Will Spark change how the third sector does business?

By Richard Litchfield, Managing director, Eastside Consulting

So we are just 48 hours away from the close of applications for Spark and the one thing that we can safely say is that the project has caused quite a stir.

Spark has been mentioned more than 100 times in many different media across England (my favourite being a piece in Private Eye last month); almost 3000 people have visited this website, and at times our office has seemed more like a call centre than a consultancy as would-be applicants rush to get their questions answered.

Good luck to all of you who are putting in an application!

What I am really interested in right now – and forgive my timing if you’re burning the midnight oil to get an application finished – is will Spark be more than breaking news and actually change things in the long term?

One of the main aims of this programme is to do just that and to firmly embed the social enterprise approach in the homeless sector. Charitable and not-for-profit organisations have frequently heard from policy centres and think-tanks of the benefits of social enterprise. But there have been relatively few successful examples to point the way and to show others how to put the ideas into practise. Big Issue Invest and The TREES group are two good examples that buck this trend.

With this in mind, we’re very keen to find the 15 best examples of social enterprises that are preventing and tackling homelessness and hear all about how it’s done. The Spark team has set out to create a programme that provides not only prize money but also skills and resources to enable everyone working in this area to develop enterprise and social business activities for the long-term. We have tried to ‘live’ this approach by offering assistance on the phones to all potential applicants, spending as much time with organisations that are not ready for Spark this year as those who are.

I was particularly interested then to hear feedback from one potential applicant who said this week: “I hope the challenge has generated as much useful debate amongst other providers as it has at [our organisation]”.

So whether you are applying or you have decided not to, please use the comment button below to tell us about your experience. Has Spark made you think differently about the way you do business? And importantly, will the project change the way the third sector does business?