How Social Economy West mentoring proved invaluable to charity CEO
The Hive Avon is a non-profit organisation that support autistic adults and those with learning disabilities to become more independent and lead great lives.
Working across Bristol and South Gloucestershire they provide social activities, training for both service users and professionals, advocacy and support to families to help individuals move out of the family home.
Every service offered by the Hive Avon comes from a need identified by the adults that they work with, and although users contribute to all the services they access, they’re often on limited budgets. This means that the organisation must subsidise services through fundraising and grants.
Liz Cooke, CEO of The Hive Avon explains, “We offer a range of activities, from discos to book club, plus a social drop-in centre in Kingswood. All of this comes with a cost, so we have been looking at ways to make our funding more sustainable and were keen to explore options such as corporate partnerships. We also had plans in the pipeline to expand our offering and were looking for support around how to fund this.”
“We came across Social Economy West and after applying, we were assigned a mentor through Voscur who provided six one-to-one sessions. This gave us the opportunity to talk through issues with an independent person who could provide an outsider’s perspective to our challenges.”
Liz continues, “The mentor we worked with was very experienced in the voluntary sector and offered various suggestions and solutions to address the issues we were facing as an organisation. They also helped us to clarify the direction we wanted to go in and how to make this happen.
At the same time as the mentor sessions, I attended a networking event through Voscur where I had the chance to speak to a group about what The Hive Avon does and some of the challenges of running a small non-profit organisation. From this, two promising partnerships are emerging which will give our service users different opportunities and experiences within the wider community.
In a small organisation, where all the staff are part time it, can sometimes be difficult to find time to just sit and talk through issues and ideas. Having the support of a mentor through Social Economy West gave me some much-needed perspective and the ‘permission’ to sit back once a month to reflect. It helped to clarify ways that we could move forward and celebrate what we do. “
Voscur Associate and Mentor for The Hive Avon, Alison Belshaw, said "Having worked in similar level positions I know the value of taking time to step away from the day-to-day, even for a short while. I aimed to give Liz the space to do this and discuss whatever was needed on the day. This included having to be responsive to changing situations. Liz is an incredibly experienced CEO and knows exactly what the organisation needs, I also learnt a lot from her. I hope this mentoring has enabled her to continue her planning and take time to reflect when things don’t always go as planned.”
The Hive Avon are keen to show the wider public that learning disabled and autistic adults have a lot to offer to society. They have recently published a book of poems, short stories and illustrations by their service users, which can be found here.
Social Economy West is a West of England Mayoral Combined Authority initiative, that will support and grow the social economy in the region, helping organisations to overcome increasing demand amid the cost-of-living crisis. You can find out more, register your interest or apply for support here.
Voscur is the local support and development agency for Bristol’s Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise sector. Their work aims to improve the quality of life for Bristol communities – as a charity for charities. Visit their website here.
