Mow & Grow uses gardening and horticulture to help socially excluded individuals, families and communities to live independent lives in and around Norfolk.
Background
Mow & Grow and The Grow Organisation are connected social enterprises operating in and around Norfolk. The commercial ‘Mow’ arm delivers gardening services and ‘Grow’ uses gardening and horticulture to help socially excluded individuals, families, and communities to live independent lives.
Why Pilotlight?
Mow & Grow applied to Pilotlight after a period of consolidation following a difficult period which had been draining and costly to sort out.
CEO Alex Cosgrove had worked hard to get the organisation back on a level footing, but had been forced to scale back the socially impactful services while doing so. The organisation had drifted somewhat from its initial mission and came to Pilotlight with this in mind, looking to get back on track.
What we did
Significant time and effort at the beginning of the project was put into understanding the mission and how the two enterprises overlapped. The Pilotlighters challenged Mow & Grow to come up with their ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goal’ – the thing that united everyone involved and kept them coming into work every day.
The question prompted a lot of soul-searching for the organisation, but with the structure of the Pilotlight meetings and support of the team a clear purpose emerged, which enabled Mow & Grow to move forward and get back to its ideal method of operating.
With a clear goal identified, Mow & Grow put their minds to developing a strategy for scaling up services within both enterprises, for which the Pilotlighters helped identify key targets and a financial plan. Prompted by the team and with the clear and costed plan for growth, Mow & Grow contacted social investment firm Big Issue Invest to provide the capital needed to get it off the ground.
Results
Mow & Grow fully met all their aims for the project, with a new vision statement, a three-year business plan and a clear understanding of the financing required. The transformation into an organisation able to implement its vision was complete when a £50,000 investment was also secured from Big Issue.
Hard cash is a clear measure of success, and a year on from the end of the project a new commercial team is on the ground and ready for business. For Mow & Grow, however, the major outcome of the project was greater confidence, focus, and belief, which came out of knowing what needed to be done. As the staff put it: “we’ve got our mojo back.”