Commercial Ventures

Hi my name is Michael Morey and I am head of commercial ventures for this year. I am a third year Economist and joined SIFE at the start of my second year on a project called Future for Jaffna.
Commercial ventures is the part of SIFE that makes money to fund the local and international projects and the more money we make, the more expansive and wide-spreading the projects can be, and at the moment I am creating a portfolio of projects that are being undertaken now, as well as projects that are still in the pipeline.

The main commercial venture for this year is Ghana Volunteers, which is a partnership between SIFE Nottingham Ltd and CEDIS, a registered charity set up by a former SIFE Nottingham student, and Ghana Volunteers is looking to send 60 people to Ghana to do some volunteering work such as working in schools and hospitals. As part of Ghana Volunteers, I am currently marketing and advertising this volunteering scheme around the university campuses. If you join Ghana Volunteers, you will help market, brand and advertise this great opportunity and help with the administrative side with reviewing volunteer applications and provide services to the volunteers, such as helping organise permits for collecting and flights.

There are other projects that I would like to set up such as a website to get money through advertising and setting up a competition to see who can raise the most money for our charity projects.
People who want to get involved with commercial ventures need to have an entrepreneurial nature and a hard working ethic - it is clichéd but the more effort you put in the more you can personally gain from commercial ventures. It is not often that a university student can say they helped create and run a sustainable business. As part of commercial ventures, you must expect an erratic workload as sometimes, especially during an advertising campaign, it can be stressful and a lot of work, but at other times it can be quiet.

Commercial ventures is not only about implementing my ideas – I want people to come to me with a business proposal and ideas, and I can then advise and help with the implementation. It will basically be you running the project on your own with the financial support and advice of SIFE and a lot of people who are equally entrepreneurially minded!