Reflections on The Place Based Funding: Developing Best Practice report
Convenor:
Caroline Broadhurst, Rank Foundation
Speakers:
Bonnie Hewson, Power to Change
Bonnie Hewson is the Place Based Investment Manager at Power to Change, a charitable foundation that supports the community business sector. For the past 15 years she has worked with community-led projects & enterprises focused on community resilience and for the past 5 has been managing the Empowering Places programme in Bradford, Grimsby, Hartlepool, Leicester, Plymouth and Wigan.
The Place Based Funding: Developing Best Practice report (by Rachel Laurence) reflects on emerging discussions between place-based funders (and particularly those aiming for place based systemic change) and place-based institutions. It explores some of the challenges encountered on both sides and suggests some potential approaches and principles for funders to use to evolve their practice – many of which will already be familiar guiding stars for those in the ACF Place Based Learning Network.
This report was commissioned in 2019 to understand how different emerging approaches to funding place-based systems change might be better aligned across the funding sector, to collectively share learning and amplify impact. These questions remain very live within all of our work and can be addressed in multiple ways and we hope that this report helps to encourage conversation on best practice, and supports the ongoing work within and between foundations engaged in supporting communities and organisations to make their places better.
Jo Blundell, Place Matters
Jo has a background in UK public sector service and has a deep interest in designing and delivering transformation through collaboration and through engagement with people with lived experience and citizens. She is a service designer and works as part of a network of people and organisations, including Collaborate CIC, the Design Council, Government Outcomes Lab and Project Place. She is a Fellow of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and co-authored ‘Are we Rallying Together. Collaboration and public sector reform’ with colleagues from the Government Outcomes Lab.
Emily Sun, Place Matters
Emily consults to organisations in the health, education and social sectors, that are interested in building cultures, leadership and teams where collaboration, learning and innovation can flourish. She is particularly interested in organisations that are focused on community centred, multi-stakeholder approaches to enabling places to regenerate and thrive. Emily has been with Project Place in the UK since 2019, a collaboration building a centre of learning for place-based work across the UK.
Phil Davies, The Rank Foundation
Phil has had an extensive, thirty-year career in both the further and higher education sectors. His career started as a university lecturer in business and management. After holding a number of senior academic roles he eventually became the University of Bedfordshire’s Director of Corporate Partnerships with responsibility for managing the institution’s external commercial relationships at home and abroad. He joined City College Plymouth in 2002 and after undertaking various roles he was appointed the College’s Principal and Chief Executive in 2011 before retiring at the end of the 2018 academic year.
On leaving the College he joined the Rank Foundation as their Associate Director of the place-based programme in Plymouth. He also runs his own consultancy which provides coaching and mentoring to senior managers working in education settings.
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Please note that this event might contain discussions of sensitive topics or information.