From juggling priorities to strategic focus: How Link UP volunteers supported a social entrepreneur

Impact Story by Skilled Volunteer | Nada Savitch

Having a great idea is just the start of being a successful social entrepreneur. It can be lonely working out how to put your idea into practice and particularly difficult to ensure that your skills and experience are being utilised effectively.

Link Up London is often contacted by people who are just starting out. Sarah was one of those people.

She started her social enterprise, Finding the Flex, in 2024. She has received support from two Link UP London volunteers with different skills and experience. They have both enabled Sarah to make better decisions about how her organisation should develop and how to value herself and her expertise.

Sarah says that she reached out to Link UP at a time before the organisation grew and when she was in danger of being overwhelmed by managing so much on her own.

“They helped me to feel less lonely as a single entrepreneur.”

Link UP volunteers often take on a number of roles when supporting entrepreneurs – coach, mentor and sounding board. The personal relationships and regular point of contact can be as important as the advice they provide.

Sarah’s background as a teacher and family coach, specialising in school attendance difficulties, had helped her see flexischooling’s untapped potential to be game changing for some children. Sarah believes that flexischooling, where a child spends some time at school but also receives education elsewhere, for example at home, enables many more children to thrive. Finding the Flex is the only organisation in the country that promotes this model of education.

Like so many social entrepreneurs, Sarah had a great idea and a great passion but needed support to create a viable organisation.

“The volunteers have improved our chances of organisational stability; we needed to develop a sustainable organisation to increase our chances of having the widest possible positive impact.”

The first volunteer to work with Sarah was Meenu, who brought her experience as a corporate strategist to Finding the Flex. Working with Meenu as a trusted sounding board allowed Sarah to realise that her strategic insights were strong but she needed help with putting them into practice. Meenu used her years of experience to work with Sarah in developing a strategic plan and strategy review document, which continues to be an invaluable tool as Finding the Flex scales to meet demand.

“I come from a public sector background, I needed to think as a business.”

Meenu also helped Sarah recognise that her expertise has value. After working with Meenu, Sarah now factors in her 25 years of experience and takes account of direct and indirect costs in the pricing strategy for Finding the Flex.

Another obstacle that many social entrepreneurs encounter is dealing with company accounts. As a former English teacher, Sarah recognised that her accounting knowledge was limited.

“People had given me templates and I’d watched videos, but it’s not the same as having a person explain it to you.”

The second volunteer to work with Sarah was David, a retired accountant who has done a number of projects with Link UP London. He helped Sarah navigate her way through the accounting software, invoicing and financial reporting.

“There are important statutory obligations which I take very seriously – for example filing with Companies House and paying the correct tax. Now I’m not losing sleep about these things.”

In addition to this practical support, David explored with Sarah the financial implications of different structures for the organisation including Community Interest Company (CIC) status. Just as importantly, he helped Sarah understand how she could make a living from the organisation.

One of the strengths of Link UP London’s approach to skilled volunteering is the way projects are planned, hold both sides to account and are time-limited. But the impact doesn’t stop when the formal volunteering ends.

“Our five strategic objectives have been displayed on my wall since we developed them together.”

Meenu’s help has meant that Finding the Flex now have a robust consultancy offer and they received positive feedback about the rigour of their processes following their first pilot with a local authority. David’s help ensured the first final year accounts were successfully submitted to Companies House and CIC status awarded to the organisation.

The Link UP Volunteers have helped Finding the Flex through a period of huge systems change that will mean it has a sustainable structure to succeed.

“Meenu and David’s help has been invaluable, both personally and professionally. Finding the Flex is on secure footing heading into 2026, in large part thanks to them.”

Watch this space to see the positive impact on more children and their families.