Potluck Café and Catering
By Louise Chatterton Luchuk
March 29, 2010
VANCOUVER, BC // Mix one part café and catering business with one part nutrition program and training/employment opportunity, and the delicious result is an organization that is so much more than just another registered charity. Potluck Café and Catering is a fully professional café and catering enterprise in the downtown eastside (DTES) of Vancouver that provides training opportunities and permanent, stable jobs and accessible, nutritious meals to the residents of this area.
Potluck started in 2001 as a café with a very small catering side and a focus on supporting youth employment. "At the time," explains executive director Heather O’Hara, "Funding streams were available for youth and our assumption was that the café could drive enough business and provide revenue for all we wanted to do." Over time, however, the leadership and the board took a hard look at community need with regards to training and employment and realized that the greatest need wasn’t for youth. It was actually the 35-50 year olds that had the greatest need.
No funding sources = opportunity to be innovative
Recognizing that, Potluck started looking for funding to support this slightly older demographic - only to find there weren’t any sources. At the same time, they also realized that by selling affordable, below market-cost food, café revenue couldn’t sustain their training and employment programs. With the opportunity of providing catering to corporate Vancouver, the catering side of the business became more important. The combined revenue from the café and catering directly support five community social programs (see sidebar). Today, Potluck is very close to being self-sufficient. In fact, out of a $1.5 million budget, only $50,000 comes by way of a funding grant.
According to O’Hara, "Start-up funding and support was a necessary evil but, over time, this place sinks or swims on its own efforts. We take great pride in that. It’s bought us the chance to meet community needs with no strings attached. It’s also bought us the freedom to be innovative in a lot of ways that, if we were bound by funding requirements, would be difficult to be innovative. Choosing a social enterprise model really lit the flame under us to figure the business side out - whether that means the right marketing message, honing in on customer service, and investing in things like online CRM (i.e. customer relationship management) and web-based ordering tools so we can compete on par with other caterers."
The liability of the "nonprofit caterer" brand
In the early days of building the catering business, Potluck operated with the assumption that branding itself as a nonprofit caterer that did good work with people in the community was the key to doing business...but it wasn’t. They discovered that you can have good intentions but, at the end of the day, people care about quality, professional catering before they care about community good. In fact, the notion of "nonprofit caterers" had negative connotations and market research confirmed a perception that nonprofit catering equalled sub-par, unprofessional food service. In response, Potluck became one of the first caters in Vancouver to have an online catering software package installed. "That was a business decision and was our way of saying to people, 'We mean business!'" declares O’Hara.
Over time, the notions of corporate social responsibility and sustainability have become more mainstream and now O’Hara finds that they can talk about their community work in the context of those terms. However, it is a value-added, secondary message because clients’ first interest is whether or not the catering is professional and of good value.
Innovation is noticeable on the social side of Potluck’s work. Recognizing the depth of the employment barriers faced by those in the downtown eastside, they have a social worker on staff. This dedicated support role is a critical step in dealing with the constant changes felt by people in their program. The social worker offers support so people are stable and can maintain employability. That can mean anything from providing support for finding stable housing to support for mental health issues or addictions. Says O’Hara, "It’s a wise investment and because we pay for it, we have the freedom to provide it for the course of a person’s involvement in Potluck - whether they are with us for four months or four years." Potluck’s employment support model works so well they have shared their guiding strategies with other social enterprises just starting out.
A snapshot of... |
Who: Potluck Café & Catering
Mandate/Mission: Potluck's vision is to improve the quality of life and economic vitality in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) community by providing training opportunities and permanent, stable jobs and accessible, nutritious meals to its residents.
Location: Vancouver, BC
When established: 2001
Number of staff: 31
Number of volunteers: 8
Budget: $1.5 million
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Not interested in the charity model
O’Hara is quick to point out that Potluck is more than just about doing good but about something much larger: providing accessible community nutrition, creating inclusive workplaces, contributing to people finding and keeping jobs (where they are paid appropriately and with benefits), and making it possible for people to be able to buy their own groceries and pay their own rent. To reach that goal, Potluck has made a very mindful decision to use a community economic development approach rather than a charitable approach.
O’Hara explains the difference this way: "We care about building capacity of people and generating economic activity of people to purchase and choose. When you follow the charity model, you accept donations but you are never sure of what you’ll be getting. Instead, we secure what we know we want and need. The whole project is based on the premise that we will decide as a collective what we will secure, how it will be processed, how it will be distributed and, finally, we even decide about the end product, the compost."
In what is a fairly competitive area, Potluck Café and Catering has not only survived but grown - even in the face of taking on the extra responsibility of community work. They’ve managed to grow by being innovative and really understanding the business side of their operation. O’Hara sums up the bottom line: "We know our existence is about how well we do our catering business. It’s not a nice to do, it’s a gotta do." It is that bottom line that will sustain Potluck’s vision of neighbourhood revitalization through employing downtown eastside residents to prepare and serve healthy and nutritious meals to other residents.
Louise Chatterton Luchuk provides research and resources for organizations that want to strategically move forward. She is a consultant and writer who combines her love of writing with research and project management experience at the regional, provincial and national levels of voluntary/nonprofit organizations. You can reach Louise at info@luchuk.com.
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