Creating Employment through Missional Business opportunities

Working in Partnership with Kyros Franchising Ltd, the Proton Foundation is seeking to support the creation of employment in Romania and Bulgaria through the creation of franchise opportunities as missional businesses.

FIRST STOP ROMANIA ...

In January the Proton Foundation, working in partnership with Kyros Franchising Ltd, hosted two Business conferences in Romania, exploring and unpacking the potential franchise opportunities for Europe. The objective was to share the concept of a Franchise being operated as a missional business, ie where the business isn't just a way of generating finance but is seen as a vehicle to deliver community change through impacting the lives of employees, staff and customers ... and of course through the delivery of great services/products.

Ian Green, Wendy Bolton and Iain Martin travelled into Romania and were joined by approximately 40 business people who attended the two conferences, the first held in Oradea to the west of Romania and the second in Bucharest in the capital. The conferences were broken down into six sessions, spanning two days.

Ian Green, Executive Director and founder of the Proton Foundation and Iain Martin, Director of Kyros Franchising Ltd introduced delegates to the topic of Franchising before unpacking in more detail the following:   1. What is a missional business? 2. How can a franchise operate as a missional business? 2. Different types of franchises 2. How to identify a good franchise opportunity 3. How to choose the right franchise through research and consultation 4. The relationship between franchisor and franchisee   [More photos available in the gallery]

Woven into the sessions were inspiring videos highlighting case studies of successful  missional businesses and concepts. Delegates were also asked to work through a detailed questionnaire with the aim of identifying the skills and characteristics needed by a good franchisee. At the end of the conference the delegates were given an opportunity to meet with Iain Martin personally for further discussion on a one-on-one basis about potential franchising opportunities in Romania.

The team are looking to establish a National master franchise company in Romania with the hope of introducing several new franchise concepts into Romania.

NEXT STOP BULGARIA ...

This trip was remarkable in a number of ways as God intervened in a very significant way. Iain Martin's first meeting was immediately on arrival in Bulgaria at Sofia Airport. It was with an organisation who are running ‘half-way’ houses to support the Roma community in particular, to move from being unemployable, to having the life skills required to get a job.

As a result one idea that we are exploring is establishing franchised businesses in the same towns as the half-way houses, to provide suitable employment opportunities for the individuals going through their programme. The lady who heads up this work explained that her church had organised a conference that weekend for Christian entrepreneurs from across Bulgaria. Iain was invited to speak at this conference and was able to share the missional business/franchise vision for Bulgaria, esablishing some key contacts who wish to be associated with it.

The following day (Sunday), Iain was again invited to speak at their church and was able to share with 200+ Christians, again making some key contacts. In total Iain was able to meet key individuals from around six different denominational streams and had a strong sense that one of the outcomes of the franchising project, once established, will be to help the church across Bulgaria work together in a more intentional way. With the new contacts established during this trip, together with those already in place, Iain now believes there are sufficient ‘key players’ to begin this project, including those with commercial/business development skills, legal expertise, finance expertise, administrative skills and operational management experience.

Since returning from Bulgaria, the vision has expanded, and we now believe that the model envisaged for both Bulgaria and Romania, can be used far more widely – we'll keep you posted!!