The Canadian Mental Health Association’s (CMHA) The Cleaning Solution employs individuals with severe and persistent mental illness in a commercial janitorial social enterprise.

The first thing the team did was hire a General Manager. The Cleaning Solution is a unique organization in that it is run by an individual living with severe mental illness. As the size of the staff increased, it soon become clear that the General Manager could not run the organization and provide the additional support that specialized employees required. As a result, the team hired a counselor to provide HR support to employees. To date, the majority of the Cleaning Solution sales have been acquired through word of mouth or the Social Purchasing Portal. To encourage more proactive sales, the SVP team developed a new website, sales materials and sales strategies for the enterprise. As a result, the Cleaning Solution has experienced massive growth in the past year. To ensure a process of managed growth, SVP Partners (now sitting on the board of the Cleaning Solution) encouraged the enterprise to take time out to ensure business systems and HR support are in place to manage their next level of growth. Once stable, the Cleaning Solution will undertake a proactive marketing campaign to advance to their next level of growth.

In the past year, revenues have increased five-fold. In addition, the number of people employed by the social enterprise has increased from three to 16. In 2006, TCS paid more than $49,000 in wages to people living with mental illness, most of whom live on disability benefits and/or incomes below the poverty line.

http://www.cleaningsolution.ca/