Publications

An Inspiring Partnership: Venture Trust and Inspiring Scotland

This is a guest post written by a member of staff at Venture Trust It’s the small things that really matter… relationships forged through a shared endeavour to help young people transform their lives for the long term. For the past 10 years, Inspiring Scotland and Venture Trust have been working together to change the

Away and Play: Fun, free and vital for development

We have lost something by scheduling ‘fun’ as part of our busy lives. Who remembers hopscotch? Climbing into a cardboard box? A stick that to you was a magic wand or a Light Sabre? Who remembers just running through the woods or over the grass for no real reason at all? I am sure most

Building Collaboration Fund

[THIS FUND HAS NOW CLOSED] We are excited to be managing the assessment of applications to a new £100,000 ‘Building Collaboration Fund’. Applications open on 4th February 2019, with grants of up to £25,000 available for groups of third sector partners working in collaboration, to improve the social care they provide. The Fund is a

Catherine Alexander talks about her experience as a Pro Bono Volunteer

Pro Bono supporter Catherine Alexander, has over thirty-five years’ experience in banking and financial services, having worked with private clients, institutional clients, insured defined contribution pension scheme clients and insurance company clients. Most recently Catherine worked with Aegon Asset Management / Kames Capital where she was she was Head of Client Service before joining Inspiring

Celia Tennant on the benefits of outdoor play for Holyrood Magazine

Scotland is beautiful. We have mountains and rolling hills, forests, meadows, sandy beaches and rocky bays. Our cities, towns and villages are rich with urban beauty too. In fact, with their abundance of parks and gardens, they are the greenest in the UK. It is a beautiful place to call home and should be a

Celia Tennant thanks intandem charities and volunteers.

Inspiring Scotland recently commissioned Blake Stevenson to carry out an Independent Evaluation of our intandem programme. Established to support children and young people who are looked after at home, intandem provides them with a mentor they meet once a week, with whom they can have a positive and trusting relationship free from some of the pressures that life has thrown at

Celia Tennant writes about our obligations to young people for Holyrood magazine

Scotland does not belong to you. It does not belong to me. It doesn’t belong to politicians, public servants, business leaders or entrepreneurs. Scotland belongs to our young people, our children and their children yet to come. We are just caretakers. It is our job to build a country, and a society, our children and

Collaborating with communities in Kilmarnock: “We want to lift people out of really dark places.”

This article was written by David McPhee and originally appeared in Positively Scottish in May 2017 Isolated. Cut-off. Islands. These are just a few of the new buzz words used to describe people who, often through no fault of their own, become disconnected from mainstream society. If the isolation lasts long enough, they can become

Engaged HR support for Move On

Move On, a charity in Inspiring Scotland’s 14:19 and intandem funds, has been working with pro bono volunteer and HR expert Lynn Reid over an extended period of time to look at some ongoing staffing and organisational challenges. Lynn has been able to commit time to the project thanks to the flexible working approach and corporate

Financial pro bono support: three case studies.

Case study one – Financial process review. A fraudulent email was sent to a staff member at a charity that claimed to come from the chief executive, asking for a transfer of £28,000 to be made with immediate effect. As the staff member was new, alarm bells were not triggered until after the transfer

Go2play is now Thrive Outdoors

At Inspiring Scotland, we want all of Scotland’s children to thrive. We have been working in outdoor play since 2010 and we know that by playing outdoors, children grow, learn and develop, emotionally and physically, in the best possible way. In short, growing playing and learning outdoors is how children thrive. That’s why, after eight

How to overcome a social media crisis

We can all remember times when companies have got it badly wrong. As social media continues to become the essential medium through which organisations engage with the public, social media blunders have become all too frequent. Not every company error makes headline news and, if it does, it’s often forgotten about amidst the next day’s

Inspiring heroes are everywhere

A local project that began with a spot of bicycle tinkering has changed lives and inspired a community, says Celia Tennant in The Scotsman Now the rush of finish lines crossed and the jubilation of medals won has subsided, a couple of stories from the Rio Olympics which did the rounds on social media have

Invest in a good cause to receive greater returns

Former Baillie Gifford & Co partner Leslie Robb shares the rewards of venture philanthropy following his investment in Inspiring Scotland’s 14:19 Fund. When an investor is running the rule over a potential deal, one question pops up again and again: what’s the return on my investment? Whether it is the dividend or the interest rate

It’s good business sense for charities to be sustainable

MENTION the word “charity” to most people and they’ll immediately think of the grey-haired old lady with the sweet smile standing behind the second-hand shop counter. Yet today’s charities rarely fit into that and clichéd image; the third sector is big business in Scotland, employing more than 100,000 workers and turning over £5.8 billion last

It’s Volunteers’ Week and we want to say Thank you

From board rooms to community halls, volunteers are the backbone of our thriving third sector. National Volunteers Week (1 -8th June) is shining a spotlight on the extraordinary commitment of the 12 million volunteers who give their time and experience to charities across the country every week. It is an opportunity for those of us

Let’s change the way we fight poverty and inequality in Scotland.

Let’s break the cycle, says Deputy Chief Executive Helen Chambers We know inequality breeds poverty. And poverty, in turn, breeds inequality. But it’s not that simple. Inequality is not just about being poor. Inequality means never having opportunity when you have ability and knowledge. It’s about not having a choice when there should be so

Loneliness doesn’t have to be for life

Our Deputy Chief Executive, Helen Chambers, writes about how Inspiring Scotland’s Link Up fund is tackling loneliness through transforming communities from within. At a time when the damaging effects of loneliness are being equated to the effects of smoking, the need to transform our communities is more critical than ever. Combatting community breakdown and isolation

Make outdoor play the norm for our children

Rachel Cowper from our go2play fund urges us all to let children play outside in The Herald. With a sunny start to April and the longer days ahead, you might begin to see the streets and green spaces of Scotland filled with children and wonder: is it not always so? Sadly, like the rose-tinted memories

Pro Bono brews up a fine new brand of business

Callander’s Bridgend cafe development shows how our free support network can help, says Elaine Crichton, Pro Bono Executive If you find yourself in Callander in need of a pick-me-up, I highly recommend you stop by the Bridgend café and get a young barista named Jamie to make you a coffee; he may well make the best latte

Resilience in the charity sector is more important than ever

Resilience is more important now than ever for the charity sector – but it is just the beginning of the journey we need to take, says Julia Abel, Head of Funds. Being resilient to shocks and change is more important for the charity sector now than it has ever been. I need hardly utter why;

Sit Up Awards help to highlight the compassionate humanity at the centre of complex issues

I am passionate about the potential of people and communities to create lasting positive change. I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do – as chief executive of Inspiring Scotland and as an active member of several community and social advisory groups – if I didn’t believe it wholeheartedly. Over the last few

Technology for Social Good – working with JPMorgan

Inspiring Scotland’s Pro Bono team has been working with J.P. Morgan over the last two years. Through its Force for Good program, J.P. Morgan provides, on a pro bono basis, expertise in innovative technology to local charitable organisations. The bank’s Force for Good initiative leverages the power of technology and people to inspire change, foster

Thank you for our first 10 years

The 29th of January 2018 marks 10 years since Inspiring Scotland was founded. The story of our first 10 years is a story about people, a lot of people, the relationships we have built with one another, and the impact we have been able to create together. We started with the ambition of tackling the

The importance of social connectedness for mental health and wellbeing

Mental Health has been a taboo for a long time. It is encouraging to see the topic going up the agenda and becoming a subject of lively conversation, not just amongst professionals but with family and friends too. It is slowly but surely becoming looked at for its universal relevance and central importance to our

There is so much to play for when we encourage young children to enjoy the outdoors

By Juliet Robertson, Outdoor learning and play specialist, Creative STAR Learning The image of children splashing in muddy puddles or running, carefree through the woods, giggling in the way only happy children can, might seem like a nostalgic rural idyll to city dwellers in this age of social media and easy-access tech. But it doesn’t have

Together, we are Inspiring Scotland

Our vision for Scotland is achievable, says Chief Executive Celia Tennant. A Scotland without poverty or disadvantage – that is our vision. It is not going to be easy to achieve. But we know from experience when people, communities, charities and government all work together, remarkable things can be accomplished. We want to tackle some

Venture that is reaping rewards for young people

WIND the clock back 10 years and Scotland was in the grip of the global banking crisis. Royal Bank of Scotland was bailed out, Halifax Bank of Scotland was forced into a shotgun marriage with Lloyds TSB and consumers stared into the precipice of a decade of ultra-low savings rates. Yet, amongst the gloom of the looming

What makes a Link Up worker effective?

Tackling societies biggest issues depends on very special types of people on the frontline. At Link Up we have been analysing what the critical factors are that make our workers most effective in connecting the communities in which they work. Since 2012 Inspiring Scotland’s Link Up Programme has been leading efforts in actively tackling inequality

Wounds of recession still deepest for the poor

Hard times tend to hit the most in need the hardest, writes our Deputy Chief Executive Helen Chambers. To say these are uncertain times could be considered a significant understatement, but no-one would argue it is one of the few statements which can be currently made with any semblance of confidence. Unfortunately, another such statement

Young people are more than their mental health difficulties

Charis Robertson of Hot Chocolate Trust, an Inspiring Scotland 14:19 Fund portfolio charity is celebrating Mental Health Awareness Week by asking the Hot Chocolate Trust young people what their hopes for the future of mental health support across Scotland. I am no expert on how mental health issues affect young people. However, having worked with hundreds

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