Impact Measurement At The Giving Forum

Felicity Lewis

ReachOut's newest employee, Felicity Lewis, talks about the importance of impact measurement following a recent Giving Forum event.

On the 10^th March ReachOut’s Director of Fundraising and Impact, Alison Braybrooks, was invited to be the key speaker at the first ever Giving Forum event – a platform for a range of companies to come together and discuss innovative corporate social responsibility ideas.

Alison’s experience as head of the London Benchmarking Group has given her a wealth of knowledge in relation to charitable impact measurement, making her the perfect candidate to kick off the evening.  The event was attended by representatives of British Airways, Barclays, British Gas, Provident Financial and RBS, amongst others. Her insightful and thought provoking presentation provided the backdrop for some very lively discussions between them all!

The event was hosted at RBS by Giving Force, a portal which helps businesses support and measure their employees’ charitable activities. The main themes for discussion over the course of the evening were employee engagement, measurement and impact.  Attendees were encouraged to discuss and answer questions such as;

- which community activities and causes have proven most popular for your organisation?

- how should you quantify the value of your community programmes?

- how do you create a resilient programme which withstands company change? 

ReachOut are proud to be leading the discussion on how we should be measuring impact and the benefits of doing so.

The differing approaches by each company demonstrated that whilst everyone is focused on getting their employees engaged in volunteering and community based programmes, there is some way to go before we have a unified approach to measuring the impact of those community programmes.

Impact measurement of community investment programmes is the hot topic amongst corporate CSR in 2016 and ReachOut are proud to be leading the discussion on how we should be measuring it and the benefits of doing so.  The event was a fantastic opportunity to raise ReachOut’s profile amongst a variety of companies and demonstrated that we are ahead of the game in this area.  ReachOut continues to work on a robust impact measurement strategy and this event was a great opportunity to see how other companies are approaching the same task, so thank you to Giving Force for inviting us to the event!  

Felicity Lewis
Fundraising Officer

ReachOut Fundraisers Conquer The Hackney Half

On Sunday 8^th May, over 13,000 people lined up at the start line for the 3rd annual Hackney Half marathon.  With temperatures soaring to 27 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, the conditions were not ideal for running, but Hackney turned out in force to cheer, clap and support the runners around the 13.1 mile course.

As an official local charity partner of the Hackney Half 2016, ReachOut had a huge presence and watched the race from our official cheer point  (about 5.5 miles in) where we cheered our runners on - we were even joined by Sharon from Gogglebox at one point who added to the chorus of cheers!  After the race, the support continued back at our race village tent where our runners came to pick up refreshments, chill out and meet fellow runners. It was lovely to see all their smiling (or grimacing?) faces!

Despite only starting in 2014, the Hackney Half is considered one of the best events of its kind in the UK and the atmosphere along the course and in the race village was buzzing!  Organised by Vitality, the race village felt like a festival with music, food stands, free massages, and more.

It was a record year for ReachOut with 49 runners taking part and a whopping £24,000 being raised!  Mentors, project leaders, ReachOut friends, and our corporate buddies at UBS and Morgan Stanley all sweated it out in ReachOut's name. We'd like to extend a huge thank you to each and every one of our runners. We are so grateful for all the effort you put in to training and fundraising!  Thanks to the funds raised we are able to fund our summer project which will provide 2 weeks of educational and sporting activities to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Bring on the Hackney Half 2017 – see you there!  

ADP Architecture crowned as new champions of the ReachOut Charity Cup 2016

City Year taking on our Year 10 boy's Penalty Shoot Out

ReachOut's annual Charity Cup football tournament in Manchester returned on Tuesday 24th May. Not only was this a great opportunity to raise essential funds for our mentoring programme, but also the perfect chance for our corporate and charity partners to dust off their boots and strive for footballing glory.

We had a hotly contested competition with teams competing from BAM Construction, Hiring Hub, ADP Architecture, The Challenge, City Year UK and ITC.


To get everyone warmed up before the tournament, some of our Year 10 Academy boys ran a Penalty Shoot Out Competition to give the teams some much needed shooting practice!

After a tough group stage ITC and ADP Architecture went through to the ReachOut Cup final. It was an incredibly close match with ADP Architecture just beating ITC to win the coveted ReachOut Charity Cup.

As well as the Charity Cup we also had a Charity Plate prize up for grabs, which BAM Construction and The Challenge battled it out for in the ReachOut Plate final. The Challenge put in a strong performance but the boys from BAM just edged it with a disciplined performance.

Thanks to everyone who took part and to Our Lady's High School for hosting the event.

We hope to see you all again next year!

The Plate winners, team BAM Construction

The Cup winners, team ADP Architecture

City Year vs Hiring Hub

ITC vs ADP Architecture in the Cup final

BAM Constructions vs The Challenge in the Plate final

ADP Architecture

BAM Construction

ITC

The Challenge

City Year

Manchester ACE Girls hold "Girls Night In" to raise awareness of homelessness

On 11^th May a group of 15 year old girls hosted a ‘Girls Night In’ event to raise money for the Manchester wide campaign #BigChangeMCR, a coalition of charities working together to help homeless people stay off the streets. The girls were members of the ReachOut ACE project at Our Lady’s RC High School in Higher Blackley, a youth mentoring programme aimed at improving the character and competence of its young people.

At the start of the academic year, the girls decided that they wanted to undertake a project to raise awareness of homelessness in Manchester. They felt the issue of homelessness was a topic that their peers, school and their local community could come together to support. To make sure their event was a success the group dedicated every Wednesday afternoon at the ReachOut ACE project to plan the event.

The ‘Girls Night In’ had everything essential for a girl’s sleepover, from homemade cakes and pink lemonade to nail painting and hair styling. The event also focused on educating people about homelessness and how they can support victims of homelessness to rebuild their lives.

One of the ReachOut ACE girls commented "I am proud because we did something good for the community and not only raised money but raised awareness of homelessness in Manchester". The group also celebrated how well they'd worked as a team, with everyone taking part, and that they were able to achieve more than they believed was possible during their ReachOut sessions. 

Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, commented:

“It is heart breaking to see homeless levels rising across the UK. Since 2010, homelessness has increased six-fold and this has been exacerbated by government cuts to funding which is not the right thing to do in order to combat this situation. More needs to be done to protect vulnerable individuals from facing poverty and eviction from their homes.

It is fantastic to see a young group of girls from ReachOut dedicating their energy and time towards raising awareness and education on homeless issues in Manchester. Their collaborative approach with charities is absolutely the right thing to do in terms of combating this problem.”

Well done to everyone involved, as you can see from the pictures the event was a great success! 

Manchester's Volunteer Thank You Event

Over the last academic year ReachOut Manchester volunteers have clocked more than 4,500 voluntary hours helping us run 19 mentoring programmes, renovate our lovely new office and run trips and excursions to help broaden our young people's horizons. Volunteers are an essential part of the ReachOut family and their dedication to the ReachOut programme means that we're able to keep on changing young people's lives for the better. 

To recognise our volunteers' amazing work we held our annual Manchester Volunteer Thank You Event on Friday 29th April. We had a brilliant turn out on the night with over 60 volunteers, corporate friends and ReachOut supporters coming together to celebrate the year (and check out our new office of course).  

After hearing about some of ReachOut's amazing achievements from our CEO Peter Blackwell, we presented awards to those volunteers and Project Leaders who have gone above and beyond what is required of them in their roles. Each category was highly contested, with it being a very difficult decision to choose the eventual winner. In total, we had 5 categories this year with the following shortlist of mentors and Project Leaders: 

ReachOut Club Mentor of the Year

Emily Clewlow

Alastair Barrie (winner)

Nawal Khalid

Phoebe Connolly

Bremer Kayimbe

Rory Mckeown

Mia Carter

Afsaneh Tayyar

ReachOut Academy Mentor of the Year

Kiernya Grant-Blisset

James Doyle

Pablo Buj Cumbreno (winner)

Ore Agbeja

ReachOut ACE Mentor of the Year

Gabriel Evans Cayley (winner)

Eleanor Weston

ReachOut Project Leader of the Year

Rob Jones

Sam Johnson

Martha Rawlings (winner)

Beth Ryan

Maria Bartolome

Alice Pooley

ReachOut Project of the Year

St Paul's High School Year 7

Our Lady's High School Year 7 (winner)

Our Lady's High School Year 8

St John's Primary School Year 6 (Friday project)

We also presented a very special Outstanding Contribution to ReachOut Award to Sam Johnson. Sam has been involved in ReachOut for over 10 years and received multiple nominations for the Project Leader of the Year. His dedication to his work has been unparalleled and the strong relationships he's been able to form with both mentors and mentees makes all of his projects cohesive and enjoyable. Sam has been a vital part of the ReachOut team in Manchester and he will be greatly missed when he leaves us in May! 

Thank you to everyone who attended the event and made it such a great evening! We're hoping to run lots more social events over the coming year so we hope to see you again soon! 

Jo Tripney
Volunteer Officer