Enterprise

Charity of the Month – March

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Hull Youth Support Trust

Who are Hull Youth Support Trust?

The Hull Youth Support Trust HYST is a charity set up to support young aspiring business people in Hull and the surrounding areas. HYST is dedicated to supporting young people who aspire to set up their own ventures. They provide young entrepreneurs (aged 18-30) with heavily subsidised office space at their new site situated at 161 High Street, Hull. This will help their clients businesses grow and develop in the future.

Over the past year, The Rank Foundation have supported HYST under the Foundation’s Hull Community Development Project, and supported the charity with a number of Time to Shine interns. Kai Wooder, Director of Enterprise at The Rank Foundation, said  “Whilst we knew there was a definite history and energy for enterprise in Hull and a role for the successful HYST model, we couldn’t have predicated this level of success in such a short space of time. Mike and the team have transformed the building, not just the decor (although it looks fantastic) but mainly in terms of atmosphere and culture; it’s now a vibrant, positive and collaborative space – everything you’d want for young entrepreneurs in a progressive city.”

HYST’s Project

HYST are looking to work with young people who have been; unemployed, under-employed, disadvantaged in some way or totally new to the world of business. They enable every young person to take responsibility for their own future and are willing to consider anyone with the drive and determination to run their own business. They foresee a whole generation of young start-up businesses going on to further develop their ventures, creating more jobs and contributing to the local community. Once young business owners secure office space at OneSixOne HYST offer support and guidance which continues throughout their tenure. This gives them the opportunity to become commercially viable and allows the next generation of budding young entrepreneurs to start their journey with HYST.

Contact details

If you would like to find out more information about HYST, you can contact their Business Manager Mike Thompson at mike@hyst.org.uk.

Charity of the Month – December 2016

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Dundee Comics Creative Space

Dundee Comics Creative Space (DCCS), developed by The University of Dundee, is a social enterprise which encourages learning through comics, supports aspiring comic artists and provides individuals with educational workshops.

What is our Relationship with DCCS?

Since 2015, The Rank Foundation have worked in collaboration with DCCS, who have been really willing to engage in all the Foundation’s projects. For instance, DCCS designed the front of The Rank Fellowship Charities Evening brochure (see picture), recently hired their first intern on our Time to Shine programme and supported Caitlin Mitchell, one of our Leadership Award Holders on her CAP placement.

Caitlin (see photo below of Caitlin out in Dundee delivering DCCS posters and flyers with DCCS Coordinator Damon Herd) thoroughly enjoyed her CAP placement and gained valuable skills by working at DCCS:

‘’A highlight of my placement was getting to sit in on some of the workshops, both with young people and with Advocating Together (another Rank-funded organisation), who are creating a comic about tackling disability hate crime with DCCS. It was fantastic to see how happy the young people are here and it showed how worthwhile DCCS is. I’ve had a great time and I thank the team at DCCS for making me feel really welcome.’’

I’ve also learnt lots of new skills, such as graphic design and website editing, which I will definitely use in the future. During my placement I’ve worked closely with other people in DCCS, such as working out social media strategies with Damon Herd the Coordinator, which helped develop teamwork skills. I’ve also done some individual work where I needed to be innovative and confident in myself, such as creating interview questions for each of the different groups of people I profiled.’’

For more on Caitlin’s experience during her CAP placement, please see the comic below.

Caitlin’s CAP placement also made a positive impact on DCCS, as explained by Damon:

‘’Caitlin’s main achievement was boosting the public profile of DCCS and the work we do here. She did this through a concentrated burst of blog posts on our website and social media platforms, designing the graphics for new print media and by interviewing staff, artists and the young people who attend our Comic Clubs and using this material in her promotional blog posts. She also collaborated on a comic’s project with Rebecca Horner, an artist here at DCCS.’’

Contact Details

If you would like to find out more information about DCCS, they can be contacted through their website here or at info@dundeecomicscreativespace.com.

Conference 2016: Jacky, Faith In Community Dundee

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Jacky Close, of Faith in Community Dundee, wrote us this wonderful poem about her experience at The Rank Foundation Conference 2016. We have lots of reviews of the conference to share with you soon, so keep checking back.

Words. Words. Words.

Spoken with passion and heart,

no meaningless chitter chatter (well, maybe some over dinner).

Words. Words. Words.

People who care, want to make a difference,

sharing and learning.

Workshops, showcase, RankNet, all full of words, spoken with passion and heart.

Words. Words. Words that were sticky and stuck –

Social impact; deliverability; sustainability; simplicity.

Empowered and terrified

Opportunity…opportunity…opportunity

Learning and growing

Making a difference

Lost confidence renewed

Their words, not mine:

“I now value my skills, I value myself”.

“It’s boosted my confidence massively”.

“I love what I do, I love my job”.

“I never want to work in any other sector, I want to be in a sector driven by people not targets.”

The Rank Foundation, a pebble in the pond.

Jacky Close – Faith In Community Dundee

Rank Memorial Award – Bukola Garry

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Bukola Garry was the winner of The Rank Foundation’s Memorial Award in 2015. Bukola works for Reaching Higher, whom we have been working with for a number of years. Here, Bukola has kindly written us an account of her 2015 Memorial Award experience. 

I ended my Rank Memorial pitch saying – “Food being the major theme for this project is timeless, ageless, non-prejudice, it’s evoking, persuasive, it’s a legacy, it speaks so many languages. One of my favourite quotes says, ‘If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart’ ”. 

And that was the beginning of my 3-month Rank Memorial Award adventure.

It’s hard to capture in a few words the richness of the Rank Memorial Award experience but part of what I learned was about staying passionate about your area of interest so that when you share it, or try and create something out of it, the young people you want to attract will catch that passion and take it even further. It just so happens that my passion for food translates to young people in a range of ways and is a life skill that helps to build their confidence and their independence.

On 5th January 2015 I packed a giant suitcase, said goodbye to my husband, family and friends and headed to Sydney, Australia to work with an organisation called Youth Food Movement. They also share the heart behind bringing young people and food together. The Youth Food Movement started out as a group of young people who came together around a table for dinner to share a delicious meal of locally sourced, seasonal produce and their love for food. Out of that birthed an organisation that triggered a way of thinking that embodies all the principles I wanted to learn from and incorporate back into a project in South London.

While in Sydney I spent time visiting different farms that embrace new technologies to help grow crops and rear livestock in a sustainable way. What was interesting was that teams of young people were running these farms, (everyone on site was under the age of 30) and offered workshops for young people living in the local area. These workshops showcased the importance of the farming industry and the different ways young people can support them through changing their buying habits and exploring different ways of cooking that celebrated fresh ingredients over convenience food. Although this was not the exact experience I wanted to replicate in a project, it was great to see the different strategies used to engage young people and the hands on approach to getting their message across.

These visits inspired an idea for a series of events that celebrated and showcased different produce and those responsible for growing/rearing them called “Meet the Maker”. The aim was to get young people talking about food sustainability while sitting down together to eat. These events were held in bars and cafes popular with young people to ensure the right target audience had access and would be interested to attend the event. All the promotion was done on social media, again to try and attract a younger audience and to help make the issue of food production relevant in a conversational space. These events proved to be really successful and triggered a series of conversations online and face to face that saw the Youth Food Movement team recruit additional volunteers as well as encourage young people to set up workshops and hubs in their local areas, based around sitting together at a table and shedding light on the changing food environment and the impact their actions had.

Since returning from Sydney I have been able to start up two food-based projects as well as continue to develop my own knowledge therefore extending my experience in Sydney into my everyday life here in London and having a positive effect on the young people I work with.

The first project is called “Take Away”, a 6-week food project teaching young people basic cooking skills, affordable and easy recipes that explore healthy eating, meal planning as well as recipes that represent their different cultures and heritage. It also considers different options for sourcing food sustainably. This workshop presents an opportunity for young people to build positive peer-to-peer relationships. The young people are able to learn to work as a team, developing confidence and a core life skill using food as a platform.

The second project is called Full Circle, a programme that supports young people as they transition out of the care system and into independence. The part of this project developed as part of my Rank Memorial Award experience is teaching basic cooking skills as well as teaching young people how to shop effectively on a budget while maintaining a balanced diet.

The Rank Memorial Award is more than just a 3 month trip abroad – it is an opportunity, one that allows you to start something amazing that will continue to be effective in the future.

New 3 year report launches at The House of Commons, investigating building better communities through global learning

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The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and The Rank Foundation are launching their first joint report, ‘Building Better Communities through Global Learning’ at the House of Commons this evening.
In 2012 the two organisations agreed to collaborate on a research project to address some of the complex and urgent challenges facing communities in the UK.
In the 3 year period that followed, 58 Fellows were selected to undertake international, experiential research to investigate the question of how to build strong communities, exploring examples of good practice that might be relevant and transferable to the UK.

These Churchill Fellows are innovators, frontline practitioners and academics, who researched a broad range of community development themes – from housing to mental health, gender based violence to enterprise, community cohesion & engagement to youth support.
The main findings include 4 consistent, recurring and interrelated themes that represent the ‘building blocks of a strong community’:
•    Engagement and cohesion
•    Health and safety
•    Empowerment and resilience
•    Enterprise and innovation
The research also identified 3 broad approaches that can help to build stronger, more effective communities:
•    Community-centred approach
•    Preventative approaches
•    Collaborative, partnership approaches

Building better communities through global learning is now available both on our website and that of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
“Through a jointly funded Travelling Fellowship programme, which supported motivated and talented individuals from across the UK, we wanted to enable global learning that could contribute to safe, strong and empowered communities, fit for the 21st century” – Julia Weston, Chief Executive of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.


“The challenges facing our communities today are myriad, complex and constantly in the headlines. The solutions we all seek cannot lie with an individual, or even solely with government or charitable organisations; they require collaboration and a collective approach. We hope that this body of work, undertaken by people working across all sectors and at all levels, will contribute to the debate and help provide some solutions”

– David Sanderson, Chief Executive of the Rank Foundation.

The Major Grants Process

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The Rank Foundation only accepts applications for a small percentage of its grant making. The Pebble grants (formerly known as “small appeals”) equates to under 5% of the money that the Foundation spends on charitable activities. This can seem surprising to some who are keen to let the Foundation know of its work, particularly when they are aware of the Rank Foundation funding projects nearby.

Why do you not accept applications for the other funding?
The Rank Foundation operates a model of engaged philanthropy; this differs from traditional philanthropy in the level of involvement that we as a grant making body undertake. This includes social and intellectual, as well as financial capital, management support, and access to our wider network (soon to be known as RankNet).
Our experience suggests that by concentrating funding, knowledge and expertise in a very focused way, promoting stronger partnerships and increased collaboration, helps to ‘add value’ where the outcome is greater than the sum of each part. It is therefore vital that each project is chosen by our executives, not only for the good practice and performance that it singularly provides, but also for the benefit of the network as a whole. Our focus on three distinct issues (leadership, enterprise and care) means that we can leverage greater input in these discrete areas, working with grant recipients to maximise their impact and good practice.

How are the projects chosen?
The Rank Foundation follows a specific form of engaged philanthropy, which is research led by its executive directors. Each of our key areas is headed up by a director, which enables the Foundation to draw not only on their expertise, but also on the big picture view of the funded projects in the area. They are therefore uniquely placed to advise trustees and fellow executives on areas for further development, which can then be researched and brought to the Foundation’s attention. We are consequently able to invite only organisations which are a particularly good fit, and have a greater likelihood of a success, to go through the time consuming process of completing an application and the necessary due diligence.

How can I find out more?
For further information on other models of engaged philanthropy, please see the European Venture Philanthropy Association, of which the Rank Foundation is a member.