Generating income is part of every social enterprise’s core, and though it aims not to make a profit, implementing income generation can drastically improve an organization’s financial resilience and sustainability. Social enterprises use various methods to achieve this and sustain operations.
If you’re aiming to help your organization sustain operations, besides getting home loans, you should also think of alternative ways to generate income.
To help you sustain operations, here are seven ways to generate income efficiently.
Fee-For-Service
Fee-for-service is when clients pay for services separately. It charges constituents and clients to recover the costs of service provision. For instance, in health care, it gives doctors the incentive to offer more treatments since payment depends on quantity and not the quality. Examples of fee-for-service include zoos charging entry fees or rural primary clinics collecting sliding scale fees for doctor visits.
Products
Products are something made by labor, and these cover a broad spectrum. In income generation, you can get income through manufacturing items or selling products. Examples include botanical gardens selling flowers to patrons, fair-trade companies importing coffee beans and manufacturing them into ground coffee to sell in western markets, or a coffee shop selling snacks to the public.
If someone has the talent or handicraft skills to create useful items in your team, you can sell those products and generate income for your organization.
Services
Services are the intangible parts of the economy and range from banking, medical treatments to transportation. You can commercialize your enterprise’s expertise to a market willing and able to pay for your services. Examples include mental health organizations selling counseling and hunger relief organizations offering catering services.
Membership Dues
Membership fees or dues are payments collected from individuals, groups, or organizations in return for affiliation with your enterprise for a set period. You can also provide monthly newsletters, exclusive discounts, annual conferences, insurance, industry reports, or job listings for a yearly fee.
Investment Dividends
Dividend investing is an investment strategy where you buy stocks that pay in dividends, allowing you to regulate your income from your investments. In essence, it gives you a passive income flow. Examples include interest income coming from stocks, bonds, or savings accounts.
Tangible Assets
Tangible assets are physical items and can include inventory, equipment, or vehicles. You can do this income generation strategy by renting or leasing tangible assets like office spaces, land, or cars.
Other examples include human services organizations leasing vacant office spaces to different nonprofit groups and an environmental conservation group renting its land to eco-friendly touring agencies.
Intangible Assets
Intangible assets are valuables that lack physical substance. These are hard to evaluate, but common examples of intangible assets include franchises, goodwill, trademarks, brand, content, methodology, and reputation. Examples of these include organizations licensing its logos and brand name to a clothing line, universities receiving research contracts for scientific studies, and a membership organization selling its mailing list.
If you’re aiming to grow your income, consider adding the strategies mentioned. These help you augment your income flow and understand your clients’ current and ideal lifetime values—allowing you to achieve long-term sustainable growth.