Why on earth bother with such a statement? It is a legal requirement to submit a community interest statement when setting up a community interest company. The aim is to demonstrate to the CIC regulator that the intention of the company is to benefit the community rather than generate a profit that only benefits those who have invested in the company.
Beneficiaries
The online activities will benefit anyone who can access the web site and understand English.
The company’s activities will provide benefit to those living locally who need support to improve their emotional or mental wellbeing.
Activities
There are two different activities listed in this statement.
- “Provide a Christian environment for online courses” When Lily the Pink Ministries was set up the idea was to use an online course system used in schools and colleges to set up courses. The hope was to bring in subject experts to create courses that also used this system so they can share what they know with others. There were some problems with this system. One of these was that it proved difficult to set it up in a way that would generate a revenue. Rather than continue with this system the decision was made to set up a series of individual membership web sites as these proved easier for learners to access as well as it being easier to set them up in such a way that they can generate an income.
- “Provide courses and support for those who wish to improve their mental or emotional wellbeing” An example of a course is given but the pilot run of this course did not work very well for a variety of reasons. One of the problems with this kind of activity is that so many courses receive a subsidy from the government or another organisation. Therefore it has proved necessary to concentrate on building up financial resources from the online activities before trying to do this again. It was recognised that clients would have a variety of practical needs. These can be met by signposting them to other services or providing for them from the resources within Lily the Pink Ministries.
What will any surplus be used for?
Where do we go from here?
If you have read the page that outlines our vision you will see that it is enormous. It will take more than one project to deliver all these services. In fact it looks like a large chunk of the social support and educational services provided by the government. It would take hundreds of different projects or businesses running under the umbrella of Lily the Pink Ministries to provide the range of services or activities required to fulfill that vision.
How on earth could that ever happen? There are a number of essential steps in this process.
- Generate an income with online learning materials.
- Use the profit from these activities to set up local projects.
- Enable those who are drawn into these projects to set up businesses or projects that meet the needs of people in mental distress.
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