“Upshot helps us to evaluate the change we make in people’s lives and their communities..” The Rank Foundation.
Over the last few months at Upshot we have been supporting the Rank Foundation on two timely, valuable and impactful initiatives. We are excited to be supporting Rank’s Time To Shine programme, supported by National Lottery Community Fund, helping tell the stories of over 130 new leaders who have recently embarked on a career in the third sector. We are also working on data capture for the Recovery Fund – a DCMS-funded programme designed to provide charities and social enterprises with urgent and immediate funds to address the on-going pandemic.
The Rank Foundation started using Upshot back in 2014 to capture data, support grantees and tell the story of impact in three geographical areas of the UK, having adopted a place-based approach. The latest two programmes we have been working on are the largest in terms of grantees and beneficiaries supported.
The Recovery Fund was set up by the DCMS as a Covid-19 relief grant. The grant assists with a wide variety of issues that the recent and ongoing pandemic might have affected within organisations. This includes (but is not limited to) staff salaries, project running costs, general running costs and overheads, and goods and equipment which would not be capitalised.
Time To Shine is a fantastic programme that The Rank Foundation has been running for over 10 years now, and as a result has influenced the lives of over 300 people that have been through the programme, as well as the organisations that they have worked for. In light of Covid-19 more funding has been issued to expand this programme further.
The purpose of the Time to Shine programme is explained twofold by The Rank Foundation.
- To enable individuals with the right skills mix, talent and work ethic, the opportunity to experience a 12- month paid leadership and development placement in a charity.
- To fill organisational, developmental and skills gaps in smaller charities by identifying a specific piece of work that can be completed in 12-months
Alongside the day-to-day work at the individual organisations, both the Time To Shine leader and their line manager attend various sessions run by The Rank Foundation designed to improve leadership qualities and develop them within a professional environment.
“We have enjoyed a long and effective partnership with Upshot, which has benefitted both ourselves as a funder and the many organisations we provide grants to. We are delighted to see Upshot go from strength to strength and extend its reach to even more community and charity organisations, especially supporting some of the most vulnerable in society. Upshot helps us to evaluate the change we make in people’s lives and their communities and we are excited to continue our successful collaboration”. Caroline Broadhurst, Deputy Chief Executive, The Rank Foundation.
As part of the programme roll out, Upshot has supported and trained over 300 individual organisations that have been issued one of these grants by building them bespoke Upshot accounts, training them on how to use it specifically for their Rank Foundation reporting.
The grants will enable a large number and variety of charities address a range of social issues to recover from some of the damage suffered during the pandemic. This really will go a long way towards helping these organisations produce a high quantity of exceptionally positive and beneficial work to local communities and wider society. It is a pleasure for Upshot to be working with such an empowering organisation and playing a small role in the delivery of the programmes.