Plymouth

£1.6 million awarded to Plymouth

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In September, the Rank Network came together at Market Hall in Plymouth for the phase two launch of our Plymouth place-based programme awarding £1.6 million to Plymouth social enterprises with a particular focus on projects tackling loneliness and social isolation.

35 Social Enterprises

The Rank Foundation began place-based funding in Plymouth back in 2018. Year on year, the organisations funded by Rank have shown spirit, collaboration, and learning. To find out more about the 35 social enterprises involved in phase one, view this special edition of Stone House Voice.

Upshot in Plymouth: an Evaluation

Upshot is a performance management tool which is used by many of The Rank Foundation-supported organisations. For some, it is a condition of their grant that they use this evaluation tool in order to provide evidence of their work, set targets for themselves and measure their impact within the community. The brochure, produced by Emma Ridley our Plymouth Officer, highlights those ambitious targets, their geographic reach, evidence-based media and some rich case studies. It provides an interesting mix of quantitative analysis with qualitative material, particularly those stories which detail how they have responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. View the Upshot report here.

Summary Video

This video is a summary of the event hosted at Market Hall. Special thanks to Real Ideas for hosting.

Checking in with Plymouth

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The Rank Foundation began Place-Based funding in Plymouth back in 2018 after rolling out place-based Engaged Philanthropy models in Hull and Dundee. Plymouth has become a fantastic place of collaboration, friendship and learning. 2020 has been a year of evaluation and reflection, and we would like to share with you some of partnerships and work undertaken in the area. There are three separate publications each of which is intended to give readers an overview of just some of the outstanding work being undertaken by the thirty social enterprises which Rank is supporting as part of the Plymouth place-based programme. Click on each of the report titles below or visit our Plymouth page here for more information.

Emma Ridley
Plymouth Project Officer

Upshot in Plymouth: an Evaluation
Upshot is a performance management tool which is used by many of The Rank Foundation-supported organisations. For some, it is a condition of their grant that they use this evaluation tool in order to provide evidence of their work, set targets for themselves and measure their impact within the community.

The brochure highlights those ambitious targets, their geographical reach, evidenced-based media and some rich case studies. It provides an interesting mix of quantitative analysis with qualitative material, particularly those stories which detail how they have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reflections on the Plymouth RISE Programme
Iridescent Ideas was commissioned to reflect on the Plymouth place-based programme after the initial two years of The Rank Foundation’s presence in the City.

The report explores how effective the RISE programme has been, what has worked well on the programme, how it has furthered the development of the social enterprise sector across the City plus suggested future actions.

Plymouth: Cydweithio ar Waith

 This brochure highlights just some of the amazing work the Rank Foundation-supported organisations in Plymouth have produced when they collaborate. Absolutely inspirational.

Plymouth Blog: Nudge, Greenhook Fishing and Stonehouse Voice

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Eve Broadhurst
Digital Communications Officer
In October I started my position at The Rank Foundation as the Digital Communications Officer.  Being based in Cornwall, accompanied with my facemask, I travelled up the A30 to Plymouth to visit three Rank funded projects: Nudge, Greenhook Fishing and Stonehouse Voice.
It was my first introduction to all three projects, so I was excited to find out who they are and what they do.

Nudge

Nudge is an organisation that is situated on Union Street, its base called ‘The Plot’ is where I met Wendy Hart.  Nudge bring buildings back into use for the local community.  The Plot is inspired and named after an allotment, connoting lots of different projects and businesses that the community needs to thrive.  It includes a selection of street food vans, a second-hand curtain shop, and access to bikes to help increase children’s confidence. Before Covid-19, Nudge encouraged members of the community to meet in the greenhouse area to foster conversations surrounding health care particularly local people who have multiple health care needs to ensure not all health care stops, if one health need stops.

Another building Nudge owns, The Clipper, is an old pub which has been converted into affordable accommodation upstairs for separated parents to be able to have their children safely visit as well as a marketplace downstairs for locals to sell goods.

Nudge also commissioned a new way of storytelling on the street with an augmented reality mural. By downloading an app, and holding a phone up to the wall, the mural comes alive and moves.

On an exciting note, Nudge has just purchased the Millennium Building on Union Street with the support of The Rank Foundation. Co-directors Hannah Slogett and Wendy Hart are excited to take on the project of converting the building into a space for music events and community activities. Nudge anticipates The Millennium building being COVID secure, due to the amount of space, meaning it can open the doors as soon as possible and provide events and activities to the community. With a firm belief that collaboration is key, Nudge wants creative ideas from local residents of how the building can contribute to both the community and local economy.

The purchase of The Millennium Building is exciting for locals and has generated media interest as it was empty for 15 years and Phil Davies, The Rank Foundation’s Associate Director for Plymouth, spoke to Plymouth Live:

“Rank has close historical ties to the Millennium building, dating back to the early 1940s when Rank acquired Gaumont cinemas – of which Plymouth’s Gaumont Palace was one, before it became the Top Rank Entertainment Centre in the 1960s”

“But Rank’s financial support for Nudge Community Builders isn’t about the past; it is firmly rooted in an optimistic view of the future – one in which the continued regeneration of buildings in Union Street supports community cohesion, helps to deliver better community activities and services, and in so doing helps to reverse both social and economic decline.”

Wendy explained that their shared vision of bringing everyone together started in the building on the corner, where volunteers offer soup and support to the local community.

My biggest take away is it is clear Nudge values bringing buildings back to community use. I asked Wendy if they are inspired by another town or following a model to which she replied they are not, they listened to locals say ‘it’s a shame they let Union street get like that’ but locals could never pinpoint ‘who’ let it get like that and as local volunteers and community members, Wendy and Hannah decided to make a change and to ‘not wait for big developments to happen’ but instead ‘change as a community’.

For more information about Nudge, please visit nudge.community

Greenhook Fishing

I met Ken Bromage at Greenhook Fishing to see how they intend to use Boatbuilding and Fishing to employ people, primarily ex-armed forces, who have faced challenges with employment to develop new skills. As you may have seen, Greenhook Fishing was featured on BBC Spotlight.

Upon arriving at the boat yard, I saw the first two hulls of the sailing vessels and Ken explained the intentions of Greenhook Fishing,

“The initial intention is to develop fishing vessels that will be powered by sail or oar; these vessels will use hand lines and will fish for targeted species contributing to sustainability and will have minimal environmental impact. Alongside these activities we will be developing a Fish Processing and Curing business to maximise the added value of our catch, it is the end to end process from sea to consumer that will allow us to pay cooperative participants a living wage.”

Ken and I had a conversation about how the traditional working days of Monday to Friday, from nine to five, can be a barrier to employment. Therefore, honesty and an ethos of ‘under commit and over perform’ form the basis of a trusting relationship with new employees.  Employees can work flexible to their needs and not let down the organisation.

“The long-term business model is cooperative and as the Organisation moves from charitable funding to self-sufficiency, the elements of the Organisation will migrate to cooperative status. This will allow employment flexibility”

“The intention is to create 28 permanent jobs within the fishing cooperatives and a further 5 jobs within the Boatyard. These will be a mixture of part-time and fulltime hours”.

Ken is inspired by the difference it will make to the community in Plymouth as well as seeing first-hand people being discharged from armed forces and unable to cope with civilian life.  It is due to the experience many ex armed forces employees have faced that the training at Greenhook takes place in a supportive environment, offering flexible employment and opportunities for the future.  Unlike the share fishing model whereby employees are paid based on how many fish they catch; the model Greenhook will follow is a consistent monthly living wage.  By spreading the wage across the year, it takes into account the issues around addiction by providing a stable and more normal way to live in society.

“In terms of the next stages, we will be completing the fitting out, launching and commissioning of our first two sailing vessels, The Geoffrey Rowe and Alice May and the Twilight our towing and workboat.”

Like all organisations this year, Green Hook has been affected by Covid-19 however plans to “commence commercial operations in late March early April 2021.”  BBC Spotlight are to follow the launch and do a follow up segment.

For more information about Greenhook Fishing, please visit greenhook.org

The Stonehouse Voice

The Stonehouse Voice is a not-for-profit community newspaper for the Plymouth Stonehouse neighbourhood. I met Alan Qualtrough who believes there is a news gap for real stories about local people.  After Alan recalled an extensive career to me, he said he wished he had entered the third sector sooner.

“The newspaper will eventually be community-owned with a succession policy for local members to take-over the operational management. It has an Editorial Board, and a Mission Statement that commits to supporting local residents tell their own stories; reflecting the rich heritage and culture of Stonehouse by ensuring local people are at the heart of everything it does; be free of charge; and will be inclusive and act with integrity and respect.”

After reading the Autumn 2020 copy myself as well as meeting Alan, I can see that The Stonehouse Voice is rewarding and important for both the community and writers.

“The focus will be on upskilling local people to write and produce each publication. For each edition, there will be workshops for content development, creating the news agenda for a forthcoming publication, and the design and production of the publication. It is hoped that this engagement will give residents a voice in the development of local creative opportunities and encourage creative growth in time for the British Art Show in Plymouth in 2021.”

For more information about Stonehouse Voice, please visit www.stonehousevoice.org/

I really enjoyed my work trip to Plymouth. It was a great start to my position at The Rank Foundation as the Digital Communications Officer and I look forward to meeting more projects and charities over the next year (although it may be zoom for now).

Handling Covid19 – Real Ideas Organisation

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This week, we are shining the spotlight on Real Ideas Organisation (RIO), a charity based in south west England. RIO focus their work on solving problems and creating opportunities for people, communities and organisations.

RIO has a team of 60 who suupport thousands of individuals every year through a range of events and experiences, coaching, mentoring, business support and consultancy. They are clearly a very diverse organisation, and during ‘usual’ operations they can be doing anything from reimagining new futures for old buildings to supporting young people to take positive steps towards work, education or training…and everything and anything in between! We asked them to give us an idea of an average week, to which we were answered “there’s no such thing as a typical week for the team at Real Ideas!”.

Before the Coronavirus pandemic they had been running a series of support sessions to mentor and coach young people to develop the skills they need to move forward with their lives, whilst also working with Plymouth City Council to involve more people in making decisions about green spaces and parks. At the same time they were operating three buildings, running them as co-work spaces with shared business, creative and making facilities and running events from these spaces. They are used to diverse working and following the needs and requirements of their community.

We asked the team about how the pandemic has affected their working conditions and routines, to which they said:

“Fortunately, many our staff are used to remote working, so whilst a bit of a culture shock not to see each other in person, it has been a relatively easy transition from office to home working. It was our customer facing delivery that we were most concerned about. Much of what we do involves being in a room with participants – supporting people, working in schools, running buildings with live events programmes – relies on face to face contact, so lockdown brought immediate and fundamental changes to how we work with the people we support.”

Much like most of the charities in our network, RIO moved their service delivery online. Within days of lockdown being announced RIO had scoped out, tested and set up a digital platform which enabled them to deliver online meetings and events. Since then, they have delivered more than 50 online sessions and supported over 1,000 people including 400 vulnerable young people. This can only be counted as a success; more than 650 people attended one of their online webinars and 400 young people are continuing on their employability programme. The team said “in fact, engagement with young people on our programmes has increased during lockdown”.

We asked RIO what the biggest challenge had been so far in terms of service delivery and they explained that digital disadvantage has resulted in some users being unable to access assistance, support and learning opportunities: “We started to get concerned that some of the most vulnerable were being hardest hit due to lack of connectivity or kit – without access to the internet they couldn’t access assistance from health professionals, support from foodbanks or learning activities set by schools”.  In response to this, the worked with funders and partners to distribute smart phones, tablets and wifi dongles to those who struggled with internet access. They also opened up their buildings so that those who needed to use PCs or complete essential paperwork such as Universal Credit applications had somewhere to go.

If you would like to find out more about RIO, you can visit their website at: www.realideas.org

Email them at info@realideas.org or give them a call at 0330 223 4158

Handling Covid19 – Street Factory

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This week we are spotlighting the fantastic work of Street Factory, a Plymouth-based Hip Hop Social Collective.

Street Factory has been known to the Foundation since 2018 as one of the 8 original Place-Based funded organisations in Plymouth. Since then, they have performed at our annual conference and grown as an organisation.

We spoke to Jo Gorniak, co-founder and Director at Street Factory, who runs the CIC with her husband Toby.

Founded in 2007, Street Factory’s tagline is “Transforming lives, so they exceed their potential and fall in love with their purpose!”. Over the past 13 years, Jo and Toby have been offering street dance and hip-hop classes to children and young adults, often subsedising or sponsoring those who are unable to pay full fees. They also host over 18 dance groups and have created a mentoring environment and a caring community ‘hub’. This means they are much more than a dance studio – the Street Factory team get to know their service users and offer emotional supportm promoting peace, fun, love and unity.

In a ‘usual’ week, Jo and Toby would be delivering their sessions from their Plymouth theatre to over 300 service users, as well as working with their hip-hop outreach team in schools, training programmes and other nationwide projects.

However, when the Covid19 pandemic broke out and lockdown set in, Street Factory were unable to deliver their usual classes and workshops, meaning the team have had to think innovatively about how to adapt to the restrictions. Jo, Toby and the team have been quick to act, immediately turning to digital means in order to stay connected and to support their 300+ local community service users. They have been offering daily (sometimes hourly) community support, and have been running hip-hop lessons digitally from their living room. Due to the isolation and loneliness of lockdown, they are needed now more than ever.

Street Factory creates change that empowers their service users of all ages, races and experience the chance to unlock their own potential, despite facing a range of social and economic challenges.

If you would like more information about Street Factory CIC, you can:
Visit their Facebook page
Visit their Youtube Channel
Drop them an email at streetfactorystudios@hotmail.com

Resilience Fund: Horatio’s Garden and DCFRP

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On 3rd April 2020 The Rank Foundation launched the Resilience Fund in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Applications are open to all RankNet members, and the fund has been implemented to cover cashflow, fundraising and loss of income challenges relating to the current covid-19 related climate. This includes those facing significant, unplanned demand on services. Within hours of opening, applications were received and the Grants Manager and Foundation Executives began processing the applications, assessing management accounts and cash flow forecasts, knowing that access to this type of funding was a priority.

We will be looking at some of the Resilience Fund grantees each fortnight, with this week spotlighting Horatio’s Garden and Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project.

Horatio’s Garden

Organisation Overview:

Horatio’s Garden creates and cares for beautiful gardens in NHS spinal injury centres. Once the gardens have been built the charity maintains them and organises activities to take place in the garden. A Head Gardener leads a team of dedicated volunteers who keep the garden looking beautiful, run rehabilitative garden and art therapy sessions, serve tea and cakes, and host food events and music concerts. The feeling of being free from the hospital means that longer-term patients can use the garden for things they can’t necessarily do on the ward.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

As a result of the lockdown, the charity has had to cancel all its Spring and Summer fundraising events which will lead to a loss of income in the region of £240,000. As a garden charity, Horatio’s Garden hold the majority of their fundraising events over these months when the gardens are at their most beautiful so a large proportion of their fundraising income is raised during these months.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

The uncertainty around how long the pandemic will last means Horatio’s Garden is not getting the exposure it would usually recieve. Therefore a grant of £20,000 towards new fundraising efforts has been awarded.

Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project

Organisation Overview:

Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project (DCFRP) help people in the local community to make their houses into homes. They help around 340 people per year who may be moving into a property after being homeless or moving home because of domestic violence. Many of their clients have been given properties with no carpets or curtains and haven’t received any help or advice.

The charity believes that every person should have a bed to sleep in and a sofa to sit on and every family should have a dining table.

As well as furniture, DCFRP provide advice via a free coffee and advice corner. They will help people to look for jobs and write their CV’s, and also help with applications for benefits and housing advice.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

“At the moment, and to be honest, we are trying to take it day by day and week by week. We are concentrating on what we can do to survive for now in the hopes that we will recover.”

The furniture shop has closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, therefore this revenue stream has stopped. The only income they have is when Plymouth City Council rehome an individual or a family, but this is nowhere near enough income to pay salaries and cover rent. DCFRP are still donating furniture, but are unable to collect donated furniture due to social distancing and lockdown, therefore stocks are low.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

Bringing forward DCFRP’s Match Trading grant of £10,000 will help them to recover far quicker than the anticipated 6-12 months and will significantly decrease the likeliness of the charity closing its doors.