Southernsbroadstock has worked with King’s College London to invest into a scheme that helps improve issues in the local areas of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster.
The scheme is called King’s Civic Challenge. Four local partners of the university will be awarded £5K each to work on solving a local issue. 22 teams have entered the challenge this year, and 9 of them will win the funding, with 4 being funded through Southernsbroadstock.
How has this been made possible?
During the evaluation process for the current furniture contract, social value objectives were included and as we scored highest we were awarded the contract. Southernsbroadstock is the single source furniture supplier to King’s College London. As part of this agreement, King’s receives a percentage rebate on their annual expenditure with us, they have committed to put this fund to benefit local causes that reflect the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to which both King’s and Southernsbroadstock have signed up.
This year the fund will be distributed through King’s Civic Challenge to four projects aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals.
What is the scheme?
Four community partners of King’s have a chance to win £5k each towards a project that will solve a community issue in their local area.
Each partner will create a team to enter. This team will be made up of charity employees and King’s students or staff
Each team must identify an issue in their local community, and present a plan on how they will solve the issue. The issues must be aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).
As part of the scheme, all teams will have the opportunity to attend workshops led by sector experts on idea generation; communications and stakeholder management; project management; monitoring and evaluation; and pitching and presentation skills.
Each team also has the support of a team coach from King’s alumni community.
This year, 22 teams have entered the challenge. A launch event for the Civic Challenge cohort on will take place on Wednesday 20th January to energise the teams and get them excited to start working on their projects.
Not only will local communities benefit from the challenge, but charities will benefit from resources, fresh perspectives and training, whilst students will benefit from learning skills, applying learning and connecting with local communities.
How will it be judged?
The teams’ proposals will be shortlisted and then finalists will pitch their project plans to a panel of judges, who will be chosen by the University. The judges are notable figures from King’s College London and local boroughs. They specialise in disciplines including strategy, planning, sustainability and culture.
King’s also intends to support all projects to their next step with guidance, education and resources.
Would your institution benefit from a similar scheme?
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