13 - How To Drive Growth When You're Not For Profit - with Abbi Thompson from Diamondz Dance

In this episode, James welcomes Abbi Thompson, founder of Diamondz Dance, to explore innovative strategies for nonprofit organizations looking to enhance their income and impact. 

Starting her dance school at just 16, Abbi has transformed her passion into a thriving, community-focused nonprofit. She shares her journey from a small village hall to establishing a recognised nonprofit entity, discussing the challenges and triumphs of shifting perceptions and operations within her team and community. 

Tune in to discover how nonprofits can creatively and effectively grow while staying true to their mission of serving the community.

Stay tuned for more insightful episodes from Steps2Success, where we help you navigate the challenges of running a children's activity organisation with practical advice and expert insights.

Created with pride by LoveAdmin

Edited with finesse by Making Digital Real

Transcript

James Brooker: 0:01

Hey everybody. This is James, strategic business manager at lab admin, and you're listening to the guided growth podcast where we'll be taking you through the basics of growing your children's activity organization with real insights and real actions you can apply to your organization. Today we're talking about how to find ways of growing your income with Abbi from diamonds Dance. Dance. Abby founded diamonds dance at 16 and has been teaching dance for over 15 years. She's now looking for ways to expand her organization and grow whilst keeping being not for profit at her core. Abbi, welcome to our podcast. Thank you for joining us. Let's kick off by talking about diamonds dance. Tell us how it all started and the journey you guys have been on.

Abbi Thompson: 0:39

Okay, so you already said it started when I was 16. So I originally lived in Kent, and grew up in Kent, um, and had quite a turbulent childhood, and dance was like, the one thing that I kept all the time. I always say that's dances is what saved me so very much. I moved up to here, like when I was about 1314, moved up to where, where we're based now, and there wasn't anything that I was learning in Kent up in Lincolnshire. So that's how it kind of started. And I got into a local gymnastics and dance club, and I quickly ended up teaching there and went through some qualifications, and then that's how they then started to teach me about how I would set up my own business. And that's something I had to do as part of my qualification was set up a six week course. I called it diamonds, and then it went from there, really. And I just grew each year. But I started off, you know, self employed, calling up HMRC at 15, actually, but I was nearly 16, calling them up and saying I'd like to start my business and going into the bank with my nan sitting there and talking through my my business plan and that kind of thing, which was working out of village halls. And, yeah, it's just gone from there, really on quite a hell of a journey through the kind of competitive side, looking at the conventional ways, getting involved in conferences and different dance bodies that are about and then kind of going in my own direction over time, and realising why it is I I do what I do which kind of led it to not for profit. So tell us a bit more about that particular bit. So what, what was, sort of the decision making that made you decide that not for profit was the way you wanted to go down. So as you can probably tell, I had no prior business experience to start in. So I would have been teaching when I was in Kent. I used to teach lunchtime and after school at my secondary school. But other than that, I didn't have anything. I just didn't really get along well with mainstream things. That's just how I always was. Just didn't get on that well and that. So I was always wanting to create my own thing, and I guess this opportunity arose, so I didn't go into it with much of a plan other than these are the amount of village halls I'm going to work at, and these are how many students I need to get X amount of money to pay for it. So I essentially went from 16 up until about, probably whenever the pandemic was, what was that four years ago, somewhere around there, yeah, like that. Up until then, I just rode the, I was gonna say, the waves, more like a roller coaster. Rode the roller coaster of just figuring things out, and I, very much, without realizing, run it as a not for profit. I was now, at the time, like barely paying myself most of the time, putting all my money back in. All the time, apart from, it wasn't a company like it is now it was, it was just me, and that wasn't really, in hindsight, the way to necessarily run it, but I was just learning as I went what I've always been great at is, is building communities and relationships and that kind of thing. So that's kind of what sailed me through to that point, and I went all the way up to that point of the pandemic, even into then, our own space and what we're in now, somehow, I always say somehow, because I'm not quite sure how, just determination just keep going, keep going all the time. And then I stopped for the first time since I was 16 years old. I stopped riding that roller coaster because of the pandemic. I had to stop. And I'm quite a creative problem solver, just naturally, how my how my brain works. So as soon as the pandemic hit, I already had ideas. I was like, Okay, right? We'll send out a membership, and we'll do a YouTube channel, and we'll do this and that. So that was before we even went into lockdown, because I could see I thought, how are we going to get money in so, so. Always been that way inclined. But then I had to physically stop. We had to really all stop. And then the thought of going back to what I was doing before, which was, you know, running it like a company, funneling all my money and anything that I earned, working all the hours that you could possibly imagine that just to to get by. And I was like, Okay, I don't want to go back and do that anymore. And so that's what made me look into funding. So it was funding that I looked into. And there's some people I'd worked with over over the previous years who I knew were involved within, you know, not for profit companies and and that they received funding, and that's when I got speaking to someone. I got speaking to a consultant.

James Brooker: 5:49

Yeah, I think that's that kind of will lead us nicely on to what we want to talk about today, which is around this idea of not for profits, not being allowed to make any money. Whereas, actually, as you found out, that being a not for profit can open loads of doors in terms of actually how you use that money to help you grow so and I think it's an interesting place to start. Could you tell me about the perception of growth when you're not working for for profit as such, do you find that it holds you back when it comes to your team's mentality, or your management team, or even your customers?

Abbi Thompson: 6:31

So I think I'll just split those up a little bit, so I just talk about the team as a team, it's helped a lot. So it's taken us into it's made us into a company, because I've looked a lot more tightly at all our policies and procedures, and because we're now not only like I was saying previously, I we ran like a not for profit before, I just funneled all my money back in anyway. So it was very much run like that anyway, even when we Yeah, no, the I'm just trying to think of when we've we've been not for profit for like, three years now. Two, three years, it's been a game changer, because from that point of changing it to limited by guarantee, which is what we are. The staff came onto the payroll, we got policies and procedures, and then, because of the view of everybody, then seeing us at that, I really went to town on making sure everything was, you know, completely, you know, water tight. And that has changed how we work as a team. Now every I have a vision and a clear vision and mission. Have a clear manifesto. You know, I can say to the team when you're making a decision, compare it to this. Is it in line with what we're saying? We're going to do? If it isn't, then then no, the answer is that that's probably not the way you should go about it. So for the team, it's made a huge difference. People feel more settled. And I still, and I know that the struggle for for many businesses, dance businesses, clubs, the staff don't work there only unless there, it's some kind of huge company that's got things going in the day, in the evening, most places, nobody works there permanently. And that's been my struggle through all of them years, having people come in to help me freelance, or even then changing over to it, being employees. You know, it's you've still got that issue. This seems to have changed, that it's changed people's perspective. They've got a purpose. They're adding to a purpose they are understanding. Because now it's all now we're not for profit. It's about measuring impact, which we're only just getting started on. Though, I've not got much advice on that this at this stage, but it's, it's a different thing. It's changed their mentality. So even though everybody that works there, including me, does other work, because that's the nature of a dance business, it's not open all day every, every day. We all do other work and but when people come here, they're fully into it. It's not just like, yeah, it's a different it's a different kind of vibe. So it's helped the team a lot, and just our general professionalism and how we work. Talking about the perception of the school I'm on, I'm having a bit of a battle with it, because people do perceive the Dance School as a profit makingenterprise. Dance is, historically for privileged people, it's, it is a bit of a battle, and I am having to have those conversations and say kind of why we're different. Because we're not running in that we're not going into doing regular competitions all the time. We're not going into doing an exam syllabus. We're not necessarily, though we are in. Some way we do do small things like this. Our main aim isn't to feed into those current enterprises that are already going. Our main aim is to give back to the individuals who come so it's trying to change that and say that dance is not just about those technical skills. So that's very much part of what we offer too, that it is also about expression, and for us, showing specifically how we're we're showing them life skills, giving the students life skills, because it's organically done. And I feel like all companies and dance companies talk about how they're providing that, but now we're trying to prove So, whereas before, I wasn't necessarily trying to prove it, now I'm trying to show it to people. I'm trying to say, this is, this is what we do, again, measuring that impact more. So it has changed that also, as you know, we've just added on a membership because we needed to increase the money to be able to cover all the overheads and things that we've got going on, and that was a bit of a struggle to get my head around, because how do you say we're not for profit, but yet we want you to pay more money to come so it's trying to to describe that to people and then explain that not for profit doesn't mean we don't make a profit. If we don't make a profit, we can't give that profit back to you, so, but that's the difference, is that profit, at the end of the day, isn't going to a director, that profit is going back into the company. And hopefully, if we can build a big enough profit, then we can start offering under privileged individual free sessions, for example, we can start to offer, which we're trying to work on now, SEND offer, we can, we can have some of that, and we can have it funded, and we can provide that, and we can give back to other organizations in the community, but that's what the profit is about. But every the profit is after everybody gets paid. So everybody gets paid for their work. And I think that was very different. And I know that this is a case for for lots of sometimes profit schools, where they're so highly focused on that profit being for the staff, and that they're viewing it in a different way, where this way we're saying, right, this is the cost for the staff. This is the cost to have qualified staff, trained staff, that has to be covered first, the profit is, is afterward. And I would think that in some cases, that Well, I know, I know this to be true in some cases, that people that are working freelance for for dance schools, who are profit dance schools are not being paid as fairly as the people that are employed, and they've got a contract here, and they know exactly when they're going to get paid. And you know, it's it's taken care of a lot more the finances obviously looked at a lot more strategically than than maybe, yeah, run in a different way.

James Brooker: 13:00

Yeah, I think that's a really valuable point there around the whole the whole setup of of the organization, and how it's not a case of, of not making money. And you know, it sounds to me, but actually the the biggest hurdle you've got is a customer's understanding of of of the purpose of why you exist. And I know when, when we looked at introducing the membership fee for you guys, we really looked at almost over explaining what the purpose of that membership fee was for really breaking down. So if you're going to charge people two pounds, 75 a month, which is, I think we landed somewhere around there, what, what percentage of that money is going on which particular thing, and I think displaying that that value is really, really important when it comes to changing the perception of not for profit businesses, because I completely agree that people believe that there's a similarity between not for profits and charities, when actually the truth is that a not for profit organization isn't a charity. It isn't just about giving things away. It does still need to make money, and actually should still be growth focused. And I think that, I think you're probably halfway in that journey, I I would argue in in that things are growing, but you're still having that challenge of the customers mindset. Would you say that's, that's the biggest challenge that you face when you try to do new stuff and try and get people to either pay more or pay for other things? Is, is getting the customers buy into that?

Abbi Thompson: 14:38

Yeah, it because, on the surface, they they're only just seeing a very small part. They're maybe seeing just your letter or just seeing your bit of social media promotion. They can't see the whole entire thing that goes into this operation and all the things that go on week in week out, like, uh, weekly meetings, like making sure our trainings up to date. Like discussing the safety of our children on a regular basis, discussing new policies, because they don't see all of that that's going on, that's not necessarily going on in all organizations of a kind of similar what's the word similar craft? They don't see all that. All they see is that little bit of and then they might say, Oh, look, it costs more to go there than it does to go to this place. They don't see that, okay, maybe it does cost a little bit more to go there, but they're, they're paying for so much more then, then maybe they're just paying for their class. They go in and out. They've got a got a public liability insurance, and they've hired a whole and then they go, they put on, put on some shows, which I'm not saying that that's that's not great as well, because it's still still getting children active. But they, I think they can't see that. So I think that's something for me to focus on over this next year. Is educate. I had to be educated on not for profits. I didn't know what that means. And it's not going to be any different for anyone else you mentioned, like a charity there, but even because I've done quite a look into all the different types of setups for organization, because we may eventually break into different so we broke it into strands. That's one way to help you understand what we do. So we've break it into three strands. We've got create dance and grow. So create are the projects that we do which are funded or part funded. Dance is the part that people pay for, but what they maybe don't see that they get, which we've got to start to point out, is, if we do like an extra performance or something, it's for free. If, if we're gonna stick on an extra class rehearsal, it's for free. So anything that we had going on, it's for free. Or if it isn't for free, then the money's going we point out what is going towards like, we had something at the weekend international dance day where we we charged them two pounds each to come and that money went into our heating and flooring fund. So if they are paying so, so even though they pay, they do get extras. But I think at the moment, they can't, they can't necessarily see that. And then we got the grow, which is the youth leadership program, where a group of of young between kind of 15 to 19. They come and they they put together their own project. That's them for the for the dance school, and for other people to come in and and get involved in. So you're we're now starting, this is right at the beginning, but we're starting to show all the elements to it.

James Brooker: 17:42

Yeah, I think that that definitely, definitely angle that, that I would be looking to go down in, in your position where you know something, and you mentioned this earlier on, around an impact statement, and having this sort of really transparent approach to saying this is who we are. This is what we're all about. This is the impact that we're having in the community. To To me, a not for profit organization that is still looking to make money is all about community engagement. How many children can we get dancing in your scenario? How many people can we engage with and bring in from the wily community into our own little bespoke community that we've got? And I think the way you can do that is, is by using the things that make you unique, and sort of using that cliche of a unique selling point you're still looking to sell, but you if you're looking to sell more virtuous things than just just trying to make make money from it, so a more traditional marketing approach as such. So I would definitely encourage looking into building an impact statement of saying we've used X 1000 pounds of our revenue to go towards this development piece, and you can use your three different strands quite nicely. I think it's quite a nice way of structuring things to show where any revenue made is, is being being funneled, and what percentage goes on to just keeping the doors open, what percentage goes on to and keeping staff really well trained, what percentage goes on to development and hardship and bursaries, and being really transparent with that, I think will will make that position easier. I think it isa bit of a grey area in the children's activity industry overall, as to whether it's being done to make money or not, or perhaps actually not just to make money, but to make profit. Yeah, I think that's that's a really important distinction, is that it's okay to make money as a not for profit, if you're going to use it for positive things that are going to help that impact statement and help deliver on on the values that you've got. Whereas make organizations that make profit, they they can't do that. So I would certainly be be playing on it, and where it's perhaps restrictive in growth, because you think, Oh, well, we can't really charge anymore, because it's it's all not for profit, and it's all community based. Actually, you kind of can. And I think the point you made around being able to offer free spaces to people from disadvantaged backgrounds is a really excellent way to be able to do that. It is okay to charge an amount for people that can afford it, and I would always advocate doing more for less people. So offer free places, rather than giving everyone 10% discount or a cheaper, cheaper price, because that way I believe you can have a bigger impact on things. So talk to me about your your plans for growth. What, what's what's next? What? What do you think feels feels natural to come, come next for you guys.

Abbi Thompson: 20:52

So the the next plan, because I have been working with a business consultant, a creative specifically within the creative industry over the last year, and I'm coming to the end of that now. So that's helped to shape my shape it into strands, and help for me to understand how that all works. So the next step is to put together sort of a five to 10 year plan of how those strands are going to go and where they're going to go. So I we spoke about charity. Because even even in the charity, another thing, just because, I mean, I'm sure people know this, just from, like the news of seeing how much money people in charities get, like people who work in charities still get a lot of money. It isn't like the kind of directors of some of the charities and things like that that there are, of course, always, it doesn't mean that you don't make money. It's just where the money's it's where the money's going to because somebody still has to work, then someone still has to run it. So we would like to split our power strands, I think, a little bit, and this is what I'm looking into. So whether those strands become separate companies eventually. So I think that's the plan. I'm not sure exactly where it's going to go to start with, I'm going to start to look at it as like, for example, the Create strand. It would be create trading under diamond. I'm going to start looking at doing it, separating it like that, just so that when we're going for funding, we can be clear on and it's more clear to the funders exactly where that money is going. And so that's definitely a growth plan. We We spoke a little bit about potentially getting involved in a second venue, but that may be, though, that would feed into diamonds. Again, it's its own separate entity, its own separate not for profit. So I think it's doing that that's the growth plan for the future is is maximizing on those strands, because each of those strands, as I'm beginning to learn as time goes on. For example, one of them, don't know which one, but one of them could be a CIO. That's a possible that we will maybe have a charity strand, and I'm not sure whether that'll be the projects, that might be the projects that are coming back into the community. And what creativity is such an important part of people's well being, not to, like, bore people with facts on this kind of thing, but to go into that side, or maybe it might be the youth panel side, and maybe it's going to be about education, employment opportunities for the future, and whether that be working in the arts or working in other types of creative industries, like digital marketing, and there's a variety of different things. So even like what you're doing, like creating a podcast that's, you know, that's under the creative industry, and it takes a certain sort of a certain amount of skills and a certain level of open thinking and creative problem solving. So, so, yes, I think that's kind of, that's kind of such a big thing, so, but I'm going to map it out, and he's mapping out now,

James Brooker: 24:10

Yeah, I think that's that, that's what I was going to go on to say, is that it is fantastic to have all of these ideas. And I think what, what that demonstrates, is that actually being, being a not for profit, shouldn't act as a restriction on you, and there certainly are lots of possibilities. And I think actually, by breaking things out into clearly defined entities, you can have a blend of different organizational types. I have seen plenty of organizations where they have a profitable arm and a charitable arm, or a not for profit arm, and one hand feeds the other in a lot of cases, and then provides the community outreach and the commerciality all in one go. But I think central to that is having a really strong structure and having a really clear plan and a really clear objective of what you want to achieve, because you've described quite a lot there in terms. All of the different places you can go, and that's a fantastic starting point. And I would almost recommend getting a big piece of paper and writing each of those things across the top as headers as such, for all of the different sort of business improvement projects that that you want to undertake. Then under each one of those, I'd write a goal. What do I want to achieve, and what's the time frame for when I want to achieve that? By then, under that is, is, how? How do I want to achieve that? And at the very bottom should be, why? What's the purpose? Why do I want to achieve these things? What is it going to do, aside from hitting a goal, which might be a particular number, the the why is kind of a separate piece which is more values oriented. So it could be that you want to turn your projects strand into a charitable organization. The goal would be to have that set up and to have five projects underway, funded by either local government support or through other revenue streams by the end of 2025 the How would be, how you're actually going to go about setting that up, finding someone to run it, marketing venues, all of the kind of practicalities that the nuts and bolts and the why, well, that that wouldn't be your goal, because that's very specific and sort of operational. The Why would then be doing to increase our community outreach, because that ties into our value of wanting to help the community as a not for profit organization. So by doing that for each of them, that gives you a plan to kind of go again, then you can build that into a timeline of Which one's first and building your priorities and and going from there. And I think if, when you've got that plan in place, you'll be able to really see what the business is going to look like in three or four years time, and how you're going to build it through and certainly the customer perception can then start to change as well. Because I would argue that the one big difference, or one of, certainly of of, of the big differences between a not for profit and a for profit organization is that, to my value, not for profit organization should be more transparent, because it's more virtuous in its activities, that if trying to do a social good. So actually, those plans an abridged version of them you can publicly make available. Here's my impact statement, here's the plan for what we're going to do into the future. And when your customers can see that you're having a positive social impact and that you've got really positive plans for the future. They're not going to mind paying extra two or three pounds for something, or signing up to an extra class, or signing up to an event, because the whole perception, the whole brand of your organization, is geared towards that community aspect, that social aspect, whatever you want your core values to be. And I think, you know, you're, I would say 50 or 60% of the way down that path in that you've got a clear identity now of how you want to be and what you want to do. It's now a case of, okay, how do we grow within that? You've kind of, I you've kind of clarified your identity as such, and kind of really nailed that down. Now it's, how do we tell other people about our identity, and then how do we grow that out into the future? And as I say, you've got fantastic ideas for where to go with that, and it's just now translating that into the more business element of being a lot for profit and going, Okay, how do we make that reality? To do that, we're gonna have to grow, okay. We're gonna have to be a bit more, a bit more commercial with things.

Abbi Thompson: 28:42

I think that it's I found it easier to understand how to run a business from it being a not for profit, because that's just the way that I am. And I think, I think I've met a lot of dance school owners that are they're struggling, and they're not making much money, they're charging lots of money. They're not able to manage their money. They're not and and their core values, it, it, they're saying, you know, I want to give back. I want it to be this way. I want to do this. And I think that's the perfect kind of people to go into, not for profit, because that was me. It was always all about the students, and not just because we said that it was, it just was because, as I said, for me, I always felt that dance saved me. Dance is the only reason that I didn't go down a wrong path and and didn't get in things that I shouldn't, and that's the only reason for me, that's how it feels for me. So that's why I've always believed and my struggle growing up, I grew up on benefits, is that it wasn't affordable for me to go to dance. So all of my experience and everything I'd done come from community and so again, that's why that that's important to me, that it's there. So I do feel that there's some some differences. But at the same time, I also believe, because I know I've come from that community aspect, and come from that working class background, well, not even necessarily working class, that people can go through that kind of social mobility and can get to experience things that they wasn't necessarily born into this world to experience. So it's but it has to be places for that to allow that to happen, because I was never when I got, like a scholarship once to go to a more prestigious place. I couldn't perform properly. I couldn't I couldn't know how to communicate with people because I wasn't used to that. I didn't have the same clothes like what they had, and I didn't have the same money or the same understanding of etiquettes and stuff. So there is something there too, also, my belief kind of to do with with that and making it more accessible for us. It's about making it accessible for a different disability as well, but also it does making it accessible for for everybody. Because, yeah, that's so I think, yeah, you've got to be in your core beliefs. I don't believe that a not for profit is is for everyone. But if it's in your core beliefs, and you're running a profit business, and you're just funneling the profits back in all the time to everything that you do that this is this has helped me to be much more strategic and and because of how I feel about things, I don't feel bad about it like I would feel bad about getting money. Maybe in the past, I've like, oh, I don't deserve that money. And that's my own beliefs to kind of how I've grown up, because I haven't had ever had money. So now I understand also my own worth and that I should be paid, and that I should be paid for what I'm doing, and I should be paid well, because I've I've got a lot of skills and a lot of knowledge, etc. So it has also changed that side, and has meant that, and because I have employees, there's not for a second that I wouldn't think that someone else deserves to be paid for what they're what they're doing, and be paid well for what they're doing. So that's changed my whole mindset. And to pay people, you've got to have money, and to do a good job, you've got to have money. Yes, just got to tell this little story. I think it's relevant. Maybe not, but I think your story, little story, is relevant. So I have to work now. I get to work a lot with other not for profit organizations who do a lot of collaboration. And there's someone speaking with recently, and I think again, they've just, they're just going into not for profit. They were working before, so they were working somewhere and being employed. So this is all new to them, and they've gone into this straight into it like I want to give back. You know, everything's for free. Going to do everything for free, all funding only, and that's their, very much, their mindset. And we're running our youth panel, and we're getting them to contact people to come and do this cultural day that they want to put together. And they're contacting people, and when they're speaking to them, they're giving them their their day rate, which can be anything from, know yourself, from 150 pounds of 350 pounds, depending on what it is they do and what their skills and what their knowledge is. And is this very interesting that I had a contact from one of the people to say, Oh, you said that people have to pay to come to this cultural day. You know, I thought they had a budget. And I responded, I said, yes, they do have a budget. I said they have a budget of 100 pounds. And anything over 100 pounds, they need to find the money themselves. And I found myself going on to talk about how it's important for these young people. I when they say, Oh, how much. That's a lot of money, to understand also that they should be paid. And I say to them, you know, when you go through your journey, because they're they're all going through their dance, you get to the other side of it, would you not want to be paid for what you was doing? And they say, Well, yes. And I said, Well, if you're going to be paid, and I found myself telling this, ladies, it's important for them to know if they're getting paid, where's the money coming from? The money has to come from, from somewhere. So I think there's, there's, there's definitely that kind of misinformation about not for profit, even people that are starting not for profits themselves right at the beginning. Like I said, Me too, I was naive. Oh, I'll just fill out a few funding bids, and then we'll have money, and it's going to be easier than it ever was before.

James Brooker: 34:35

I think that that clarity in the identity and the purpose is is really important. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of businesses out there that are are fighting as a for profit business that would benefit from being a not for profit. I think there's potentially also another group of businesses that identify themselves as not for profit, but actually overly restrict themselves because they don't feel like they can charge for things or have any sort of commercial elements. So I think that's that's certainly a great first step for organizations have that clarity, and then coming up with that plan and getting rid of those restrictions from a from a perception point of view, and and being really, really transparent so that we've got time for today. Thank you to Abby for giving us some some fantastic insights in how you can make a difference to your organization and not not allow being, being a not for profit, to hold you back at all. And so make sure you subscribe to our step to success podcast to get more guided growth tips each month. And check out LoveAdmin.com/step 2success for more information about how our one to one growth Consultation Service can can help your organization. Thank you for listening to step to success, guided growth. See you next time you.