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Thank you

A final farewell

As the year draws to a close, it’s finally time for The Foundation to shut its doors. But not before celebrating what an amazing four year journey we've had. One that wouldn't have been possible without you.

It’s been an incredible ride. We’re so proud to have created a disruptive foundation which has taken risks on fresh ideas. Ideas which have shaken up the way things are done and are now transforming young lives across London, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

We’ve been able to work with incredible organisations in their infancy, giving them their first injection of support when they needed it most. We've had the pleasure of working with them intensively, inspired by their vision, celebrating their success and supporting them through their challenges, with the help of our wonderful tech company supporters. We’ve gone on a journey together as partners. Our impact

We’re proud that over the last four years The Foundation has created real impact.

As for us?

We gave ourselves a tweet each to capture our feelings about The Foundation.

The people I’ve worked with have inspired me the most. My team & our partners. A few people can make a huge impact when we workcollaboratively & dare greatly. Anna, Head of Programmes It’s been a jam-packed time of learning! Most of all The Foundation has taught me that sharing is key. Whatever little nuggets of learning one has - pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. Bobbi, Partnerships Manager Young minds, fresh horizons, worldwide impact. This is what one can achieve being part of The Foundation. Kobby, Young Associate I'll miss you The Foundation. Gutted that we couldn't keep you alive but proud of your achievements and the legacy you leave behind. Thanks to all who enabled us to make great things happen. Michael, Director It's been an incredible journey full of inspirational people and impactful change. Neil, Founder and Trustee It was The Foundation's values that drew me to it, and they'll stay with me even after The Foundation is gone. Suraj, Head of Digital

Thank you

The Foundation will continue to live on through our partners and through Beehive. We’ll stay committed to improving young lives, taking all our learning with us, and look forward to the next step. But from all of us, thank you for being part of thisincredible adventure. We wouldn't have been able to achieve what we have without you.

The Foundation Team

Reflection Time with Mike from Forward3D

Pictured: Mike Wickham taking a dip after his cycle across Uganda

Last week, Mike returned from Uganda after cycling 250+ miles, from DR Congo border to the border of Rwanda, on a mountain bike, in the monsoon season to raise money for our amazing partners Product of Prison (PoP). PoP provide opportunities to prisoners in Uganda, to rebuild their lives and return to their communities with confidence, skills and work experience.

Mike wrote us a few lines about how he found the challenge, and how his recovery is coming along!

Pictured: At the start line, DR Congo border

The first Day

After a 7 hour bus journey from Entebbe, to get to the starting point (at DR Congo border), we were really eager to get on the bikes. The first day was a "simple" 3-4 hour journey on tarmac roads and for the most part it was quite a good warm up... though there was definitely some pain in the nether regions as I got used to the bike. The amazing thing was the send-off we got from all the locals. A crowd of a few hundred people gathered to see what was going on and cheered as we got on our bikes and headed off!

Pictured: The supporting crowd to send off the participants

An eventful day two

We traveled through Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw a few elephants (in the distance), lots of monkeys and a few other wild things. The days ride was fairly flat but we weren't helped by the monsoon storm which turned the dirt track we were riding on into a thick slush. We battled the torrential rain and lightning, and our fearless founder Neil also survived a run-in with a motorcycle, which sent him spinning through the air...a few painkillers and bandages later and he was back on the bike! A few more (lower key) crashes later in the day summed up the difficulty of the challenge...

Pictured: Monsoon puddles

Day three: I want to die.

By the third day my body was in bits. My back, my legs, my arms, my hands, (and my bottom) were all screaming at me. However, this was meant to be the ‘easiest day’ ...meant to be. To add to this, we missed a shortcut, turning a 50km ride into 70km, and this was virtually all uphill. It took close to nine hours, but me managed to make it to the lodge just before dark. The silver lining was the views from the top of the mountain. Looking down at the jungle and hearing the sounds of the rain forest was amazing!

Pictured: Green Uganda

Day four: climbing

Another day of climbing. We were all prepared for this to be the most challenging day, but amazingly it was one of the more enjoyable. Somehow my body had started getting used to the saddle, and the constant leg exercise. The main thing was that it didn't rain! Which meant the roads were relatively solid and far easier to cycle. In total we climbed over 1000m (net) on day four.

Pictured: Mike in action

Around lunchtime we passed by a school and stopped for an impromptu game of football. It was almost 20-a-side and absolute mayhem, but the skills were there in abundance. The children all throughout our cycle were simply amazing. Even at the highest points of the mountain, children would appear from the trees and wave us hello. When we passed by any school they would scream their heads of and for a short while I knew what it felt like to be Taylor Swift.

Pictured: (above) Football (below) Children gathering to see what was happening!

Day five: the day of descent

The best day by FAR! Downhill! We started at an altitude of 2,400m above sea level - the highest we would be for the whole trip, so we knew the only way was down. The weather was immense and cycling through the jungle down a mountain with the sun glimpsing through the trees was amazing. The views were simply extraordinary. But the day was to get even better...and at around midday we were gifted with the surprise of tarmac! I never thought I could be so happy about a road before...they were first proper roads we had seen since day one, and I maintain that they were the nicest, smoothest roads I have ever experienced. Still downhill, we meandered at incredible speeds down the mountain. Pure glee.

Pictured: The team jumping for joy!

Day 6: the finish line

After a great day five we were nearly there! Somehow my body was recuperating and I was feeling as fresh as day two. The last day was also on tarmac and relatively flat. It was quite a short 40km day and at about 2pm we reached our destination - the Rwandan border. Some celebratory cokes were in order alongside the medals that PoP had generously had made for us. What a great experience

Pictured: A tired bunch at the finish line, Rwanda border

Mike’s thoughts on Product of Prison

I first got involved with PoP last summer (2014), when I went out to Uganda with The Foundation for the first time. I was helping PoP with their digital marketing (setting up adwords etc) and was lucky enough to see what they do first hand. This included actually going to a Ugandan prison and meeting some of the prisoners that they help. I know that there are plenty of causes that you can support, but I can honestly say that the work they do is incredible. What you need to remember is that the justice system is not what it is here... People can be sentenced without a proper trial or even evidence in some cases. Prisoners in Uganda are such a forgotten group, who receive little to no support or rehabilitation help from the government. PoP fundamentally try and rehabilitate and reintegrate former prisoners back in to society. They also provide prisoners with paid work whilst in prison so that they might be able to support any family they have on the outside.

For me, it is also massively about the people who run PoP and what they give up to keep this going. Some of the nicest people I've ever met so I'm glad I can help in any way I can.

Pictured: Mike presenting awards with Product of Prison, Kampala 2014

Mike on fundraising

The fundraising went incredibly well and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for donating. I smashed my target (1k) and raised just over £1,500 which is incredible. I really, really appreciate everyone who donated, whether it was through the table tennis tournament, drinks night at work, or just because you wanted to support. Thank you!

One piece of advice for anyone thinking of fundraising: Just do it. You'll never ever regret doing something like this.

Pictured: Lake Mutanda, Uganda

Here at The Foundation, we say a huge thank you to Mike! Not only for completing this challenge, but for all of his hard work and the continued support he’s given The Foundation and our partners over the years. We feel very lucky!

If you would like to support Mike, then don’t hesitate to visit his JustGiving page.

Insights from our journey

We've spent time reflecting on our four year journey since we told you that The Foundation will be closing at the end of this year.

It was fun, exhilarating, challenging but most of all, an intense learning experience. We learnt about young people, our reason to exist. About non-profits just starting out, the recipients of our support. And about working with tech companies, whose talent and innovation we drew upon. And heaps more.

We want to share with you what we learnt on our adventure. We hope to inspire and to give ideas for how you might or might not approach things. We've created a brutally honest account, sharing our successes and spectacular failures.

You can download the report from our website. We've focused on eight areas where we've gathered the most insights: building a venture; leadership; programmes for young people; supporting non-profits; the world of funders; fundraising; communications, and; working with companies.

We like to think that the The Foundation will still be around after we close our doors. We'll exist through all the social start-ups we've helped get through their difficult early days. Through Beehive, our fundraising website which will continue to help non-profits secure funding. And through our insights, helping others to create social change.

All of which makes us feel very proud.

The Foundation Team

(Anna, Bobbi, Michael and Suraj)

Geared Up for the Uganda Cycle Challenge

Pictures: The team at the Congolese border ready to start

Right now, staff from across our company supporters are cycling across Uganda to raise money for our amazing partner Product of Prison (PoP), who provide opportunities to prisoners in Uganda to rebuild their lives and return to their communities, with confidence, skills and work experience.

Pictured: Overview of the route

The Great Ugandan Cycle Challenge started from the Congolese border, and will cover 256 miles to reach the Rwandan border, in just 6 days. We thought we’d give you a little snapshot of how the team have been getting on with their journey so far...

Pictured: Smiles on day one, with a few broken bikes by day two!

Day One in the sun!

The first day started in the sunshine of Mpondwe, covering 55km to Katunguru with just a sprinkle of sleep due to long flights and a longer transfer from Entebbe to the border. The team had just three hours before dark to complete the ride to Bush Lodge, making it with just one puncture, swiftly fixed by the amazing team in the support vans!

Pictured: Emma Gresko and a very muddy team navigating the puddles

Day two gets wild!

The team cycled 74km passing through Queen Elizabeth National Park, home to 95 species of mammals and 500 species of birds. The team got sore bottoms from bumpy roads, crossing paths with thousands of butterflies, a tree-climbing lion and even an elephant!

Pictured: Tree-climbing lion in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda

Day three tests the legs!

On Saturday the team cycled 63km from Ishasha (900 metres) to Buhoma (1500 metres) in mist-covered hillsides, blanketed by one of Uganda’s oldest and most biologically diverse rainforests, which dates back over 25,000 years and contains almost 400 species of plants and also protects an estimated 320 mountain gorillas (that’s roughly half the world’s population). The team got their first real taste of heavy monsoon downpour, testing even the best waterproof gear out there!

Pictured: More mud and hills

Day four with the silver back gorillas!

Sunday saw the hardest day of the challenge so far with a day of very heavy climbing, to accompany the heavy monsoon downpour! The team made it 46km from Buhoma (1500 metres) to Ruhija (2300 metres), home to even more bird species and the great mountain gorilla.

Pictured: Neil Hutchinson in action!

To be continued...

We’ll be back with more pictures and more tales from Uganda soon. In the meantime you can keep up with the team visiting PoP’s Facebook page. You can also show your support to the team by visiting The Great Ugandan Cycle Challenge Justgiving page.

Keep pedalling gang!

#UgandaCycleChallenge

A (Long) Goodbye

With heavy hearts, we're sad to announce that The Foundation will be closing at the end of this year. Those of you who know us well won't be surprised to hear that here at The Foundation HQ we're all gutted. The reason? Three years ago we were set up as the foundation of tech company Forward Internet Group. As Forward split out to become multiple independent companies we had to evolve to become the foundation of those different companies. To sustain and scale, we tried to become the foundation of other tech companies beyond the Forward Group. But we ran out of time and, ultimately, weren't able to bring in the funding that we needed. But we're not wallowing. We leave with our heads held high, so proud of what we've achieved. We created what we set out to do - a youthful, risk taking foundation that goes the extra mile in supporting frontline organisations. What puts the biggest smile on our faces is the impact we've had on over 40 frontline organisations we've partnered with and thousands of young people that they serve. We've been helped by so many wonderful people and organisations during our journey. There are too many to thank here but special mentions must go to our founder Neil for giving us the freedom to create something special, our supporters for making our work possible and, most important of all, our partners working tirelessly on the ground for inspiring us and giving us our reason to exist. We want to finish on a high. We've got some great ideas for giving our partners the best possible support over the next few months. And we'll be sharing all the interesting things we've learnt during the past three years with you. The Foundation will still be around. We'll exist through all the social start-ups we've helped get through their difficult early days. And through Beehive, our fundraising website which will continue to help non-profits secure funding. We'll be in touch next month to share our learning. And we'll say our final goodbyes in December.

The Foundation Experience (A partner’s perspective)

We’ve been partners with PACEmaker International since January 2015. Here, leader Peggy (pictured above, far left), talks about her experience of being part of our Launchpad programme.

My name is Peggy Mativo. I’m the founder of PACE, where we work with youthful volunteers to create equitable learning opportunities for students from rural and slum areas in Kenya. We place youth as volunteer teaching assistants in understaffed public schools. This model gives young people in Kenya the opportunity to learn soft skills and effective workplace behaviors, while at the same making a difference as tutors, mentors and local change-makers. Becoming partners with The Foundation in December 2014 was one of the best things to happen to PACE.

Support for the unscripted

From our very first meeting, Anna, the Head of Programmes, began sharing opportunities for us to grow. These were both for the organization, and for me as a leader. To prepare for our first meeting, I deliberated with the PACE team and we agreed on our priorities. We needed a fresh set of eyes to look at our website, new perspective on our monitoring and evaluation and advice on our fundraising strategy. Every month, we meet on Skype and she offers great advice, suggestions and introductions that have helped increase the impact of our work.

Peer learning

After one of our conversations on monitoring and evaluation, Anna introduced me to Jessica Barratt, CEO of Franklin Scholars, where they help secondary school students get a strong academic and social start by engaging older peers as tutors. Although Jessica and I are on different continents, we instantly connected on our shared passion for young people. We both want to help youth reach their full potential. The heart of our discussion was on how to make monitoring and evaluation fun and engaging for kids. We discussed the importance of children’s voices in our work, and how we’d design around challenges we experienced. These challenges included the general dislike of questionnaires and tendency for questions to influence the objectivity of feedback from children. We agreed on more open-ended conversational interviews, and using questionnaires where we ask the same question in different ways and compare the responses.

Pictured: a class being supported by a PACE volunteer teaching assistant

Human resource advice

Anna also introduced me to Marisa Wheatley who has been a senior HR Manager for Forward Internet Group and now volunteers to support partners of The Foundation, like PACE. This conversation with Marisa ranks as one of the most intense ever. She shared her passion for working to develop the potential of people within organizations and teams. As we unpacked the ups and downs of managing a team of 85 volunteers and a growing staff, Marisa share tips and recommendations on how we could improve communication - including agile methodology meetings from the tech sector. She also gave us the templates and tools she’d developed during her years of experience working in HR. This conversation gave me new personal and team evaluation tools that were simple enough for the team in the office and the teams of teachers and teaching assistants to use.

Team newsletters and blog

One of the things I’ve admired most is the level of humor and honesty in The Foundation’s blog and newsletter. From the “Shoe is on the other foot” to “Some good news and some honesty”, the amount of bravery and openness is admirable. I read this blog for guidance, and for the reassurance that the challenges on this journey are shared ones. I am not alone. Perhaps, these deeply honest reflections come from the team’s experience of coaching.

Coaching with the Kairos Project

The Foundation also offered me the chance to have a leadership coach this year. Like most entrepreneurs, I’d never had a leadership coach before - so I was not sure what to expect. I’d heard that it was something like an athlete getting a trainer to help them reach Olympiad standards, but I wasn’t sure how this would apply to leadership. The Foundation connected me to a coach from The Kairos Project - an introduction that set off a series of deeply personal reflections on my journey as leader. (I must say: it was unnerving at first- I was not used to having to focus on exploring my own internal barriers and bottlenecks.)

Every two weeks, I’d meet my coach over Skype to discuss my progress and agree on experiments I would work on. One of the biggest changes that came as a result of the coaching was in the resting policy of our organization. Before Kairos, I was one of those people who checked and replied to email all the time. I was content to work from Sunday to Sunday- after all, the work we do is pretty important. Unbeknownst to me, as a result of the constant go-go-go behavior, I was “showing up” to work more and more fatigued, and slowly burning out my team. With the Kairos coach, we worked on strategies for how I could “center” and rest almost instantly in the middle of a busy day. We also started “make-up” weekends for the days our team had to work during the weekend - and energy levels at PACE went back up.

Our growth

With the support of The Foundation, we’ve grown to over 47,000 hours of volunteer service, which has helped students in 15 schools improve their grades. 305 young Kenyans have volunteered with us, growing their leadership and teamwork skills through the school improvement projects they started. Our vision at PACE is to get every child in Africa a great quality education, and to give African youth the leadership opportunities they need to maximize their potential.

Conclusion

PACE is a leadership factory. As we work to address the shortage of teachers on the continent (starting with the 70,000 missing teachers in Kenya), we are also growing a movement of local leaders for the education sector. The youth leaders we raise are problem solvers who are aware of challenges in the learning sector. They care deeply about making a tangible difference in their local community, and they are equipped with the skills and life experience to continue thriving. They will do well for themselves, and for their communities. Working together with these young African leaders, The Foundation, and other growth partners, we will create a continent where all kids get an inspiring learning experience and reach their full potential.

Getting to Grips with Analytics

Yesterday evening we ran a workshop on analytics for our network, led by our good friend and analytics wizard Brad Fehler from Lyst. Using analytics is a really effective, free, and user-friendly way of working out how to optimise your website, ensuring that you get the most out of it. That can mean you get more viewers, sign up new members or supporters, and even draw in funding. This is just as relevant and useful for tiny start-up social enterprises or charities as it is for large businesses.

Five takeaways to get the most out of using analytics:

Make sure you have clear objectives in what you are trying to achieve. Why do you have a website? It shouldn’t be just for the sake of having one. The reason this page was so hugely successful was because it had a clear purpose and made it as easy as possible for people to engage with it.

Once you know what you’re trying to do with your site, set goals leading on from that which you can test using analytics. For example, you might want to see how many people you can get to sign up to your mailing list. Play about with what the sign-up button looks like and what page it’s on, and track the success of your experiments using analytics.

When you’re using analytics to work out how to optimise your site, don’t look at any one element in isolation, always look at it alongside other information. For example, analytics might tell you that viewers from Italy are spending loads of time on your site, clicking through all the pages and signing up to your newsletter. This might make you think you should direct all your activities and marketing towards Italy. But by looking at another piece of information you’ll see that you only have one viewer in Italy, so definitely not worth changing your whole business model!

Be curious and explore - don’t be intimated by the data. Test things out and if in doubt, look up any questions you have on Google or YouTube. Chances are someone before you will have had the same question.

Useful tools: Google Analytics is great, free and very user friendly. QuillEngage is a really useful tool for getting the most out of analytics - and it does everything for you! If you’re just getting started and need to create a new website, Lander is a great tool that lets you create your site really easily. And it links to analytics. Result!

There you go. Five reasons why you should start using analytics and no reason not to! Enjoy :)

Is the risk paying off?

by Anna Chojnicka

We’re a young foundation. We’ve been around for three and a half years. This means that for the first time, we’re just now starting to get a picture of how our partners are doing over a longer-term period, and the impact our support has had on them.

This is especially exciting for us because we work with social startups without a proven track record. While the charity sector is traditionally risk averse, we’re also rooted in the tech sector, which is much more risk taking with a philosophy of ‘fail fast’ and iterate to create great work. Two of our five values are that we’re fresh and adventurous. This means that we unearth new ideas which disrupt the status quo to transform young lives. So over the last three years we’ve taken a punt on working with amazing leaders with great ideas which haven’t been fully tested yet. We take risks in doing so. And we’re now at the point where we can start to see whether the risk is paying off.

Some key stats

Since 2012 we’ve partnered with 41 organisations in London and East Africa, providing each with a package of support (grant funding, expertise and connections), to help them establish themselves as organisations and test and prove their model. I should note that in our early days we did not exclusively support startups, some were more established organisations launching a new programme, but most are within a few years old.

From the data we’ve collected about our partners’ growth, we’re really excited to see that they’re doing incredibly well. The information below relates mostly to their income, which of course is only one measure of their success, but is a good indication of how they are getting through their difficult early years. (For more on how we measure our impact have a read of this.)

*Based on information collected from 26 partners and excluding some that were more established:

Combined income of our partners when we started working with them: £3,417,377

Combined income of our partners in 2014: £10,958,017

Projected combined income of our partners in 2015: £15,457,952

96% of partners have a greater income in 2015 than 2014

Number of young people directly supported by our partners this year: 173,029

Spotlight on three partners

1. Balloon Kenya

Balloon Kenya is an entrepreneurship programme with a difference. They train young Kenyans in the lean startup methodology. People who’ve gone through the training and set up their own enterprises then train another group of young Kenyans, thereby fostering collaboration and multiplying their impact.

When we started working with Balloon Kenya in June 2013, we were their first funder. They now sustain themselves and continue to scale through traded income alone. Last year they established a partnership with the Department for International Development to run their programmes across Kenya. They have trained 1,000 young entrepreneurs across Kenya and Uganda, and are now expanding to Ghana. They have invested £102,000 in micro-loans for the most promising entrepreneurs.

2. Hao2.eu

Hao2.eu is a great example of a partner that is breaking barriers and bringing something new to the sector. They support young people with autism and complex needs by working with them to co-create online virtual worlds (pictured above). Each young person has an avatar and is able to interact with one another in these virtual worlds, developing skills, accessing information about opportunities and even gaining work experience. All this, crucially, in a world that is controllable by them. From this they build in face-to-face training as well.

In the UK, young people with autism face discrimination; less than 15% are employed compared to 40% of people with disabilities. Hao2.eu has directly supported 150 young people, helping them gain confidence and find employment. Thanks to their success, they have established a partnership with Job Centre Plus who offer Employment Support Allowance for people with disabilities, and are now recommending Hao2.eu to people with autism all across the UK.

3. iceaddis

iceaddis is one of our most disruptive partners. They are Ethiopia’s first innovation hub, providing a platform, training and connections for the country’s young tech entrepreneurs to flourish. They are a game changing organisation, and have really started and built up the tech startup scene in Ethiopia, which prior to them didn't really exist. Given the Ethiopian context, this could have been seen as a particularly risky partnership, as they are attempting not only to create a new sector, but also radically change mindsets.

Although still very early stage, the impact that iceaddis is having is already great. They are building a movement of young Ethiopians who are creating opportunities and businesses, and aren’t afraid to have their voices heard. They are launching exciting startups which are thriving across different sectors. Mekina.net, one of iceaddis’ first startups, is an online marketplace to buy, sell and rent cars. They are alraedy the second biggest internet business in Ethiopia, worth $500k, according to The Economist.

Worth the risk?

Our partners are doing amazing work and shaking up the way things are done to transform young lives. But we know that in future some might fail. Indeed, if some aren’t failing we’re probably not trying hard enough to be truly innovative. But hopefully this helps to convince those who aren’t sure that it is worth taking the risk, that it is. Afterall, “if at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

A game of failure

by Suraj

You may know that we've built Beehive - a web-based service designed to make the funding experience easier and more efficient for non-profits and funders.

You may not know that we've been fundraising to help grow and develop the service beyond the current beta.

Over the past 6 months we've written 10 funding applications, amounting to £826,595.50 in funding requested. Can you guess our hit rate?

We've been successful with 1 in 10 of the applications we wrote, providing 1.21% of the funding we requested. Ouch!

So does this mean we've failed? Or what we’re trying to do has no value?

Some people may think yes, and if the funding system were simpler I'd agree. However for this to be true some 90% of the sector would also be failures.

I don't believe this to be the case. There are certain market dynamics at play which make judging a non-profit on their fundraising success to be ineffective. Indeed the current funding system is so complex and opaque that it dictates a low success rate - it's the system's crude 'quality' control and fundamentally it's failing the majority of those seeking funds.

We know there has to be a better way. And this direct experience of fundraising failure has shaped how we've developed Beehive, to create an easier and more efficient funding system.

P.S. We'd love to know if you think the funding system could be easier and more efficient, so say [email protected].

#failure #failurerevolution

Welcome to The Foundation family, SafetyNets

We’re delighted to announce that we have just partnered with SafetyNets, who we are supporting through our Launchpad Programme.

SafetyNets is an app which helps young people involved in sex work to increase their safety and wellbeing by enabling them to anonymously share tip-offs and warnings with others nearby instantly, securely and for free. It also lets them know about useful support services and opportunities. We’re thrilled to help them develop their work and roll out the app to young people across London over the next year.

For more information on SafetyNets and how we are supporting them click here, and to see all our Launchpad partners click here.

How do we know it’s working?

by Anna Chojnicka

Like any organisation worth its salt, we have a mission which we are focused on achieving. For us, it’s all about transforming young lives. One of the two ways we do that is through our flagship programme, Launchpad, where we partner with amazing social startups in the UK and East Africa. For us to understand whether what we’re doing is working, we have to be able to measure our impact – and this can be trickier than it sounds. For profit-making businesses there’s a pretty simple way of figuring out how well you’re doing: look at your profit. But in our sector this can be a bit of a minefield. Our approach is by no means perfect and it’s something that we continue to iterate and improve, but we thought it might be useful to share it with you.

A bit of context

Launchpad is all about unearthing disruptive ideas which support young people to reach their potential. We partner with very early stage startups with great ideas, and over the course of a year help them to establish themselves as organisations, test and prove their model, and be on their way to becoming sustainable.

We do this by providing them with an intensive package of support that consists of grant funding, ongoing expertise and connections. That means there’s a bit of a multiple whammy in terms of what impact we’re measuring. It also means it’s important to get the balance right between putting effort into measuring and truly understanding the impact we and our partners are having, whilst not taking focus away from actually doing the work that creates the impact. This is intensified in the startup world, where organisations need to adapt as they learn, and where they’re stretched for resource and time.

Pictured: this joyful snap was taken just after a meeting about impact measurement with our partner iceaddis... M&E is really exciting

What we measure and how

We’re very hands-on with our partners and meet up at least once a month to support them. This is done in a very informal way – much more of an open chat rather than a check up or a report. The purpose is to make sure we understand how they’re doing and what their challenges are, so we can provide the best possible support for them. Having those close relationships also means that we having a much deeper, ongoing understanding of the impact they and we are having. But of course it’s important to track impact more formally as well. We do this by breaking it down into four key areas:

1. Impact on young people

We track the number of young people whose prospects of securing a livelihood have increased. We have five key indicators to help us do this, at least two of which will be relevant to each of our partners:

Engagement (meaningful participation in a positive activity)

Positive thinking (development of critical positive traits)

Learning (completion of education or training)

Employability (better prepared for work)

Work (securing a livelihood)

Our partners differ a lot so we don’t impose a method of impact measurement on them, but support them to develop a way that works for them.

2. Impact on our partners

This is about us understanding the impact of our support on our partners. So we measure the number of organisations whose capability to serve young people has significantly increased. This includes an increase in their income and reach, and in their skills and capacity as a team. We ask partners to fill out a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the partnership, to get a sense of how they feel they are doing in five key areas, which mirror the support we provide them: vision and strategy, programme development, expertise, finances and connections. A second questionnaire asks them to specifically consider how much our partnership has helped them to develop in these areas.

3. Impact on social entrepreneurs

When you’re starting an organisation it’s tough, and can be quite an isolating experience. So we provide a lot of support to the leaders to help them along their journey, for example through leadership coaching. To measure their development as leaders, we ask them to fill out a quick questionnaire at the beginning and end of the partnership. The questions help us to understand where they’re at, relating to the competency framework we developed around what we think makes a great leader. The key competencies are: creativity, influence, focus on results, courage and growth. (For more on this and to see what our perfect leaders looks like, have a read of this.)

4. Our reach

This one’s a bit more straightforward. We keep track of the number of partners we have, amount of funding we’ve given away, days of expertise we’ve provided for our partners and number of events we’ve put on for our network. We share this on our website here.

We’re always learning

As a young organisation ourselves, we’re still adapting and learning, and will continue to iterate and improve the way we measure our impact as we go along. And it’s a collaborative effort. We’ve taken inspiration and ideas from what’s already out there and adapted it to fit our unique approach. But we’re always keen to learn more so any feedback or ideas are welcome. We’re also happy to share the specific tools and questionnaires we use. Get in touch with [email protected] to find out more. And a special thanks to Josh Atkinson for his amazing support in this area.

Problems and Pizzas

On Wednesday we brought together a great group of people from different walks of life to help three amazing organisations hash out three big challenges. We believe strongly in the power of collaboration and feel that it works best when you get people from different sectors and backgrounds working together, to provide fresh perspectives and new energy. So last night saw leaders and staff from social startups, the young people they work with, funders like The Big Lottery, media agencies like Square Up Media, and tech companies like uSwitch all give up their evening to help each other, and learn along the way.

The mini hackathon was held at uSwitch, one of our supporting tech companies, and was a chance to get people working on challenges faced by three of our social startup partners: The Big House, Box Up Crime, and On Our Radar. The challenges were very different but stemmed from similar places - all three organisations have got off to an amazing start and are having great social impact, and now want to capitalise on what they do well to strengthen further.

Having heard a brief intro from each organisation, including an outline of their challenge, attendees broke off into groups, joining an organisation each, and helped them to come up with ideas to tackle their challenge.

The Big House

Challenge: How to generate an income stream so they don’t have to rely on grant funding and provide opportunities for young people at the same time.

Ideas

Take what you do well already and adapt that, finding creative ways it can bring in income, rather than trying to come up with something entirely new.

Find mutually beneficial partnerships. For example, The Big House could help corporates transform their corporate training or ‘away days’ using drama and involving the young people they work with.

Young people should be at the centre of any of this work, so The Big House generates income and serves its members at the same time by up-skilling and offering them valuable experiences.

Box Up Crime

Challenge: Following a successful pilot year in one school in Barking and Dagenham, and with demand for their work from other schools and organisations, how can they scale up across London effectively?

Ideas

Scale by focusing on particular areas of London rather than a scattergun approach. e.g. borough by borough. By doing so, you’ll build momentum and have the benefit of schools and young people in the same area talking to each other about you.

Hire a mixture of exceptional experienced and young people that you trust and give them the freedom to run their area. Recruitment should be based on your values as an organisation.

Put young people at the centre of your efforts to attract support – through videos, testimonials, and through them approaching schools rather than you.

On Our Radar

Challenge: How to engage young people in the best way possible and improve participation on their programmes using technology.

Ideas

Tailor your approach according to the type of person you’re trying to engage. One group of people might respond well to daily phone calls, another might engage more on social media.

Understand the trends of how different people engage with you, and then experiment to optimise and improve retention. Track how they respond as you go along, so you can work out what works and doesn’t.

Working with different groups of people with different motivations can make designing a standard process difficult, or even impossible. That’s why, in all cases, design decisions should be led by those benefiting from the service. For example, Radar’s project on dementia has used a 3D printed mobile handset with a single button to meet the specific needs of those suffering from dementia to be able to have a voice. With the result being unprecedented levels of participation.

This is just the beginning. People got excited about each other’s work, formed relationships, and will now continue to help each other out and develop these ideas further. We can’t wait to see where they go next.

What’s your organisation’s DNA?

You might remember that we’re building Beehive, a web-based service designed to make the funding experience easier and more efficient for both non-profits and funders.

Unlike anything else, Beehive uses data on funders’ historical giving, along with data science to build an understanding of the sector. Similar to the way DNA describes an individual person, Beehive uses a simple approach to describe the complexity of each organisation, and by doing so is able to provide funding recommendations.

Ultimately this saves non-profits valuable time and improves their chances of success by only approaching the most suitable funders. This in turn enables funders to more effectively manage demand for their support, and have actionable insights to inform their philanthropy.

We’ve recently completed the first version of Beehive’s funder recommendation algorithm, and now we would love your help to test it. Join hundreds of non-profits and sign up today to see which funders are a good fit for your organisation.

P.S. If you’re a fellow funder drop us a line and see how we can help enhance your philanthropy.

#tech

Remembering how hard it is to be 17 makes it easier to be 28

Samantha is Digital Accountant Manager at Factory Media, the world’s leading action sports publisher and supporter of The Foundation. She has been mentoring with The Foundation over the last 10 months. So, we caught up with her to find out how she's been getting on.

Why be a mentor? I don't remember anyone able to give me honest and objective advice about how to choose my career/university, let alone the harder things a 17 year old faces. I wanted to be a sounding board for someone and help them by just listening. Basic listening is rare in any industry, and even more scarce in a young adult's life when they're trying to make huge decisions without truly knowing who they are or want to be yet. I sort of fell in to what I do, and I'm lucky because I love it, but I don't feel like I had people showing me all of the diverse options available, and I wanted to do this for someone else. What can you learn from your mentee? I really admire the sheer confidence of my mentee, and the energy. I think it's easy to lose both confidence and energy as you get older, so I try to take that with me after we meet. My mentee is not afraid of anything and loves to talk (I do too, this is also why it works!) How do you think you help? Bold honesty. Listening. Asking questions. My mentee makes me laugh and, more importantly, is very honest too; about teachers, when self-reflecting, weaknesses and strengths. This honesty allows me to understand where I might be able to help. I'm open about my own strengths/weaknesses too. We're actually very different in those ways, which works. What do you enjoy about being a mentor? Remembering how hard it is to be 17 makes it easier to be 28! Young people have so much to juggle, so many people pulling them in different directions and a lot of pressure to deal with, as well as developing at the time. 'Be smart, be creative, do extra curricular activities, spend all your time studying, get a job'. It's tough! I enjoy getting this perspective, but also knowing that I'm able to encourage my mentee and provide some opportunities, that through discussion, I know are helpful. For example, my mentee wants to flesh out extra curricular side so we are volunteering in a care home together. What are you learning about yourself? I think it's true that it's easier to give advice than to take it, and I find myself trying to give my mentee confidence or assure my mentee in ways that I don't even do for myself. So I'd say I'm learning to take my own advice sometimes! In fact I've learnt that I could probably do with a mentor... Is this something you would recommend to others? It's all the cliches; rewarding, surprising, offers real perspective, and it's insightful about young people as well as yourself. Massively worthwhile.

Why not check out what Nick from Forward3D thinks about his mentoring experience too!

The Dark Side?

When I left Save the Children three years ago to join the world of funding I got a lot of stick about leaving the ‘front line’ to do battle for social justice from behind the scenes. I was even compared to Darth Vader, joining the ‘dark side’. I’ve always tried to be more Anakin than Darth but have failed on occasions.

But what of the wider world of funders – is it more like the Death Star (galactic super weapon capable of mass destruction) or planet Endor (beautiful world with cute furry animals running around)? Here are my reflections:

1. BRAIN POWER

I hadn’t appreciated how much knowledge funders have. I’ve met some seriously smart people. Funders are in a wonderful place, exposed to different types of approaches to solve social problems. We’re able to collect and share data and learning to understand what works and what doesn’t work to put us all in a better place to solve social problems. This doesn’t happen enough though, probably because up until now we’ve not had a way to share our data.

Shining lights: All that is changing. The 360 Giving consortium of Indigo Trust, Nominet Trust, Dulverton Trust, BIG Lottery and NESTA are helping funders to publish information about their grants online so that we can all make better grants in the future.

2. HIDDEN MOTIVES

Funders each have unique motives influencing how they behave. And you won’t find all of these listed on our websites. This matters when it stops us from becoming an exceptional funder. Take us, when we first started out one of the things we found ourselves looking for in an organisation was its potential to be attractive to the staff of our founder, the Forward Internet Group. And that’s a poor basis for creating social change. Funders need to show more courage in convincing decision makers and stakeholders to fund the right things.

Shining light: Esmée Fairburn always appears to be led by a pure, undiluted desire to create social change.

3. WHERE’S THE FRESH THINKING?

There’s very little innovation. We’re always hearing about new, exciting ideas from front line organisations but I can’t remember the last time I was struck by creativity from a funder. Funders have huge resources at their disposal but most choose to use the tried and tested practices. The role of a foundation could be stretched to include ways beyond traditional grant-making to support organisations.

Shining light: Zing Foundation has created a unique way to support organisations. Unleashing Potential trains up young people to provide their partners and other organisations with low cost IT support.

4. WASTE

There’s too much time wasted on us. Nine out of ten applications to funders fail and applications take way too long to complete. We can’t make a decent decision based on a written application anyway - it just ends up being a writing competition. Is this down to our fear of failure? It was for us. We used to ask for too much information and much of this was because it reassured us that our funding would be in safe hands. That was flawed thinking – there’s no link between the quality of an application and the work then done. Funders need to embrace the possibility of failure - if we don’t, who else will? - and invest more time in meeting organisations face to face.

Shining light: US Foundation Mulago Foundation doesn’t have an application form. In their words, “We don't take proposals. Proposals are a hassle for all concerned and rarely give us the information we need. We source through our own network and ask our own questions.”

5. AN UNEQUAL PARTNERSHIP

Funders and frontline organisations both need each other to achieve their missions but often the relationship is unequal. We’d both get so much more out of the experience if things were equal. Trust is the foundation of the best partnerships but it’s difficult to create when things aren’t equal. So funders don’t get to hear the real story, just the one their partners they think they want to hear. And funders don’t get constructive feedback so that they can improve.

Shining light: We love how Segal Family Foundation respect their partners and take every opportunity to showcase them to the world.

So, is the world of funders more like Planet Endor...

...or the Death star?

I wouldn’t go as far as comparing our world to a galactic super weapon but neither is it a beautiful place right now. Here are three ways in which we could make it better:

1. MORE EMPATHY

It’s so important that we understand the situation from the eyes of the organisations we support. As funders rarely receive feedback it’s hard to do. And you only really understand another’s perspective if you’ve walked in their shoes. We need more people from frontline organisations working for funders through secondments and job swops and more opportunities for funders and frontline organisations to get together.

2. SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE

We don’t just exist to achieve our own narrow missions, we’re part of something bigger - a movement of people changing the way things are done to make the world a better place. So we must look beyond our own mission and make the interaction between our comrades as positive as possible so they’re in a better place to achieve their missions.

3. COURAGE

Funders’ staff often agree about what makes a good funder. Making it happen is the hard bit as it means having the courage to convince decision makers and other forces that their worldview is inhibiting social change. And this is a much bigger problem for our sector. We give those outside our sector what we think they want to hear - ‘we have low admin costs’, ‘here’s a picture of a starving child’ or ‘we’re only ever successful’. We do so out of fear of losing support. But if we had the courage to tell the real story we’d create stronger, deeper relationships that would put us in a better place to achieve our mission.

Here at The Foundation, as well as loving Star Wars, we’re trying to make the funding world a better place to be, by testing and sharing new ways of supporting frontline organisations. We hope the force is with us to do that.

Shoe is on the other foot.. and we’ve got blisters

We’re scaling our work so we’ve needed to fundraise. The Foundation has been busy proposing to other funders that they support us to launch more social start-ups and build Beehive, our new fundraising app.

It’s been a fascinating experience. Here are five reflections: 1. Oh my, it’s tough. We forgot just how tough it is. We’ve got frustrated, particularly when writing funding applications. We’ve found some aspects tedious. Like spending time reducing the word count on an application form by coming up with more succinct ways of explaining something. 2. We’ve learnt so much from interacting with funders. Their knowledge and sector wide view has helped shape our plans for the future. But we haven’t learnt so much while writing applications. The questions haven’t made us think differently and we’ve received little feedback. 3. It’s shocking how much time is wasted on us funders. 90% of our applications have been rejected, bang on the industry norm. Rather aptly, the product we’ve been fundraising for addresses this issue. Beehive matches non-profits and funders, making fundraising more fruitful and less painful. 4. Those providing funds and those seeking funds both need each other to achieve their missions, yet an unequal relationship can emerge. Funders who choose to create an equal partnership with frontline organisations are rewarded with a more trusting and open relationship. 5. You can only truly understand another’s perspective if you’ve been in their shoes, felt their pain. And the pain at times has been so bad that we’ve nearly ended up in hospital. Reminding ourselves of what it’s like to fundraise has inspired us to make things better for applicants of our own funding. Our experience shows the value of funders tasting life as a frontline organisation. Job swops and more opportunities to come together would help. By doing so, us funders will become much better at what we do - enabling frontline organisations to do wonderful things to change the world.

A talented bunch

Pictured: Phil on the ascent of Mount Toubkal

We work alongside talented and generous tech companies to transform young lives. They are a diverse range of companies. Though rooted in the online world, there’s an eclectic mix of characters with different skills to share and they make our work possible. They’re our source of funding and expertise for the social start-ups that we support. It’s important to us to celebrate their involvement.

So, we had a little chat with Phil, Recruitment Manager at Forward3D, to share with you the heaps of involvement he has with us here at The Foundation.

Q: So Phil, tell us a few ways you have been involved with The Foundation.

A: I’ve personally been involved in three main areas this year. I became a mentor this year and it’s taught me a lot about perspective and I am genuinely enjoying the experience. As we all know, childhood goes by in a flash and those sixth form years can be some of the most enjoyable, although at the time you think the amount of work and pressure is insurmountable. Mentoring is often about just being there for someone, allowing them to make their own mistakes without judgement or punishment. You’re not there to have all of the answers, and often you discover things together. We chat and bounce ideas around.

I wish I had had a mentor at that age and am actively looking for a mentor for myself now, as I see the huge value it can bring. I would say to colleagues at Forward3D thinking about mentoring, don’t feel like you need anything more than the life experience you already have to mentor, and really it’s not as hard or daunting as it sounds.

Q: Wonderful! You said three areas, tell us about another.

A: Well, there is the ongoing work we’re doing with Fluency, running a short-course in digital marketing for the young people they work with. It’s also really interesting, and part of a move to ensure the population of Forward3D is diverse. This came off the back of an event that The Foundation set up for alumni of the first course Fluency ran, to meet businesses looking to hire junior SEO and social media types. I spoke to the Co-Founder, Sinead, at the event and enquired about whether they ran a PPC course and, upon discovering they didn’t, suggested that we help them get it set up. I can’t take most of the credit for this though, as the heavy lifting was done by Paddy Rochford, also at Forward3D, but it’s been fun to access a different source of hires for Forward3D. We now have three Fluency PPC graduates coming to our next grad day this month and I’m sure Paddy and I will be rooting for them to get hired (no bias of course).

Pictured: Paddy Rochford with Fluency at Forward3D HQ

Q: And lastly...

A: Last but not least, trekking up Mount Toubkal, where a group of us raised £20k for Fight for Peace, one of The Foundation’s early partners and Forward3D’s charity partner of the year. This is probably the best experience of my life so far. I signed up as I thought it would be a great focus, and an affront to my fear of heights. Trekking in 35C heat doesn’t seem like it would be fun, but somehow it was. I’ve made friendships galore in Forward3D that I would never have had before, and realised the value of hot sauce in making a meal at altitude much more palatable. I’ve got the bug for mountain trekking and am planning my next trip to Kilimanjaro next year. But I never want to hear the phrase Yalla! Yalla! again - thanks very much.

We extend a huge mountain sized thanks to Phil for all of his hard work and support. To all of our supporters offering their expertise and fundraising for our amazing partners, you make it all possible.

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