Brian Murray, like many chief executives in Northern Ireland, will be hoping today to inspire his 178 strong workforce to “make as much money as we can”.
But his profits motivation may be a little different than most average chief executives in the North.While they may be thinking of bonuses and their next new car, Murray is driven by something completely different.
Because the profits Murray and his team make are not going to shareholders or directors but directly back into a small, rural village nestled in the Sperrin Mountains.
Murray is chief executive of the Workspace Group, one of the North’s leading social enterprises, but with very definite aspirations to make multimillion pound profits.
“We are a profit-for-purpose group; everything we do has to make a profit because the more we make the more we can do for our community. We were established 31 years ago by a group of people in the community at a difficult time in response to high unemployment in the area, migration and a lack of opportunities.
“They knew, as we do today, that nobody was going to come into Draperstown and change things. We have a tradition of doing things for ourselves in this part of the world because that’s what we have to do,” Murray says.
More than three decades ago that small group convinced 170 local people to invest in a project to purchase a former shirt factory in the town, which was then converted into business units.
Today the Workspace Group still provides business units to small firms and start-ups but it has also expanded into eight other divisions which operate from 19 locations across the North, the Republic and one UK facility in Manchester . It employs nearly 180.
Its portfolio includes a home insulation firm, an energy-saving business, a recruitment company, a specialist training and employment organisation. It also operates as a local enterprise agency.
Local projects
According to Murray, the real payback is what the profits from these different operations enable Workspace to do in Draperstown – like investing more than £1.5 million in local projects.
“We’ve used the profits from these commercial activities to invest in the community and because of that we have been able to build and run a recreation centre, an after-school club for local children, build a new library and set up a community fund to give small grants to community and voluntary groups – we’ve done all of these things for ourselves, because we’ve had to.”
Murray says the strong ethos that the group was founded on has been vital to its success. “Everyone is totally committed – we all want what is good for the village and we do stuff that nobody else would fund or invest in.”
The Workspace Group is currently the North’s Social Enterprise of the Year but it is getting ready to hand over the title this week at the annual Social Enterprise NI awards on Thursday in Belfast.
Contribution
Colin Jess, director of Social Enterprise NI – the lead umbrella group for social enterprises and social entrepreneurs in the North – says the contribution these organisations make to the local economy should not be underestimated.
Jess says latest research available from PwC suggests that there are nearly 500 social enterprises in the North that support more than 12,000 jobs.
“We have some amazing social enterprises in Northern Ireland whose good work is creating new opportunities in local communities and delivering profits that are reinvested for mutual benefit.
“But we want to encourage and support more social enterprises; our awards help highlight and recognise their achievements and we hope will inspire others,” Jess says.
He is a former banker who spent 38 years working in local financial institutions and he believes there are more and more opportunities for social enterprises to operate in every sector and across every area of economic life in the North.
“We need to encourage and facilitate social enterprises with sustainable business models in Northern Ireland because it creates a win-win result.”
