When June O'Sullivan arrived at the Westminster Childrens Charity, she encountered an organisation with enormous potential, but facing significant problems. She  explains to us how  and why she took the difficult step of transforming a charity into a growing social enterprise, now under the banner of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF).

The fruits of her labour can be seen today. LEFY is thriving and spreading across the capital. It operates a pay what you can afford model, with poorer families paying significantly less for their childcare. By providing good quality early years education to children from less affluent families it is providing a living example of the importance of early years education. Her company is now looking for further investment to help expand and franchise the model and was recently at one of ClearlySo's own Social Investment Speed Dating evenings.

How did you go about changing the structure of LEYF?

It was very much a charity when I first arrived. My main aim has been to work towards changing it from charity to a social enterprise. It was quite difficult in some ways to persuade some of the staff who had been there for a long time - they can think that if they're not a charity they won't be helping the poor. However if we hadn't made the change, then we wouldn't have been able to help anyone.

A social enterprise is simply another way of doing a business, it means reconfiguring your business in a social way and that's what we're doing offering a number of avenues in employment and training. We're also looking to expand the model so more people can benefit.

The Government has stepped up with its Early Years Intervention Initiative? Have you been involved?

We have been involved with the early years intervention initiative. One of the most interesting aspects we've been helping with is the idea of expanding social impact  bonds to include early years intervention. We're seeing this used in a very narrow way with the literally captive audience in Peterborough Prison. Expanding beyond this is vital if social investment is to grow.

How do you measure your social impact?

We're very focused on measuring social impact. For example, we can go to an investor and tell them they can expect a social return of 4% on their investment. This is not going to come through cash in their bank, but instead through improved life prospects, reduced crime etc.   Sometimes it's only when you take a step back that you realise just what you've got. I've recently been in Dublin speaking to another early years organisation and I realised that actually what we have here is pretty special.

How easy do you find it approaching potential investors?

There is still a difficulty in explaining social investment to investors. They get the idea of financial return and they think of donation, but they don't understand the concept of a combination of the two. A journey needs to be had. We need to talk their language, to bring it into the world of business and present it in a way they can understand.

What are your plans for the future?

We're looking at social franchising options to spin out the model more quickly. We've been looking at ways to do this such as part franchising the idea, so that people can take on the idea. We targeted London for starters, but are looking to expand our reach. That's always been the case. When I started, LEYF was the Westminster Children's Society with a reach only in Westminster. I thought that was much too small and far too narrow. Why not stretch across London and even further afield.

Franchising the idea brings a number of challenges in particular managing the quality to ensure franchises meet the level we set down. I think there is anxiety about franchising among social enterprises. We hear a lot of talk about it, but only a few actually do it. However, it can be a great way of achieving scale.