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'2023 Wrapped'

In Footwork’s second year as a charity, our small team has accomplished a great deal, underpinned by the invaluable knowledge we have gained from supporting and collaborating with our People & Place local social innovators from across the country. 

 

A key moment saw the welcoming of ten additional innovators into our programme of support, doubling our cohort to an impressive twenty-strong group. An essential part of our work has centred around building strategic partnerships and collaborations with like-minded organisations spanning across sectors, united by a determination to bring about lasting positive change for people and places.

 

As we approach the end of 2023, we invite you to reflect with us on a year marked by innovation, collaboration and growing ambition ...




To kick off the year we …

 

  • launched our People & Place 2023 programme of support with a virtual ‘Coffee Break’ to bring together our first 10 People & Place innovators – 5 from London and 5 from as far afield as Bradford and Cardiff

  • were featured in the Architects Journal, which interviewed People & Place innovators (and architects) Andrew and Ben for their Spring Issue, which looked at innovative ways of practising

 

 

  • welcomed our 2023 Insights Group; nine individuals with first-hand experience of local social innovation, community funding and place-making, who helped us develop our 2024 programme of support

 

  • hosted our second Footworking event with the question, ‘What would the world look like if local social innovators had all the resources they needed?’

 

  • spoke to Charity Chat about our work to support local innovation in the face of place-based injustice and building community cohesion

 


Over the summer we… 


 

  • travelled across the UK to visit each of our local social innovators for a Learning Day

 

  • partnered with Platform Places to convene a roundtable of funders and innovators to take action on closing the glaring gap that exists in support for community-led placemaking at the early stages

 

  • sat down with Patrick Scally to discuss how our cities can better facilitate meaningful connections across generations and mutually support our ageing society

 


In the Autumn we… 


 

  • hopped on trains - again - to visit all of the short-listed applicants, paying them for the time they spent with us

  • were joined by Devika part-time, as our first Footwork Researcher


As Winter drew in we…






We are growing!


We are looking to grow our small Footwork team with the appointment of a full-time People and Place Programme Manager. This is an exciting opportunity for anyone wanting to engage deeply at a grassroots level with the enterprising innovators we support, whilst learning and reimagining the programme for future iterations.

 

If you know of someone who might be interested, or would like to share this more widely, the deadline for applications is January 15th 2024. Thank you.






Footwork has come so far in such a short period of time, but there is still so much more to do and to learn. We extend heartfelt gratitude to all of you - our forward-thinking and inspiring collaborators, friends, partners and social innovators for being an integral part of our journey thus far. We can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store.

 

Wishing you a restorative end to this year, and joyful New Year. 


The Footwork Team

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