Phoenix takes flight

Phoenix Business Academy offers consultancy support and training in everything from literacy to business development to hard-to-reach individuals in the West Midlands, and lobbies ministers on behalf of communities to promote social enterprise.

Like many other blooming young social enterprises its success has been driven by a passionate CEO – Renuka Marley, a former civil rights lawyer, who set up Phoenix in 2006.

Birmingham bound

Having developed the idea for Phoenix in London, Marley moved to Birmingham in a bid to become a Labour candidate for one of the city's most disadvantaged constituencies. Though she wasn't selected, she chose to remain in the city, having realised the immense positive impact Phoenix could have there. She gave up her day job to dedicate herself full-time to the project.

'I had never even heard of social enterprise before, and I needed lots of training full time to be able to develop development programmes in literacy, numeracy and e-learning for those who most needed them,' says Marley.

Drawing on Marley's existing networks and political contacts, Phoenix quickly secured support from local entrepreneurs. It launched with the help of educational charity CfBT Education Trust as part of the Government's Skills for Life strategy. CfBT also provided valuable consultancy support in targeting education to niche markets.

Phoenix benefited from initial funding by UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, and support from Graduate Advantage, a scheme funded by regional development agency Advantage West Midlands. A local authority contract for regeneration funding allowed Phoenix to grow from just Marley and her daughter at the start, to a team of 30 staff and seven governors in just three years, which unfortunately coincided with the global downturn.

Marley admits: 'The recession has hit us hard, and we expect to have more freelancers and fewer permanent staff members in the coming months, but we are still fighting to secure funding contracts so we can provide more training opportunities for our clients.'

So far, Phoenix has forged an impressive track record in providing opportunities and in growing the confidence of its client base of mainly women from ethnic minorities and young people. 'We have trained 110 women to NVQ level 4 in business administration who could not read or write in English when we first met them. Most of them are now in work, some have gone to university, and four are self-employed.'

Phoenix has created a sports leadership scheme for 17-19 year olds and is currently in talks to develop a youth apprenticeship scheme. As well as providing training, it has proved successful in facilitating practical methods into employment and enterprise which includes referring two young people to the Prince's Trust to set up their own social enterprises.

Takeover talk

In future, Marley envisions the young people she has been training taking over Phoenix. 'I would like to develop the conditions and provide the tools for them to be able to generate wealth and social wealth for their communities,' she says. Phoenix already has six people on board as 'aspirational managers' who are being trained to be directors.

Next year, Phoenix is expanding, with two new partners and plans to go international, implementing training projects in schools in Sri Lanka.

Marley has put her all into Phoenix, including not paying herself a regular salary since setting up the business, although she hopes to be able to start doing this from January.

She jokes: 'I'm knackered and I'm broke.' But one senses she and Phoenix have much, much more to give.

phoenixbusinessmanagementacademy.org