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About Us
POP supports and leads real, purposeful and lasting change in Plymouth.
Our purpose is to build strong grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises by supporting them to work together and take a lead role in creating change.
We are driven by the energy, passion and skills of local people taking action to make our society and environment a better place to live. A small team of dedicated staff, associates and trustees do this by influencing, connecting, training and creating opportunities.
Our values define everything we do:
- building and strengthening trust and relationships
- collaborating with others
- being innovative
- strive to learn – and encourage learning – through our actions.
With all our work we strive to learn – and encourage learning – through our actions.
- We advocate and support the growth of active citizens and social connectivity
- We have a membership of grassroots groups and organisations who we nurture through our core offer.
- We work strategically to support grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises.
We are known for:
- Convening and facilitating exciting, innovative spaces in which people connect
- Providing provide excellent advice to grassroots groups
- Being system thinkers and bringing new ways to understands the challenges we face
- Our funding advice & support to members
- Achieving high levels of success regarding funding applications
- Our appetite for risk; our willingness to try new things and to learn as we go
More information about POP
People
POP Staff
- Matt Bell – CEO
- Rowan Edwards – Comms & Digital Support
- Stuart Jones – Network Lead
- Claire Law – Core Lead
- Deborah Penprase – Administrator
- Karen Pilkington – Network Connector
- Imogen Potter – Capacity Building Manager
- Simon Travers – Learning Champion
Trustees
- Alan Butler (Pride in Plymouth)
- Josephine Bussell (Honicknowle Commnet)
- Lesley Coulton (St Luke’s Hospice)
- Andi Higginson (Nudge)
- Martin Mills (Our Plymouth)
- Sally Walker (Ernesettle Forum)
- Louise Barnes (Eldertree Befriending)
- Tracey Naismith
Associates
Our Associates Pool is always open – if you would like to be a part of this exciting organisation please submit your CV to info@plymouthoctopus.org
- Rebekah Coombes – Finance & Liaises with payroll
- Caroline Blackler – PR capturing and telling our stories
- Stephane Kolinsky (Skyspace CIC) – Belong in Plymouth, system leadership & community research training
- Martyn Lowesmith (Skyspace CIC) – Belong in Plymouth, system leadership & community research training
- Rebecca Muncey – Belong in Plymouth, community research support
- Matilde Zadig – Belong in Plymouth, core team support
- Kiven Emmanuel – Belong in Plymouth, emergency department project support
- Paul Read (Drift) – POP ideas team
- Susan Moores – POP ideas team
- Gareth Hart (Iridescent Ideas) – POP ideas team
- Juliette Jackson (Seadream CIC) – Belong in Plymouth / Unify Plymouth, community conversation analysis
- Donna Maughan (Plymouth Community Heritage Network) – High Street Heritage Action Zone
- Simon Sherbersky (Spindl CIC) – Belong in Plymouth
- Zebra Collective – facilitating a community of practice for Community Builders
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POPs transparency
POP believes that transparency leads to greater accountability, involvement and better decision making. We are testing a new way of working and publishing data. The thinking behind this is that to make good decisions we need to have good data, and this data needs to be open because who knows where the critical insight may come from? And of course as members you will want to know what POP is doing. We also need to know what decisions have been made in the past, and what we have learnt from them.
See here for our Grant Giving Data
See here for our Management Accounts
See here for our Activity Data
See here for our Decision making & governance – Plymouth Octopus
Submitting funding applications
POP’s purpose is to build strong grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises by supporting them to work together and take a lead role in creating change. This means we must prioritise members interests over our own. This can prove a tricky balance when funding and livelihoods are involved. The way we manage this is by operating by a ‘rule of thumb’:
- Never directly compete
- Always lead collaborative bids
- Aim to distribute at 50% beyond the ‘boundary’ of POP into the sector
In our next step we wish to make all this transparent so our judgements can be seen by everyone that wishes to.
Wherever you think you wish to get involved please contact us.
Funding received:
- People’s Postcode Lottery – £60k – 100% give directly to Essence, Local Spark Torbay & Plymouth Social Enterprise Network
- Barrow Cadbury Connect Fund – £30k – 100% on POP+ capacity
- High Streets Heritage Action Zone
PCC Grant – 100% on POP capacity - Healthy Communities Together – £450,000 – budget can be found here New ways of working | Belong in Plymouth
Funding applications in progress
- None
