If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you’re not going to Glastonbury (if you are reading this at Glastonbury, thanks but surely there is something more entertaining that you could be doing?).
Not going to Glastonbury is actually a major part of the Glastonbury experience. Hear me out: if you turn to the person next to you right now and say “not going to Glastonbury this year then?” you can then have an excellent five minute conversation which will involve at least several of the following points:
- The BBC’s coverage is so good that you just prefer watching at home
- You can’t imagine camping in a tent when it’s going to be 30 degrees
- You’d need at least a week to recover
- It’s too expensive and big compared to the 90s (when you didn’t go anyway)
- It’s too commercial now and the lineup isn’t as good as it used to be
- You prefer seeing bands in smaller venues. I mean the Killers are great but you preferred seeing them with eight other people in the Joiners Arms / Fibbers / Junction / Zodiac the first time round.
You won’t get a conversation like that if you’re there. I once made the mistake of not not going to Glastonbury and ended up at the festival. It really made me feel like I was missing out.
So sit back, enjoy this week’s news and take comfort in the fact that unlike the 200,000 people camping outside Pilton right now, you’re the one who made the right decision…
This is not just any Community Business Challenge
It’s an M&S Business Community Challenge. Opening for applications on Friday 11th July, it’s a partnership which combines skilled volunteers from M&S with grant funding from Power to Change, to support the community business sector. Upcoming programmes will be taking place in Bristol and Bradford; SSE is a partner of the programme and will be hosting some information sessions in the coming weeks for anyone interested in applying to the fund.
You can find details for the Bristol sessions here and for the Bradford sessions here.
Brand news part one
Your company doesn’t need a social purpose to succeed according to an article written this week by Aytekin Tank, the CEO of JotForm. It’s a good piece: “My company, JotForm, creates online forms. We’re not bringing clean water to developing nations or solving global poverty. Instead, we aim to make people and organizations more productive. We don’t have a social purpose—and that’s okay”.
Brand news part two
Making many of the similar points as the article above, The Drum have looked at some of the best and worst examples of cause marketing. Basically it all comes down to authenticity, which is why I reckon you should come on our How to Create an Authentic Mission Led Brand workshop on July 11th.
Boy zone
SSE Fellow Suzi Godson is currently is a finalist in this year’s prestigious Tech4Good Award for Connected Society with her app MeeTwo. As part of the competition they have created a crowdfunder to enable them to develop resources around self harm and suicide prevention for boys: 1 in 4 boys aged 16-24 self harms and boys who self-harm are 17 times more likely to die by suicide.
Suzi is looking for as many people as possible to donate anything from £1 up. It’s a serious issue but the rewards are fun – a day out with meerkats for two or custard bombing the MeeTwo co-founders.
From Boyz II Men
SSE Fellow River Hawkins is running The HUMEN Space, a free safe space for men to talk to maintain their mental health in central London every Monday at 6:30pm. The one hour sessions are for all men, not just those that are struggling; it’s preventative rather than crisis aid so that men can help themselves before they might reach breaking point.
The sessions are an anonymous and non-clinical and take place at 15 Bateman St, near Tottenham Court Rd and Leicester Square tube stations.
I’ve got a favour to ask
I’m going to be sending out the SSE training survey next week, our annual survey of the training needs for social entrepreneurs across all sectors. If you’ve got a newsletter that’s going out in the next couple of weeks and you’d be happy to include some details reply to this email and let me know and I’ll pop some text over to you and will then be eternally indebted to you. We’re looking for respondents from the social enterprise, charity, public and private sectors so don’t rule yourself out on the basis that you might not have the right audience!
All abroad
It’s been open for a while so I may have included this previously but I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to check (it’s Friday, give me a break) but the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust are accepting applications to the Churchill Fellowship. It’s ‘a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand your professional and personal horizons by researching an issue that you care about, with the global leaders in that subject, anywhere in the world’. Quite a few SSE Fellows have taken part previously.
A capital idea
25 of London’s most dynamic community leaders are needed for Civic Futures, a new initiative from by Koreo, Dark Matter Labs, and The Young Foundation, in
partnership with the GLA. The project wants to build shared and collective wisdom from the civic society to help make the transition to a better future. If you are working on grassroots-led change in London (or want to nominate someone who is) they’d like to hear from you. You need to get in touch by 2nd July.
Banging our own drum
Some bits and bobs from around the SSE network:
First, huge congratulations to SSE Cornwall, who picked up Ambassador of the Year at the Cornwall Business Awards last night – and thank you if you took the time to vote for them. A well deserved award for the team. (Read more here)
Charles Rapson, CEO of SSE Midlands, has written a piece explaining how he’s facilitating conversations between social entrepreneurs and the police to tackle the region’s tragic youth crime problem. 17 SSE Fellows and students recently met with the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioning team, including commissioner David Jamieson. You can read more about it here.
Our head of comms Sophie Hobson has shared five tips to help you bring your impact story to life in a blog post for Good Finance, which you can find here.
SSE Dartington have just released details of Climate Action for the Social Economy, a three day programme taking place in Bristol this September. All business leaders in Bristol who want to respond to the climate emergency are invited to apply, which you need to do by 17th August.
Granted
Our friends at Paul Hamlyn Foundation are recruiting a Grants Manager (as in money given out, not managing a team made up entirely of people called Grant) for their Ideas and Pioneers Fund. If you have experience of supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups, ideally in the social change field – and a track record of helping individuals achieve their own growth and development objectives then they would like to hear from you.
The job is based in London, pays £33-£35k and the closing date is 15th July. Apply here.
Last but by no means least…
Finally, Lizzi Hollis of Richard House has begun compiling an excellent list of fundraising learning resources – it contains websites, networking groups, podcasts, social media groups and more.
