Ventures
Over the years the Shaftesbury Partnership with its partners has launched multiple ventures. Here are three examples of our work that exemplify what we do.
National Citizenship Service: A venture and policy we helped pilot and build
We were asked to design and develop a nonprofit ("The Challenge Network") that could pilot a new type of national service in England, to bring together teenagers after their high school exams across different socio-economic divides, encourage community service, and to facilitate a rite of passage into adulthood. The work culminated in the original proponents of the policy introducing the model into government, where it has become the basis for the national citizenship service framework available to many thousands of young people, but also has spawned innovation in thinking about life transitions generally which in turn led to work and venturing on later life transitions through our Envisage venture.
A venturing programme we designed and ran: Big Venture Challenge
We were asked to establish and run a programme with a nonprofit foundation to support the scaling up of social enterprises to enable them to become more impactful at scale. Shaftesbury Partnership hired the team and oversaw the process from end to end, and created the incubation support model, leading to many more ventures helping more people, than Shaftesbury Partnership alone could have directly generated. This work has produced the inspiration for SPX, a new service to enable foundations, families, government organisations, and even businesses to develop their models for social venturing, with Shaftesbury Partnership as an advisor helping to design, implement, and operate platforms created with clients.
A catalyst we helped apprentice: Anonymous
We have been apprenticing over the years a number of high potential individuals who have worked on our staff, in our ventures, and in partner organisations - where we share the same vision to see systemic social reform realised. One individual, who works now in a very senior role within government and politics, trained with us to learn the craft, ethics, and the beginnings of the science of social reform, which has in part helped them accelerate their journey and rise to the position of influence they hold. The lessons they learned has in part helped them to be able to be a catalyst within government, bringing the insights, experiences, and relationships they have built up into daily use as a source of systemic reform where they work.
Hover over Case Studies in the menu above to view a list of current live venture projects we and our partners are involved with.