POP Collectives

April 26, 2021

POP Collectives is focussed on building collaboration and relationships by doing something together fuelled by £5,000. This combination of doing and working together is important. What it means is that we primarily focus on the collaboration, and secondary is the work you do – because we know everyone will always do amazing things. Our focus is to put more amazing things together to see if it multiplies your impact.

We only ask you agree to and meet the following requirements:

You have three or more organisations in your Collective. A minimum of three must work in Plymouth and are POP members.
Happy that we work with you as a Collective – i.e. we will always speak to all members of your Collective.
Open submissions – your project is placed on our website and sent out to our members with the aim to reduce competition and duplication.
Peer advice – you receive advice from peers to support your project and increase relationships.
You engage with our Learning Champion who will work with you to understand how you are collaborating and doing your amazing work.
Accountable – you engage with Social Change Nest as our partners to use Open Collective for financial transparency and wider accountability.

Rate and support POP Collectives

The POP membership is playing an active role in this process by rating, supporting and commenting on the Collectives each week.

CLICK HERE to rate, support, or comment on POP Collectives

We understand there will be conflicts of interest and loyalty between those involved in projects. This is why we make sure we have at least 25 members rating each submission before it is approved. We believe this will ensure there is a good amount of objectivity in the scores. However, we are always reviewing these assumptions based on experience and feedback.

Getting started

Who can apply

POP members – click here to check your member status or click here to become a member.
Groups of 3 or more POP member groups or organisations. Individuals and non-members can be part of the Collective if this criteria is met.
At least 50% of the organisations involved must be operating with an annual turnover under £500,000.

How to apply

Attend a POP Collectives intro session on Zoom – book here. This does not have to be attended by your whole Collective.
You will be sent the submission link once you have attended the intro session.
If you’ve been through the process and hope to make a second application, there is no need to attend another intro. Instead, please contact POP Learning Champion Simon at simon@plymouthoctopus.org to arrange a conversation.

What is funded

Up to £5,000 for anything that will socially or environmentally benefit Plymouth

What is not funded

Work that is not showing direct social or environmental benefit
Work that does not have a direct benefit in Plymouth
The promotion of religion
Things you’ve spent money on in the past and are looking to claim for now

What you can spend the money on

Each collective will have to decide its own expense policy

Judgements & decision making

Submissions will be approved if they receive a total of 95 stars within 25 votes to be awarded funding of £5,000.
POP trustees may need to make a judgement between two projects, if the funding available is not sufficient for all submissions to be funded. See the decision making section below for more information.

Support and benefits

All submissions will receive support and benefits from the process:

POP ideas support will be offered to all
Advice will be received from your peers in the sector
You may forge new relationships through the advice process
Your idea and purpose will be promoted to Plymouth and beyond for support

Guides

Registering on Open Collective – if you want to fundraise you can use this
Creating your Collective account on Open Collective

If it’s difficult or impossible for you to complete an application form

You can contact us if you have any communication support needs. We’re happy to talk about alternative ways for you to tell us about your idea.

End of year update 2021

This document is an end of 2021 update on the current learning from our POP Collectives Fund. It hopes to inform the ongoing conversation about charitable funding both locally, within the Plymouth VCSE community, and nationally.

Since October 2020, nearly twenty projects have been awarded £3,000-£5,000 each from POP Collective.

From workshops preparing primary school girls for puberty to support agencies providing urgent items to refugees; from community art groups promoting wellbeing to opportunities for people living with disability to broadcast radio shows and podcasts, Collectives have worked together with invention, passion, and determination.

Since appointment, POP’s Learning Champion Simon Travers has met each of the funded Collectives and listened to their stories. Most of the observations contained within this document are based on first impressions from those meetings.