placebased

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: Collaboration in Action

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

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

Handling Covid19 – Memory Matters

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During these unprecedented times we are shining the spotlight on grant holders who are still able to continue their service delivery. 

We approached Memory Matters, an organisation that enriches the lives of people affected by dementia. The Rank Foundation awarded the first grant to Memory Matters back in Summer 2018 as part of Plymouth Place Based funding. 

They have a team of 20 people, including 1 part-time Rank employee, who works as the Plymouth Project Officer, as well as 1 Time to Shine Leader and Kate Smith and Laura Walker, the CEO’s of Memory Matters. Last year, they welcomed 75,076 people through their doors, including organisations hiring their rooms for conferences, meetings and activity sessions, as well as customers enjoying food in the Café and people looking for advice and guidance in our Memory Matters Hub (dementia advice centre). In 2019, The Hub supported 278 families that have been affected by dementia.

“There’s no such thing as ‘normal’ in the Memory Matters world. No two days are ever the same. We run many different projects – Memory Matters Workshops  (these run every day all over Cornwall), we provide Training all over the UK (as well as regularly training nurses in large local hospitals – sometimes every week), Moments Café – an innovative social enterprise Café open to the public, Memory Matters Hub (our dementia advice centre) which is open 6 days a week above Moments Café, Memory Matters Inside (a weekly project that teaches prisoners how to provide dementia therapy to other prisoners), as well as scoping out new projects on the horizon; like the Memory Matters Fellowship  (enabling local communities to run dementia groups with our support every week). It’s usually pretty busy!

Since the 21st March, the world has changed a bit. Moments Café has closed, but not before the staff spent the week asking all our customers whether they would like us to keep in touch with them, which was tough to do and a financial worry. We have furloughed 10 staff members that worked in the Café. The team, however, are spending time supporting each other with weekly film nights, P.E with Joe Wicks exercises and daily zoom catch ups – a few of the team live alone so this contact is so vital for them and also very beneficial in keeping their spirits up. 

The rest of the team are busier than ever. The whole team are very creative, and our organisation is built on looking for the positives in everything we do. I guess when we work with people living with a life limiting disease, it’s important to make the best of every opportunity. The Memory Matters Workshop teams run 10 different dementia workshops a week, so they have approx. 70 people living with dementia to support. They are doing this by weekly phone calls and sending out weekly activity sheets to take part in at home. For those that can get online, we are running zoom sessions – these have been amazing, not only are they seeing their peers and gaining some activity to keep their brains exercised but they are learning new digital skills that means they can also connect with family members easier too. 

Our Dementia Advice Centre (Memory Matters Hub) – sees many people coming in off the street for advice – this provision hasn’t changed; it’s just not face to face anymore. We are also spending time catching up with those that came to see us in the last 6 months, to ensure they are well connected and have a weekly chat and signposting as required. We also run a Young Onset Group (YOG) and a Football Memory Café with Plymouth Argyle so there are a few more people to try and get online. This is no mean feat, trying to ensure that the systems are the easy to use, as there usually isn’t anyone else to help. Also, trying to access technology is difficult too. So, in total we are supporting approximately 130 people living with dementia and their carers. 

We are sending out a daily newsletter, which has been very well received and ensures that despite physical distance, we are still connected to those that are interested in what we do. We have received a great response from our service users and they really appreciate our daily contact. We have recently put together a quick 15-minute video to share with anyone who is going to volunteer for local councils. Many will not have training and a few hints and tips on how to communicate effectively with someone with memory loss may be helpful. 

This period is going to be tough for everyone, people running services, furloughed staff worried about how this will affect their lives and also those we support, locked at home when you don’t remember why. There will be some very difficult moments coming, we know that. All we can do is the best we can right now, with the information we’ve got. Social Entrepreneurs are agile beings, they shapeshift, are resilient and the team at Memory Matters are no different. With the amazing support from funders and friends in the business community we can only press forward, positively.”

Contact Emma Ridley – Communications Officer (also found on RankNet) for more information emma@memorymatterssw.co.uk.

Rank Conference 2019: Valuing Place

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On October 9th-10th, The Rank Foundation hosted the annual conference at the fantastic Queens Hotel in Leeds.

Every year the Foundation brings together beneficiary organisations, Time to Shine Leaders, Rank Aspire members, RankNet members and external funders and guests to a 2-day themed conference where delegates get the chance to participate in tailored seminars, the annual Accelerator Event, networking opportunities and celebratory showcases. This is the biggest event of the year for the Foundation, and we are always excited to share the amazing work of Leaders in our network.

This year, the theme of the conference was Valuing Place: Creating Collaborative Change. Earlier this year, the Foundation released a Valuing Place report focusing on the successes (and lessons learned) of Place-Based funding in Hull, Dundee and Plymouth. Building on this, it felt apt to spend two days with the network looking at how Place affects our communities, and how best to make every opportunity count. We had 250 delegates join us in Leeds, including seminar leaders, performers, key note speakers, judges and panellists.

We would like to thank all delegates for their participation at what we feel is our most successful conference to date, with an extra special thank you to members of the network who helped the team deliver the conference content by running seminars, acting as judges and panellists, and sharing their stories with attendees.

You can take a look at photographs of the event on our conference page here.

Report: Valuing Place

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The Rank Foundation is delighted to launch our latest report, Valuing Place.

The report was produced by our external evaluation team, summarising Rank’s experience with place based programmes across the UK. The report looks at the start of Rank’s place-based funding, through to the development the Hull Community Development Programme, Dundee Community Development Programme, and the introduction of place-based funding in Plymouth. 

You can read the report here: The Rank Foundation Valuing Place Report 2019