The background of Miss Macaroon
At Miss Macaroon, we are a social enterprise company, set up as a CIC, otherwise known as a community interest company. At Miss Macaroon we decided to pledge to reinvest 100% of our profits back into providing training and jobs for long term unemployed people in Birmingham, we work specifically with Care Leavers, ex offenders, people with autism, people who suffer from mental health issues and lone parents.
To be completely transparent, this is a worrying time for us with respect to our trainees, they already face so many barriers getting back into employment, so when you throw the COVID-19 situation in their too, we definitely have our work cut out in terms of getting them into stable employment. You might be thinking at this point how you could help or support us, it really is as simple as going online and ordering a box of macaroons. We provide next day and named delivery across the UK and you can personalise your box and take comfort in the fact that whilst your are brightening that special someone’s day with this letterbox gift, you are also becoming a social change hero and helping to change someone’s life.
What setting up as a CIC actually means
CIC’s are registered with Companies House as well as with a community interest company regulator. You as a CIC can have a company by guarantee or company by share and you must have an asset locked body.
This all sounds quite technical and scary, but what it essentially means is that if the company goes bust then all of your assets must be donated to either another CIC or a charity that you normally get to choose. Our asset locked body is St Basil’s which is a charity based mainly in Birmingham who provide support to young care leavers. We thought a lot about which charity or CIC was going to be our asset locked body because for us it is really important that if we do decide to wind up, that all of our assets will go to a company with the same values and works in a similar space to us, which is what St Basil’s do do.
Working with young care leavers, although just one of the groups we work with, is super important to us and it’s incredible to see some of the transformations that these particular trainees have made with us. However there are still so many young Care Leavers out there who need our help. That’s where our customers come in. If you are thinking about sending someone a birthday gift in isolation, or wanted to send out a unique gift to him or a unique gift to her, please do think about buying social. You can order our macaroons very easily online. We are still delivering UK wide and we provide a next day delivery service. You really would be helping to change someone’s life just by ordering a yummy box of macaroons!
Distribution of profits:
You also have to have your model articles that tell you and your members the way that you are going to run the business in terms of distribution of profits. We are a CIC limited by shares and although the company structure allows us to distribute up to 30% of our profits, we have pledged that we will reinvest 100% of our profits every year into providing training and jobs for long term unemployed people in Birmingham.
Exact structure of a CIC
CEO and founder of Miss Macaroon, Rosie Ginday says ‘having a socent is fantastic because it’s a structure that is really easy to use. Our accountant sends our accounts off as normal to companies house and then we just have to fill out a very simple form, it’s called the CIC thirty four. This details exactly what we’ve done throughout the year in terms of our social impact and what we’ve done with our profits as well.
Ginday also tells us that ‘The reason I set up Miss Macaroon as a CIC with shares was with a view in the future to perhaps take on investment and at some point in the future to give us that bit of leeway to be able to provide that return to a social investor’.
Actually within our CIC it’s not what we are moving forward with at the moment. But in the inception of the business, it was important to think about the potential routes that we could go down and ensure that our CIC didn’t restrict us or if we were going to be a private limited company that didn’t restrict us either.
For us the choice to be a CIC has been the right one. But there are always ways to convert your company. So you can convert from unlimited company to a CIC or from a CIC to a charity, if actually you start going and you find out that actually it’s not the right way for you.
All that information is up on the Community Interest Company regulators website which has some fantastic resources and actually it’s got all of the model articles that you might need when setting up your CIC.
A CIC is essentially a business structure that supports organisations that have people and communities and the heart of what they do. The decision making process is therefore focussed around how that business operates and how any profits are reinvested into the organisation for public good. So again for us, we have people and particularly the Birmigham community at the heart of what we do because we do reinvest our profits back into providing training and jobs for long term unemployed people in Birmingham. With the current climate community support is absolutely paramount and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our amazing local and also far strung customers who have been supporting us through putting orders in. If you do want to send someone an isolation gift or are looking for that perfect unique gift, do take a look at our website because you will not only being making a friends day, you will also be helping to make one of our trainees days down the line. Plus we provide next day, named delivery service all across the UK, meaning if you ever forget a birthday is coming up, we are here to help!
A final word on choosing to set up as a CIC Rosie Ginday says ‘For us it’s absolutely the right choice and it’s helped us to build the brand around the CIC without having to constantly talk about how we’re reinvesting our profits.’ People tend to just understand if it’s a CIC we have to do that rather than having to talk about how often we do it and where we do it. It’s just written into the company structure which means that people know we are automatically doing it.
Remember that at this time, during COVID-19 many social enterprise businesses are struggling in the same way that charities are, therefore it’s super important to support them if you can, this can be as simple as ordering some of their products. At Miss Macaroon we pride ourselves on the vibrancy of our product and we have seen a lot of customers ordering our macarons online recently to help brighten someone’s. So if you are deliberating what to send someone for their birthday in isolation gift, or for an anniversary gift, or just to cheer someone up in quarantine, take a look at our website, we are still taking online orders and our next day delivery service across the UK means your order will be with them in 24 hours at the longest. Take a look at our story here: www.missmacaroon.co.uk