Business Support Unit

The next trading arm to be launched from the Fablevision stable will be the Business Support Unit.

Already in pilot mode, the Business Support Unit will provide administration, fund raising, business development, financial services, personnel development, payroll, contract and legal advice for the Fablevision group, her partners and tenants.

Experience as a Firstport agent looking for young cultural social entrepreneurs to recommend as applicants for Government support, has taught us that, particularly in the cultural sector, there is a need for this kind of support. Artists who are social entrepreneurs are still artists and they don’t welcome the traditional social enterprise growth model – preferring to do their own thing, create their own visions and develop their own projects. Where they need support is on the business side and joining the Fablevision group goes towards addressing this need. Also, whenever there is a large-scale project on the horizon (as with Sparr or Transform TV or our future work for the Cultural Olympiad), there is the opportunity for collaboration and for all the group members to work together bringing their complementary skills and talents to the table.

Customers of the Business Support Unit are Fablevision trading arms and projects (Studios, Transform TV and the Cultural Planning Institute). All other members of the Fablevision group are also supported through the BSU (currently Cran Theatre, SAT, Norman Douglas Associates, East End Endeavour) as are Fablevision partners like Royston Road Project, Bolt FM, Arts and Communities and many more. We also have hot desking/drop in/mail drop services available on request.

We have attracted interest in the BSU model from mainland Europe. This is an international question within the fragile cultural industries sector. How best do we support the thousand diverse, distinctive and gorgeous flowers to bloom? If we don’t fertilise the roots, they wither and die and if we only support the best, the brightest and the highest flying, we are in danger of falling into the butterfly trap where gorgeous creatures flutter ferociously, then burn out or are attracted into the flames.

Fablevision believes it is addressing some of these dilemmas through the mutually supportive “group” model and the provision of services through the Business Support Unit. We are the subject of a European monitoring project and will report on our progress to the Banlieues d’Europe and QecERAN networks.

The Fablevision Group structure is at the earliest stages of development. If you are a young cultural social entrepreneur or if you have a cultural social enterprise; if you share the Fablevision ethics and values and you feel would benefit from membership of the Fablevision group, please get in touch. We would like to hear from you.