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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
17 October 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Experienced Leader participant, Ed Tytherleigh, Chief Executive of Stoll, writes about his journey through the programme.
My career in the charity sector began as a volunteer 23 years ago. I absolutely loved that first experience – it was in a Drop-in Centre for homeless people in Manchester. Since then, I have led three charities, and after 13 years’ experience of being a Chief Executive, I now appreciate the importance of continuous learning.
I joined the Experienced Leader Programme to absorb as much knowledge as possible. I already have an MBA, and I wanted to keep learning and challenging myself.
I can safely say, I feel more confident and accomplished after taking part in the programme. It made me step back and look at my own leadership, influence and approach more objectively. I now spend more time discussing my team members’ leadership journeys and have definitely experienced a step change in terms of how I empower those around me.
"I can safely say, I feel more confident and accomplished after taking part in the programme."
One particular theme which resonated with me was that of modern leadership. How it is increasingly about relating to others, about understanding what fulfilment means to them and aligning work to wider personal aspirations.
Effective leadership is so much about being true to yourself, and credible and open with others – it is by its very nature an individual journey. As a result, I would advise anyone starting out to consider which areas of their leadership to focus on. The programme offers a very safe space to explore weaknesses along with strengths, so I would urge them to focus on what is right for them at that time.
"Effective leadership is so much about being true to yourself, and credible and open with others."
This is why I would definitely encourage others to take part in the programme. There is so much to learn and explore. So much so that we each benefited from the programme in our own personal way.
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The Experienced Leader Programme is a 12-month curated leadership development journey designed for social leaders with 6 or more years' experience, which includes 6 fully-funded places for the Armed Forces Charity sector.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
23 July 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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The world is awash with leadership books, courses and advice. In 2015 around 1,200 books were published with the word ‘leadership’ in the title. Type ‘leadership’ into a search on Amazon and you will have over 50,000 titles to peruse. Hundreds of MBA courses are available every year. You can find out how , and ‘Unicorn Leadership: how integrated, next-level leaders are changing the world’. And politicians, top military brass, psychologists and business leaders all have platforms to share their secrets of leadership success.
So with all of these options on the market, why is the responsible finance sector in need of a leadership programme?
Over the last decade, we have seen an acceleration within mainstream and retail finance of roles becoming highly specialised. But responsible finance remains a sector that puts people first, is agile and innovative.
Yet there is limited availability of training and development programmes for those working in responsible and social finance, a growing sector that is critical to supporting local economic growth and financial resilience across the UK.
In 2017, the responsible finance industry lent £67 million to over 5,000 small businesses, creating over 4,000 jobs. Businesses funded included local nurseries, manufacturers, cafes and food producers. £22 million was lent in over 55,000 loans and customers were encouraged to deposit over £3 million into savings accounts and helped to improve their credit scores and financial capability. £142 million was lent to 363 social enterprises, including a charity training medical detection dogs and a community build scheme with integrated training and employment skills on construction sites.
Credit unions are financial cooperatives that provide savings accounts and loans to consumers. At the end of 2017, there were 450 credit unions in the UK with nearly 1.8 million members. In 2017 credit unions lent over £161 million to their members, and had total deposits of £2.6 billion at the end of the year.
Social investors invest with a social purpose alongside a financial return. In 2016 £630 million was invested to over 1,100 beneficiaries. The majority of this was lending by social investment intermediaries.
Despite this significant impact, the social and responsible finance sector is ambitious to do far more and knows that the need from customers is there. Building the next generation of leaders and developing the skills they need will ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector. It is important that responsible finance leaders of the future have the confidence and abilities to tackle some of the sector’s prominent opportunities and challenges.
With small teams and limited resources, senior management needs to have an overview of and provide leadership on issues ranging from risk management to lending policies, IT platforms to marketing, securing investment to demonstrating impact.
That’s why Responsible Finance has launched its first leadership programme for the Responsible Finance Sector. Funded by the Connect Fund and delivered in partnership with Clore Social Leadership, the programme will also be available to the wider social finance sector, such as credit unions and Social Investment Finance Intermediaries (SIFIs).
The target audience is aspiring leaders in the sector, middle managers and above. The purpose is to create the next generation of responsible finance leaders, addressing succession planning, staff development and retention challenges that the sector faces.
The Responsible Finance Leadership Programme will support aspiring leaders to develop their skills, knowledge and behaviours to become stronger ambassadors for their organisation and the sector as a whole. It will help them to become better strategic thinkers, confident to operate openly and transparently while empowering others and to effectively collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders.
You can find out more here.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
07 May 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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When I signed up for the Clore Social Experienced Leader Programme little did I know that within the year I would be given the opportunity not just to join their team, but to take forward a new Clore Social Leadership initiative as their National Engagement Manager.
As a Clore Social Leadership Fellow myself, I know that Fellows form strong bonds with each other during their programme; friendships that last for years after their programme has finished. And many will remember that niggle in their heads as they approached the transition, end of programme day, looming like a cliff edge, thinking...What happens now?
In the past, with Fellows scattered thinly across the country and into mainland Europe, the “what now” has been of their own making. But as Clore Social reaches its 10th Anniversary and the range of programmes offered each year increases, we have been exploring how we can support Fellows - past, present and future – to do more, connect more and learn more in their local areas and regions.
We are really excited to be announcing a new initiative - an opportunity for you to secure funding to galvanise social leaders in your local area. This is a chance for Clore Social Fellows to take the next step in building a national movement, a community of, for, and by social leaders. We are calling them Chapters – because we see them forming the first chapter in a story that encourages great and inspiring leadership throughout the social sector.
"Take the next step in building a national movement, a community of, for and by social leaders." Patricia Stead
Last September, the first Clore Social Chapter kicked off in the North East of England, where I am fortunate to be amongst a large group of Fellows dating back to the very first Clore Social Leadership Programme in 2010. Since then we have grown in number, meeting every two months, providing a space for Fellows to share not just their Clore Social experience, but ideas for how we might all work together to take that next step in leadership and a support structure for people coming into Clore Social programmes for the first time.
In London, Phil Kerry has kicked off Cock-up Cocktails, inviting Fellows and others to meet up to share experiences and network at an evening of hilarious and honest “things that went wrong” talks from high profile speakers.
In Hull, HEY 100, the year-long Clore Social place-based leadership programme introduced people working across sectors and across a range of roles to each other. Now they want to do more, together and they are kicking off their first Chapter meeting in July.
And in other parts of the country the message is clear – Fellows want to do more.
"The message is clear – Fellows want to do more." Patricia Stead
So here it is. Today we are announcing the Clore Social Leaders' Chapter start-up fund. This will help Fellows make connections with other Fellows in their areas and to explore what powerful stuff can happen when leaders collaborate, form local networks and help to build a movement.
In 2019 we will fund the start-up of 10 new Chapters across the country (Scotland, England, N. Ireland and Wales). Funding of up to £2,000 will be available for each Chapter. Further information is available here.
Chapter proposals can be based on location or a specific context. It is up to you. We want your proposals to reach out to Fellows across programme years and strands and we will help you to do that. In the first instance, we are looking for expressions of interest, and you can register your interest here. Please note that the deadline for registering interest has closed on 20 May 2019. The deadline for applications is Monday, 17 June, 2019.
We are tremendously excited about this opportunity to help you continue your leadership journey, and build a movement of generous, inspiring leaders across your local communities. We look forward to hearing from you!
If you'd like to stay in touch, join our growing community of social leaders on the Clore Social LinkedIn community group. And don’t forget to let us know if you move area or change your contact details – we’d love to keep in touch!
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 March 2018
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Today is International Women’s Day. A day to celebrate women. A day to reflect on women’s lives, in our communities, our society, our country and across the world. A day to review how far we have come in achieving equality between women and men, and to consider how much further we have to go.
I spent 2016 as a Gender Specialist Fellow, supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, on Clore Social Leadership’s Fellowship Programme. Having worked for twenty years in and around the UK women’s sector, it was an enormous gift to be able to step back and examine the sector with fresh eyes. I have used the year to reflect on women’s position in the UK, how the social sector represents and champions women, where the funding is, where the leadership is, what it looks like and how it is addressing the challenges for gender equality today and in the future.
During the year, a series of unexpected, seismic, often catastrophic events unfolded in the UK and across the world which, taken together, made 2016 a very bad year for women. From an American Presidential Election mired in misogyny to the fetishizing of motherhood in a Conservative leadership contest to the brutal murder by a man of a female MP, to a referendum result which will see the UK leave the EU and potentially jeopardise women’s employment rights to the endless silencing of women on social media who dared to opine on culture, economics, politics or sport. All these events combined show that, in the UK, women are not considered equal to men; that gender equality is not embedded in the way that many had hoped; that a general agreement that gender equality is “a good thing”, is not widely or deeply held in our society, and currently the UK’s women’s sector is too constrained to effectively address this problem.
In my piece, I set out what lessons individuals, organisations, institutions and funders need to urgently learn of last year if there is to be any hope of rebuilding an agreement on gender equality in the UK. I argue that the funders have a vital role in enabling the women’s social sector to contribute to long term thinking about gender equality rather than constantly having to meet short term targets; that there needs to be a greater pooling of knowledge and expertise within the sector to influence and shape broad public policy issues which affect women’s lives alongside the specific areas often categorised as ‘women’s issues’; and that the women’s sector itself needs to refresh its language and reframe the arguments to engage more people in this process.
2016 presented a wake-up call for those of us who care about gender equality in the UK. 2017 isn’t looking much better. In keeping with this year’s International Women’s Day theme, we must ‘be bold for change’ and learn the lessons and take the radical steps required as a matter of urgency.
You can download Rebecca’s full provocation piece here. Please share your views and comments below, or you can contact Rebecca on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
03 August 2017
Updated: 22 October 2020
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Clore Social Fellow Baljeet Sandhu has published a report examining if, and how, social purpose organisations in the United Kingdom value lived expertise.
The Value of Lived Experience in Social Change shines a light on the social sector’s attitude towards, and engagement with, so-called service users and beneficiaries. Written as part of Sandhu’s Clore Social Fellowship, it was informed through conversations with eighty social sector leaders in the UK and US and twelve senior staff working in grant-giving and philanthropy.
The report unpicks the structures and implicit biases that reinforce a culture which undervalues the knowledge and expertise of those with lived experience and calls for a fundamental shift in attitudes. It also highlights the huge benefits that developing leaders with lived experience can have, both to social purpose organisations and civil society as a whole.
Calling for a change in attitudes, Sandhu highlights the need for a new style of leadership that is more “proactive, fluid, reflective and equitable… and recognises the vital role all key stakeholders play in the social sector’s ecosystem – including the people we serve”.
“To its detriment, the social sector often fails to recognise, cultivate and harness the insights, knowledge and lived expertise of experts by experience relevant to its work. The sector now broadly understands that lived experience is important, but still thinks of experts by experience primarily as service-users and informants, rather than drivers or leaders of change. There was general agreement that commitment to lived experience in our work is far from universal; that this is an underdeveloped and unsupported area and in dire need of better leadership."
Read the introduction to “The Value of Lived Experience in Social Change” below and access the full report and accompanying website.
This research was inspired by the simple notion that all members of society have the power to create positive social change in the world – including people and communities with direct experience of social or environmental issues our wider social sector seeks to tackle.
Indeed, history illuminates the power of individuals and communities who have worked to solve the social problems they have directly experienced. Consider the women’s rights movement; the civil rights movement; Alcoholics Anonymous; the world’s first safe house for women and children (Refuge), set up by a child survivor of domestic violence; the family from South East London tackling ‘institutional racism’ following the murder of their son, leading to far-reaching police service reforms – and the list goes on.
Throughout my own career in the social sector, I have and continue to be, inspired by the ingenuity, courage, compassion and leadership of ‘experts by experience’ who have ignited, designed and implemented significant social change initiatives on a local, national and global level.
The aim of this report is to explore how, today, the wider social sector currently cultivates, develops and evolves its social impact efforts through the work of such experts by experience, and how it can go further and do better to harness their knowledge and change-making capacity to lead positive social change now and into the future.
The full report.
Get involved in the conversation around "experts by experience" by using #livedexperience and Tweeting us @CloreSocial, or feedback to Baljeet, here.
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