Community Franchising Insights - Improvements

In January-March 2011, the Cinnamon Network conducted research into Community Franchising. Several thousand Churches in the UK were contacted as well as franchisors/ees of 9 ‘ministries’. We had responses from 190 churches/ministries. Results are as follows:

What are the key improvements that Full Franchisees* would like to see?

Franchisees are in a position to comment re what could be improved. What are they finding difficult? We asked franchisees what they felt most needed to be improved about taking on a Franchise. The answers were free text and some of them are quoted below. A number of themes though can be seen by analysing the free text:

Many franchisees feel the ministry they have taken on needs little or no improvement. Fund seeking may well be a new skill for leaders of franchises. There also seems to be a desire for more coaching on the job once trained and launched.

Obviously there are then concerns over costs and volunteers. Some franchisors have set targets for franchisees to hit and this seems to add pressure.

Quotes:

“Building up a big enough group of volunteers to get involved.”

“Financial amount is huge for a church, especially if employing a worker...it's a massive commitment.”

“Didn't quite realise the amount of work involved.”

“More in depth training in publicity.”

“On-going training and observation of us to help improve performance.”

“Help with finding external sources of funding.”

“Targets.”

“That the host church FULLY understands the implications on the church of taking on the Franchise.”

“Reducing costs to the church.”

“Help , advice and church personnel that can access outside funding.”

“We are a new start. It would have been useful for Franchisor to provide a mentor centre close to our location.”

“Guidance in setting up a management structure.”

*The Full Franchises reported on were; Christians Against Poverty, Street Pastors, Black Boys Can, Care Confidential, The Lighthouse Group, Romance Academy and Trussell Trust Foodbanks.