Collaborations & Mergers
Almond Tree Strategic Consulting helps charities and social enterprises explore and implement new ways to work together, including collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures and mergers.
Collaborations and Mergers
Working together with other charities and social enterprises is increasingly the norm in the third sector. It often means you can offer more and better support for your beneficiaries and it can significantly increase your chances of securing grants and contracts.
While collaboration can be enormously rewarding (in some cases leading to a complete merger of organisations) it also comes with risks and challenges. What happens if one partner is not delivering their side of the bargain (or worse still goes out of business)? How do you know that you won’t fall out in the future? What if circumstances change?
It is important to lay strong foundations from the outset to maximise the impact of your collaboration and to establish the right ground rules and agreements between partners to guard against issues arising in the future.
High quality relationships are at the heart of how we work and ATSC want your relationships to be just as good. We can support you to explore and set up collaborations and partnerships ranging from informal partnerships and simple subcontracting arrangements through to formal joint ventures and full mergers. This includes exploring options and shared values, undertaking due diligence, preparing documentation (with specialist legal input where required) and dealing with the Charity Commission and Companies House.
We have supported many mergers and collaborations since 2007 and Julian, our Director, is a trustee of a charity that has recently been a part of three separate mergers.
If you'd like to find out more about how we can help your charity or social enterprise please get in touch.
“Julian has supported our organisation through substantive change and growth through 2 mergers, acting as a critical friend. He has been both innovative and inspirational at planning events for my workforce and Trustees. Julian works to high standards, but more importantly understands our sector and challenges. Overall he gets the job done.”
“It is not an exaggeration that The Youth Consortium (Surrey and Borders) would not have achieved its success in winning substantial contracts for youth services with the local authority without the expertise of Julian Lomas, His very impressive knowledge and experience have enabled him to offer sound advice on governance, business planning, income generation, tendering and contracting. Crucially, his support is practical, delivering well-written, high-quality documentation, and he is very efficient with the use of his time.”
“It was heartwarming and inspiring, and of immense value, to have your experience of small charities and expert guidance towards the merging of the two organisations. It was a joy to meet you and thank you for coming and for being so perceptive and effective in every way!”