Showing some civic heart

December 4, 2012 by Jo Painter · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Fellowship

Here in the Fellowship department we are very keen to forge partnerships with organisations that share similar values to our own, the overall idea being that through mutual collaboration we can make a much bigger impact. Recently, our thinking has turned to how we can open up the expertise within our network of Fellows to a younger audience.

Since the summer we have been working with an organisation called Student Hubs to develop a partnership which will bring together the collective expertise, enthusiasm and ideas of RSA Fellows and Student Hubs participants. Working across the UK, Student Hubs seeks to transform student involvement in social action. They act as a catalyst, empowering students to become active members of their community by promoting social action, social entrepreneurship and citizenship.

As with all of our Fellowship partnerships, by collaborating with like-minded organisations we hope to reach out to new audiences – making a bigger impact and helping our partners to do the same. With the support of Social Enterprise Berkshire’s Tony Davis FRSA, we held our our first joint event in Oxford two weeks ago, where students from the Oxford Hub met with RSA Fellows for an evening workshop to brainstorm ways to use Oxford’s empty shops to address a social need.

Be it youth unemployment, sustainable food production or community isolation, people came armed with ideas and possible solutions…

Set in the amazing Turl Street Kitchen (Oxford Hub and Student Hubs HQ), the event had a dual purpose: to introduce social enterprise by thinking about how we could use empty spaces for social good, and to encourage a mix of ideas and collaboration between different generations.

And this is what happened (click to enlarge)…

: Community cohesion

: Inter-generational communication

: Waste

: Affordable housing

: Unemployment

: Showing some civic heart…

Great conversations made for some great ideas! But where can we go from here? Well, Student Hubs offers access to a range of funding bodies to support new ideas, and of course RSA Fellowship provides access to small grants through the Catalyst fund and the expertise of Fellows through the SkillsBank. The RSA South Central region is also launching a pop-up shop advice line for Fellows and RSA friends who want to know how to go about taking their ideas forward – get in touch with Alice Dyke, Regional Programme Manager at the RSA, for more information.

Next up…

We’re hoping to run similar events and initiatives with Student Hubs in 2013 – so watch this space! Student Hubs are based in universities across England such as Southampton, Bristol and Cambridge – if you live in one of these areas and want to get involved get in touch with Amy Anderson, Oxford Hub Manager.

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We’re always happy to hear about potential opportunities for collaboration and partnership at the RSA – if you’d like to find out more, please contact our Partnership Development Co-ordinator, Jo Painter.

For more pictures from this and other RSA events, join the RSA Flickr group.

Tags: civic society, community, conversations, empty shops, fellowship, ideas, intergenerational communication, Oxford, RSA Catalyst, RSA SkillsBank, social enterprise, social good, student, student hubs, The RSA, unemployment, waste

RSA Fellowship partnerships: sharing is caring

September 6, 2012 by Jo Painter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Fellowship

For the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the value of partnerships and collaborations between organisations. My role at the RSA is to lead on strengthening and diversifying our Fellowship networks with new pools of expertise and experience. And one of the best ways to do this is by broadening the range of partners that we work with on a variety of projects and ideas.

Partnerships are really about sharing resources…

In a tough economic climate, finding effective low cost ways to collaborate between charities is becoming increasingly important, and partnerships based on the exchange of human and intellectual resource even more so.

RSA Catalyst funding is available for Fellow-led start up projects, along with an expanse of expertise in the Fellowship and the ability to connect Fellows around the world

At the RSA, we are fortunate enough to have built extensive networks of skills and experience through our Fellowship, which itself extends to 101 countries across the world. In our ongoing search to strengthen these networks and the impact of the work our Fellows are doing, partnering with other organisations offers an effective way of bringing in new skills and best practice to the RSA.

I’ll give you a few examples:

Ashoka – an organisation that’s a world leader in supporting social entrepreneurs. Ashoka is one of our newest partners and we’re very excited about the potential positive impact working together can have. With the RSA’s Social Entrepreneurs Network, RSA Catalyst, RSA SkillsBank and our Fellow-led networks across the world, both the RSA and Ashoka will benefit from sharing our networks of people with extensive skills and dedication to tackling social issues; supporting both of our core missions.

UpRising – a leadership programme whose mission is to open pathways to leadership for talented young adults aged 19-25 from diverse backgrounds. Through this partnership, not only is the RSA able to offer the expertise of our Fellows and staff by running Catalyst workshops and mentoring for the UpRiser’s, but we are also able to increase our engagement with young people in London, Bedford, Birmingham and Manchester, as well as the local Fellow-led networks in these areas.

Winston Churchill Memorial Trust – An organisation that awards British citizens from all walks of life to travel overseas, to bring back knowledge and best practice for the benefit of others in their UK professions and communities. Our partnership with WCMT brings together two communities of people across the UK: RSA Fellows and Churchill Fellows. A pilot in Wales this year has matched these two networks and various RSA Fellows are providing advice and support to some of the Churchill Fellows’ projects.

Our existing structure is also well placed to support returning Churchill Fellows to develop their projects and support the impact they make.

With Catalyst funding available for Fellow-led start up projects, the expanse of expertise amongst the Fellowship and the ability to connect them with Fellows around the world, you can see the benefit in sharing human and our organisational resources.

We have many other fantastic partners (you can find out more information here), and each demonstrates how we in the RSA Fellowship department approach our collaborations; with the mindset that we can fulfill our own historic mission and objectives by supporting and sharing with other organisations.

And that is one of the RSA’s greatest attributes…

You see, as a convenor of networks, we can connect top social entrepreneurs with young leaders from UpRising, and projects looking

Time for networking at the RSA/Skoll Centre event

to start-up overseas with RSA connectors and a network of like-minded individuals across the world (psst! We had a great partnered event with the Skoll Centre on starting up a social enterprise overseas, have a look!)

There will be more from me in the coming year, I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface and am very excited to share with you our work and the fantastic impact our partnerships have in supporting people to change the world – you see, sharing really is caring.

Jo works in the Partnerships Team and you can follow via @Jo_Painter

Tags: Ashoka, collaboration, expertise, FRSA, funding, networks, partnerships, resources, sharing, social enterprise, The RSA, UpRising, WCMT