EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

OCTOBER 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTSAbout Us............................................................................................................................3Our business model...........................................................................................................4Context..............................................................................................................................4Our Projects.......................................................................................................................5Track Record......................................................................................................................7Impact................................................................................................................................8Funding requirements........................................................................................................8BBBEE................................................................................................................................9Contact Details..................................................................................................................9

ABOUT USThe Clothing Bank (TCB) was founded in February 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa by Tracey Chambers and Tracey Gilmore.

Our vision is to

We achieve our vision through empowering unemployed women (95% are mothers) and men (90% are fathers) to start small businesses so that they can become financially and socially independent. We have four projects which support our mission in different ways:

We

believe that becoming a self-employed business owner is something everyone can do, irrespective of their education levels and resources, as long as they are self-motivated and well supported (mentally and emotionally). We have been operating for six years and have learnt and experienced a tremendous amount about how to engage people on their path to self-determination.

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OUR BUSINESS MODEL

CONTEXT

In 2014, 68% of South African women with babies under two were single (never married and not living with a partner). This is up from 54% in 2005. 50% of fathers provide no financial or emotional support for their children, which results in many children born to single mothers living in dire poverty, reliant on the state to support them with a meagre R360 per month per child. This is why unemployed mothers make up 95% of our beneficiaries because we believe if you help a mother you help a child. South Africa faces some major obstacles to address the injustices of the past and ensure that everyone participates in the economy. At the centre of these challenges is the failing education system. Less than a third of South Africans have completed school (Census 2011) which means that formal employment is not an option for them as most companies require Grade 12 as an entry level requirement for even the most basic job. We cannot wait for the education system to be fixed to act and that is exactly what The Clothing Bank has done. We provide previously disadvantaged South Africans who are unemployed with an alternative to formal employment by empowering them to become self-employed business people. This is often something they might not have considered or had the self-belief to pursue.

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OUR PROJECTSOur ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT is our primary focus. We have strategic partnerships with most of South Africa’s major clothing retailers (Woolworths, Edcon, MRP, Pick n Pay Clothing, Clicks, and TFG) who donate their excess stock to us. This is stock that is made up of customer returns and end of season merchandise.

Unemployed mothers (exclusively) join a two year training programme and very quickly start their small business by trading (mainly in the informal sector) in the clothing they buy from The Clothing Bank at discounted prices. We have the capacity to support 800 mothers trading from our 5 branches in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, East London and Paarl.

We don’t believe you can learn business in a classroom, our programme is practical and experiential. We create a nurturing and supportive environment which builds her self-belief so that she can become a successful business owner. She is exposed to over 1000 hours of practical training and support, covering modules from money management, business skills, computer skill and life skills. We approach the development of the women holistically as we believe that if you have a healthy women, with a healthy mind and a healthy family that she will run a healthy business. We have an extensive support system which includes coaching, mentoring and counselling.

The objective is that each women should earn at least R4000 per month.

Our second project is our APPLIANCE BANK PROJECT. This project is similar to the core Clothing Bank model. We receive a significant amount of broken appliances from our retailers. We recruit unemployed men (preferably fathers) who are provided with technical skills to repair these appliances. They also receive financial, business and life skills training as well as coaching and mentoring. They then repair the appliances and sell them. They are also able to offer repair services as a further business opportunity in their communities. The objective is that each person should earn at least R4000 per month in this programme.

Our third project is our MICRO FRANCHISE ACCELERATOR PROJECT where we develop micro “business in a box” models. According to The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report 2016 there are more businesses closing that opening each year and the level of nascent entrepreneurial activity in South Africa is very low compared with other developing countries. This isn’t surprising given our poor education levels. This is why we believe franchising is a more sustainable solution for success compared to supporting individual early stage entrepreneurs. Our franchise model ensures that we develop and test the business model and set up all the processes and supply chain. Once the model is ready, we recruit franchisees who become self-employed business owners. This makes these models more accessible to a wider portion of the South African population who are unlikely to be entrepreneurs. We look for models that are simple, should cost less than R100 000 to setup and are able to earn the franchisee at least R5000 a month. Each model is quite different but the franchisee is normally provided with all the equipment (loan/grant or rental model) and technical training to start the franchise and then is closely monitored and provided with extensive support to ensure they run a sustainable business.

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We currently have models in early childhood development- GROW WITH FOUNDATION and food- EEZI STREET PIZZA AND MYSTIC COFFEE which we are replicating at present.

Our forth project is the SEW ACADEMY. This is a partnership with Sorbet, one of the leading beauty franchises in South Africa. We recruit unemployed young women who have a passion for the beauty industry and train them to become qualified nail technicians who are job ready. Sorbet, (which includes brands such as Sorbet, Sorbet Man, Sorbet Dry Bar and Amazi) through their network of franchise retail outlets then endeavour to employ these nail technicians in their salons. We aim to train at least 80 technicians per year.

A secondary objective of The Clothing Bank is that we donate up to 20% of the donated product we receive to NPOs who have beneficiaries in their care. This relieves the NPO of the cost and burden of providing clothing for their beneficiaries. We support over 100 NPOs nationally and donate over 200 000 items worth R3 million per year.

In addition to this, The Clothing Bank has developed a number of interesting and life changing training programmes which are of interest to other NGOs and Corporates. These include personal financial literacy), life skills and parenting skills which are shared through our TRAINING FOR CHANGE programme.

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TRACK RECORDThe Clothing Bank has been in existence for 6 years and has achieved enormous success is this short space of time. Our model has been acknowledged as a best practice model internationally. We have won numerous awards including:

We have agreements in place with most of the major retail chains including, Woolworths, Edcon, Pick n Pay Clothing, MRP, TFG and Clicks who donate on average 150 000 garments a month to our Enterprise Development Programme.

We have established branches in all the major cities in South Africa namely, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Paarl, and East London with the capacity to support 800 women and men at a time in the 2 year programme.

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IMPACT

We have trained over 1600 women and men who have collectively generated profits in their businesses of over R59 million. Our main goal is that the beneficiaries we support eradicate poverty in their families. We measure this using The Poverty Stoplight Tool which is an internationally recognised tool used to progress people out of poverty. It measures 50 indicators on a scale using colours (Green = not poor, Orange = poor, Red = very poor). Beneficiaries are assessed before, during and on graduation. We see remarkable changes in their situation. The theory is that if someone is all green then they have eradicated poverty and are highly unlikely to be poor again as they have the resources and skills necessary to manage obstacles. On average beneficiaries join our programme with less than 30 greens and exit with more than 45 greens.

FUNDING REQUIREMENTSOur goal is to become self-sustainable. This will be achieved by ensuring that at least 75% of beneficiaries recruited remain in the programme and are running a business that purchases at least R3500 of stock from TCB per month. We use this revenue to fund the costs of the organisation which means our beneficiaries success is directly linked to our success. Our current average purchases per month per beneficiary is R2527 which means we are currently 72% self-funded. We aim to be at least 90% self-funded by 2020.

The direct investment in each beneficiary in training and support is R20 000 ($ 1428) per annum. In addition to this we invest R17 000 ($1214) per beneficiary per annum into our warehouse operations which ensures that there is a constant supply of merchandise to purchase for their businesses. Less than 10% of our total costs would be considered administration costs.

We currently require funding for our second year training. In our second year we offer our beneficiaries the opportunity to do a formal learnership called Informal Small Business Practice (NQF Level 3 – W&R Seta). The total funding required per learner is R10 000 and we would like to offer this to up to 300 learners (R3 million). Funding this learnership would contribute towards skills development for the unemployed on the BBBEE scorecard.

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BBBEE There are significant benefits to your company in the form of BEE points in recognition of your support of The Clothing Bank.

The beneficiaries on our programme are:

100% South African citizens 100% black owned businesses 100% unemployed women At least 30% defined as youth (<35 years old)

The Clothing Bank is setup as a Broad Based share ownership scheme which means through share ownership in companies it can offer meaningful points under Ownership.

Our 1st year programme includes a well-developed learning programme and our 2nd year programme includes an accredited learnership which both qualify under Skills Development.

We are certified by Empowerdex as a 3rd Party Enterprise Development Service Provider which means that they have verified that the work we do qualifies as Enterprise Development and that any donations (in the form of garments, services, grants, loans) can be claimed as Enterprise Development points.

In addition to this The Clothing Bank is a registered NPO and Empowerdex has certified that 100% of our beneficiaries are black so all donations can also qualify for Socio Economic Development points.

As The Clothing Bank is also a registered NPO and PBO (Sect 18A) any donations (except services) also quality for a tax deduction.

CONTACT DETAILSTracey Chambers

Founder and CEO

0832533538

Traceychambers@theclothingbank.org,za

For more information: www.theclothingbank.org.za

For information on our early childhood development micro franchise: www.growecd.co.za

Watch these clips to see what we do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ihTXS5Cxzghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V-Ndfobay0

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