Ten years ago today, Your Back Yard was born, starting our with a dream to work with communities on improving community facilities and services, with a definite focus on the more deprived parts of West Yorkshire and the Northeast!
We’ve had an incredibly rewarding yet challenging 10 years and we can’t wait for the next 10! But as today is our 10th anniversary, we thought we’d take the time to reflect on our experiences! We’ve learned a lot in those 10 years around, listed below, one for every year!
Biggest challenges and some lessons learned
- Starting a company from scratch (with no access to the oh so lucrative government VIP fast lane) is hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be!
- There’s no shortcut to raising your profile, getting a reputation for doing excellent work, and becoming known to the people you need to be working with – it takes bloody years!
- Don’t underestimate the amount of bureaucracy, particularly when taking on staff!
- However long you think a project will take to deliver…add 50% to that!
- Annual reports, newsletters etc. – fun to do, but does anyone really read them?
- The better, and closer, your relationship with your local council, the better.
- Bid writing…a necessary evil.
- Getting a good accountant in is easy, it’s finding a good bookkeeper that is the real challenge.
- Universities and social enterprises should be a match made in heaven..the mutual benefits to working together, as we have found, are gargantuan!
- And don’t fall out with anyone, ever, if you can help it – you won’t survive long with enemies in high places!
