How we aim to grow whilst staying true to our values

Because of our results, abandofbrothers has been invited to expand into new locations. The challenge for us as an organisation has been to think about our growth and how we can best achieve it.

What we want to retain are the key elements that have made us successful and unique. We know from our beneficiaries is that a primary reason they engage with us is because of the authenticity shown by a group of men from their community who care. We are concerned that a traditional charity model of having a large Head Office, with branch offices managed as delivery units could result in the community lead, social action essence being lost. On a practical level, introducing the costs of a large head office could make us unsustainable or significantly more vulnerable to changes in the funding environment.

At the same time, we recognise the need to have the highest standards of delivery and consistency in each of the areas we operate. This can only be achieved through rigorous training and ensuring that certain indicators are monitored and any issues addressed.

The trustees and a wider working group from the abob community have identified Social Franchising as an ideal way of retaining our uniqueness and efficacy whilst providing the highest levels of assurance to funders and commissioners about our quality and Governance. We are working with the International Centre for Social Franchising (ICSF) to create a franchise package which will enable us to:

  • Supply new areas wishing to run abob programmes with all of the documentation, training and information technology platforms to run safe effective programmes
  • Replicate what happened in our first community, thus retaining local ownership and a responsiveness to the local community
  • Grow the impact of the organisation without building in dis-economies of scale

For more information about our plans, please contact us.