers to gain recognition through advertising.
How will it be funded?
Helping Hands will be funded by a yearly subscription fee which our charities will pay to be advertised on our website. This will include details about the charity, donation links and the upcoming event that we are organising for them.
Market Research
As mentioned before our target market is small UK charities with incomes ranging from £0-£10,000. This segment of the market is currently the UK’s largest and is growing at a substantial rate with 25 more charities entering this segment in the last three months, as shown in the figures below.
This data shows that as the number of charities only making a small income of £0-£10,000 is rising, Helping Hands is a much needed company. By providing opportunities to organise fundraisers for our clients, Helping Hands intend to boost clients’ annual income and reduce the number of charities in this price bracket. As clients grow Helping Hands aims to retain their custom, in turn generating increased revenue from these clients.
At the moment, our clientele is also spending more money than they are making. As shown in the table below, charities making between £0-£10,000 are spending over £170,000 more than what they are taking in.
These results prove that there is a clear demand for Helping Hands as these charities need help to raise money. Helping Hands will work closely with these charities to boost their annual income, and also keep their costs low through our range of collaborators.
Primary Market Research and Networking
It is important for Helping Hands to see what the public think of this idea to help determine if there is a demand for this company and if it will fit into the market. It is also important to start networking with potential clients so they get a feel for what Helping Hands will do for them. I sent out a tweet to see what people think of Helping Hands, and then attached some small charities to see what they think too. To see this, click here.
The responses showed that there is a gap in the market for Helping Hands as people felt it was a needed company, as shown below. To see further responses, click here.
Our Competitors
A similar events company, Skyline Events are also dedicated to helping charities raise money. They are currently the UK’s leading organisation of charity fundraising events working with over 3000 charities. However, their main clients tend to be large UK charities such as MacMillan and Kidney Research UK. Their fundraising events are also tailored to any charity; for example, one of their upcoming events is a ‘London Santa Run’, where members of the public will dress up and run either 5 or 10KM for their chosen charity.
Helping Hands will be different and fill the gap in the market as we will target small charities, working with them on an individual basis to help them raise as much money as possible as well as advertising them.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Next Steps
Helping Hands now needs to contact small charities individually and conduct further market research into whether or not they would want to be involved in a company like this. To do this I will contact local charities with an income below £10,000 and conduct some one-to-one interviews about their wants and needs.
I also need to set up some prices for annual subscription fees and get some collaborators such as venues, caterers and advertisers on board in order to support my company and the events we wish to hold.