For Children

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For Children: Sustainable financing mechanism for Children’s day-care centers: “Save the Children Lithuania” branded product line in RIM

Vilnius, LithuaniaVilnius
Project Stage:
Idea
Budget: 
< $1,000
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Every year 30 “Save the Children Lithuania” children’s day-care centers help about 700 children to stay with their families.

In order to create the sustainable incomes to finance these children’s day-care centers organization “Save the Children Lithuania” in corporation with retailer RIMI want to create a social business – "Save the children Lithuania" branded product line in RIMI supermarkets.

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Children from families at risk get social assistance, psychological support in these centers, whereas for some children it is the only place where they can get a hot meal, have a shower and prepare their homework in peaceful atmosphere. These centers are the main preventable measure for children entering children homes. The Ministry of Social affairs and Labour provides 29 EUR cents per day for food and around 5 EUR per year for educational activities for one child who visits these centers. So, centers experience lack of money for food and educational activities for children, for rooms’ heating and staff salaries. People’s donations cannot fulfill the gap. The problem is insufficient financing of children’s day-care centers.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

It is the social business which ensures sustainable incomes for children’s day-care centers. By collaborating with retailer “Rimi Lietuva” we will create a social product line branded by “Save the Children Lithuania” organization name. The major part of the profit will be given to finance children’s day-care centers and the rest of money will be shared by “Rimi Lietuva” and our organization to reinvest in the social business (product line development). By running the social business we will diversify organization incomes sources and will be able to ensure uninterrupted and continuous financing for children’s day-care centers.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

By running social business the organization will create the third type source of incomes and will create sustainable financing system of children’s day care centers. This will ensure that children will get enough food and necessary social / psychological support in day-care centers, will enjoy meaningful activities (even summer camps), while staff and heating bills will be paid properly.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

The organization “Save the Children Lithuania” is a part of the international alliance “Save the Children”. This alliance consists of 29 national organizations which help children from more than 120 countries. “Save the Children Lithuania” is in close cooperation with other national organizations. Some of them also meet operational financing challenges. By successfully managing the social business, “Save the Children Lithuania“ will share Know-How with other organizations. In order to help other organizations to diversify financial incomes and ensure sustainable financing, already approved social business model will be able to be adapted to organizations from other countries. Moreover, by showing that the organizations can ensure financial incomes by ourselves, we strongly expect to inspire other NGOs to take the initiative to create a sustainable incomes mechanisms too.
Sustainability

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

Majority of NGOs in our region faces the challenge to raise money to implement their goals. In European Union it became an inappropriate tradition that NGOs try to finance their activities just using European Union structural funds (or similar funds) or people’s and business’ donations. Financing received from such funds is not sustainable and short term based. This kind of funding is a good way to implement concrete projects but it does not ensure systematic work toward the goals. Social problems are not solved at the time of a single financed project. It needs a continuous systematic actions and activities to make a real change. In order to have possibility for uninterrupted implementation of settled goals, every organization needs sustainable income which cannot be ensured by people’s and companies’ donations in this case.
Team

Team

The top managers of both organizations will supervise the implementation of the idea. Day-to-day work will be done by high qualified and strongly working team: “Save the Children Lithuania” project manager and “Rimi Baltic” Commercial, Production, PR and Marketing Managers. The team is supported by the board of advisors: business developer (20 years of experience in business development, for now - Advisory Board Member of Venture Capital Fund); lawyer (Senior Associate of internationally highest ranked business law firm in the Baltics); financier/ auditor (20 years of experience), Marketing Specialist (10 years of experience in marketing and sales).
About the Lead Co-Creation Partners
Organization:
“Rimi Lietuva”
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LEAD SOCIAL-MISSION ORGANIZATION
Type of organization (e.g. NGO, association, not-for-profit, foundation, social enterprise)

NGO

Total Number of Full-Time Employees

6

Lead Contact First Name

Rasa

Lead Contact Last Name

Dicpetriene

Title

CEO

Country

Lithuania

Twitter URL
Facebook URL

https://www.facebook.com/savethechildrenlithuania?fref=ts

Website

http://gelbvaik.lt/en

LEAD CORPORATE PARTNER
Organization Name

“Rimi Lietuva”

Total Number of Full-Time Employees

2 500

Lead Contact First Name

Giedre

Lead Contact Last Name

Bielskyte

Title

PR manager

Country

Lithuania

Twitter URL
Facebook URL

https://www.facebook.com/gaminunamie

Organization Website

http://www.rimi.lt/

Basic Info
Project Starting Year

2014

Primary European Country where this Project is creating social impact
Additional European countries where this Project is creating social impact

Social business model will be able to be adapted to other national organizations of alliance “Save the Children”

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New products & services: Entries in this category develop and offer essentials product and services that address needs currently unmet, Other: If you feel that your entry does not fit any of the above categories, please suggest another category name..

What awards or honors has the project received?
Project Summary
Co-Creation Model: Tell us about your main strategic partners and how the partnership truly create value. For each Partner please include its type (business/social/public), its name, a short description, its key motivation to participate in the co-creation project, and the key contributions it is making in the co-creation project. Please follow the format displayed below:

-Partner: Rimi Lietuva

-Type of partner: business

-Short description sentence: our partner “Rimi Lietuva” is representing a major retail operator in the Baltics States “Rimi Baltic” in Lithuania market;

-Key motivation to participate in the co-creation project: currently the company does not have a social brand product line in Lithuanian supermarkets. As it positions itself as socially responsible and open retailer the social brand introduction to the market will be one more significant step toward systematic implementation of the social responsibility principles integration in the company activities.

At the same time the partner is interested to gain the monetary profit from the new product line.

-Key contributions in the co-creation project: by prior arrangement the company will share their intelligence, human and material resources while creating / developing / realizing the social brand product line.

Impact
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact. Please specify using qualitative and quantitative data (e.g. # of indirect and direct beneficiaries); help us understand how this solution truly makes a difference.

Children’s day-care centers are the main preventable measure for children entering the children homes. Every day children's day-care centers help 700 children to stay with their families. But still, Lithuania has the highest number of orphaned children in Europe. Currently, around 4 000 children live in children’s homes in Lithuania.

Currently, there are 15 000 children from families at risk more who need at least proper social assistance and psychological support. By growing the social business we will establish new children's day-care centers in municipalities where children still do not have possibilities to get professional support and learn how to cope with challenges they encounter in everyday life.

Sustainability
Funding: How is your project financial supported? [select all that apply]

Individuals, NGOs, Businesses, Other.

Sustainability Plan: Has your project already reached financial sustainability? If not, what is this solutio’s plan to ensure financial sustainability? Do the main partners have enough stake to sustain the solution? If this project requires limited budget, how will other resources be secured to maintain or grow this work?

First of all our social business will rely on high qualified and ambitious team. We strongly believe we have all necessary professionals including the board of advisors.

Our organization cooperates with retailer “Rimi Lietuva” from 2012. Since then we work in order to help children who visit children’s day-care centers. By working together we see each other as reliable partners and appreciate natural synergy between all the team specialists.

In order to ensure social business stability and growth the part of the profit will be reinvested. Also, to support goals implementation we will involve other financial sources like: individuals and crowd-funding, social enterprises funds or microcredits.

Team
Founding Story: Share a story about the "Aha!" moment that led the Partners to get started and/or to see the potential for this to succeed.

We believe that at this moment Children’s day-care centers are the main preventable measure for children entering the children homes. Also we know that every year we face the same question - how to get enough money for financing it.

We spent a lot of time for brainstorming, talking with other organizations/ businesses/ governmental institutions looking for new ideas and possibilities, and the option of social business became the most acceptable.

We were cooperating with RIMI for two years from now. We found that it’s easy to work together. So, we came up with an idea that we could collaborate with them in order to finance our children’s day-care centers. They liked the idea to create the social branded product line and we started our journey:)

About the Co-Creation
Barriers: What main barriers may you have encountered to co-create during the creation and implementation of the project and how did you try to overcome them?

We have not faced the co-creation barriers yet and we are ready to overcome if any will arise.

Governance: What is the type of the relationship between the partners? (e.g. joint venture, contractual relationship, joint project...)

At this moment it is a joint project. But we are going to reconsider the type of relationship in order to choose the best form for running the social business.

Interaction model: How is the project a transformative partnership? How is the interaction transforming the partnering organizations and their employees/ leadership in terms of creating a new vision, new management practices, new skills and new organizational structures? Please provide for concrete examples

Both sides express their motivation to collaborate with each other to achieve settled goals. In order to understand the situation better our colleagues visit children’s day-care centers. By doing this we ensure that both organizations has true understanding about problems which we are trying to solve.

How did you find out about this competition?

We found it on the Internet when we were looking for funding.

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