About the event Kindred is partnering with Firestarters to deliver a special event to help SMEs understand how to embed local procurement as a regular habit in their organisations. This event will help small businesses connect with Kindred’s network of socially trading organisations (STOs) and hear success stories from both sides on how transformative local procurement can be.
This event is FREE to attend thanks to support from Kindred.
Why local procurement? The case for buying locally is clear; research from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies showed that every £1 spent locally generated an additional 63p of benefit for the local economy. It not only feels good to help your neighbour, there is an obvious economic benefit as well. What’s more, the 2023 Made in Britain Buying British Survey found that 61% of people said that they were more likely to buy a product made locally, even during a cost of living crisis.
So, if local procurement has so many obvious benefits, why aren’t more of us doing it regularly?
With the incredible pressures SMEs are now facing, thinking about local procurement may seem like a nice to have at the bottom of a long to-do list. But our thought-provoking event will show that local procurement can become second nature across an organisation, as long as you have the right habits in place to begin with.
Why should you come?
Understand the benefits of buying locally
Understand what can be bought locally
Get inspiration for bringing local procurement to life in your own business
Meet local socially trading organisations
Connect with businesses looking to procure
Meet the inspiring speakers Announcement coming soon!
Book your tickets
Date: Tuesday Feb 25th Time: 15:00 – 17:00 Location: Ryde Café, 5 Mann St, Liverpool L8 5AF Price: FREE
Firestarters is turning up the heat for 2024! We’re kicking off the year with a brand new partnership. We’ll be collaborating with Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA) and to deliver a brand new series of events. We’ll be producing three live and interactive sector-specific events, discussing the role of the circular economy within the Liverpool City Region (LCR) and how we can work to create more sustainable approaches to business.
Meet Firestarters
Firestarters is a community of changemakers across the LCR that places purpose before profit. Through a range of live events, we bring together people from the public, private and third sectors to tackle important issues and strive for social change. Firestarters is community lighter fuel.
Get to know our partners
MRWA is a strategic waste and resource management authority that operates across the Merseyside region. It is committed to creating more environmentally-friendly communities and sustainable approaches to business through their pioneering approach to waste innovation. As champions for the circular economy, MRWA brings together circular leaders through its Circular Economy Club Liverpool City Region. The club is a chapter of CEC global and is open to anyone within the LCR that is interested in taking action on current environmental and sustainability issues.
What is the Circular Culture series?
The Circular Culture series will consist of three events, hosted across different areas of the LCR, bringing together industry leaders and sustainability experts to facilitate important conversations. With each event focusing on a different sector, the events will be exploring how the circular economy can benefit organisations on a local and national scale, and how it can lead to adopting more sustainable and ethical approaches to business.
Manufacturing: Making and building a better world
Investigating the role of the circular economy in manufacturing, the first event will discuss the unique challenges around creating a circular culture in the process of turning raw materials into finished goods.
Event two will delve into the technology industry, bringing together local industry leaders to explore the challenges around implementing a circular economy in a sector that is committed to innovation and rapid development.
Food and Hospitality: Imagining more sustainable approaches
We’ll be closing the series with event three, taking a look at the role of the circular economy in the food and hospitality sector. The event will explore the challenges and opportunities around introducing circular culture into a customer-facing industry.
Attendees will have the opportunity to hear from a diverse line-up of local industry experts, (stay tuned as we’ll be announcing these shortly!) around the core challenges and opportunities of implementing circular culture into key sectors. Our unique Firestarters format will help to empower attendees to ‘ask the experts’ their insightful questions and our circular culture pledge will create community accountability and actionable next steps so that we can collectively spark change.
What will the events look like?
Each event will follow our unique Firestarters format, attendees can expect:
Welcome and context setting from Firestarters Co-Founder Greg Macoy and host, Fran Manca
Opening survey to gain valuable insights
Panel Q+A with a diverse lineup of industry professionals where attendees will have the opportunity to ‘ask the experts’
Smaller group discussions with attendees and guest speakers to explore the key ideas in-depth
Round-up of learnings from the sessions and community pledge to create next steps
Opportunities for networking to close the event
Attendees will come away from the event with:
Shared real-world experiences from organisations in the Manufacturing, Technology, Food and Hospitality industries
Practical advice and takeaway tools to enable positive change to happen quickly
A diverse network of contacts that can offer ongoing support and insights
A chance to ask experts questions about manufacturing challenges in the circular economy today
The opportunity to work collaboratively with organisations across the supply chain
Free membership to CEC LCR enabling networking opportunities, peer support, access to events and meetings, and regular newsletters covering important developments in the circular economy
How can you get involved in the Circular Culture Series?
Are you ready to spark change? If you’d like to join the discussion around implementing circular culture in a range of different sectors, then come along to the Firestarters x MRWA Circular Culture series by booking your ticket on Eventbrite.
To keep up-to-date with the latest news from Firestarters, follow us at @heyfirestarters on Twitter and Instagram.
To make this article more accessible to to people with screen readers, we have included any text from the images as a separate copy. If you are someone who isn’t using a screen reader, you can skip over these sections.
Have you ever attended a networking event and felt as if your soul were being crushed? Are you sick of listening to ‘business’ people try to sell you something rather than build meaningful connections? Well, this is how our founders Ruth Hartnoll, Greg Macoy and business lead, Aaron Fontenot felt in 2020. Rather than let it beat them down they recognised this as an opportunity for positive change. They decided to redefine networking and set out to create a community which would allow purpose-driven people to work together to take action and drive positive change.
At our events, participants can;
Network with other ethical people – Attendees can create meaningful connections with a diverse network of contacts that can offer potential collaboration and support.
Gain insights – Attendees can hear inspiring insights and real-life experiences from a diverse range of guest speakers including industry leaders, small business owners and social change advocates.
Create change – Attendees are part of the change they want to see. Tackle important challenges and make your commitment to driving impact through actionable next steps and pledges.
Connect with the experts – Attendees can ask the experts about some of the key challenges and opportunities around core issues.
In this article, we will explore how we used our expertise in user experience design to create an ethical networking community that is inclusive, engaging, and impactful.
Members of our ethical networking community introduce themselves.
Remind me, what is user experience design again?
For a more detailed summary of user experience design check out our article on the subject. To briefly summarise, user experience is everything related to a person’s interaction with a product or service. When it has been well designed, it creates a seamless experience which people will love. A product or service with a great user experience will be;
relevant and useful to the correct people
easy to understand
easy to use
something users remember
cost-effective
efficient
something users want to use
enjoyable for people to use
Three things we did to make Firestarters more inclusive, engaging and impactful
Empathised with our users
One of Matchstick Creative’s core values is to act with empathy, which hugely informed how we developed our ethical networking community. To ensure that our events are empathetic and tackle topics important to our participants, we research our audience, their backgrounds, their lived experiences, their concerns, and their expectations of a community like ours. With this information, we were able to create a variety of personas and journey maps. For more details on both personas and journey maps, refer to our article on designing ethical user experiences.
These assets, commonly employed in user experience design, provided our team with valuable insights into who our participants are and how they may engage with Firestarters. By creating a shared understanding of our audiences and how they interact with the community we were able to make more informed decisions, making our events more relevant.
Purpose-Driven Penny,’ a persona representing a purpose-driven business owner.
Her story
‘Penny is 40 years old and lives in Liverpool. She previously worked as a fashion designer but grew with the industry’s frustrated lack of action on sustainability and tackling modern slavery.
Due to these concerns, Penny started her ethically sourced fashion label based within the Liverpool City Region (LCR). She feels that trying to do business differently is the right thing to do but feels alienated from much of the rest of the industry.
What does she want from Firestarters?
To help drive social change
To connect with like-minded people
To raise the profile of her business
To find inspiration
Goals/attitudes/concerns
Feels stressed
Wants to earn a living through ethical business
Wants to improve and expand her business
Feels like being different is holding her back
Needs more support on how to do business ethically
Believes in collaboration
Passionate about the city
Socially and politically engaged’
Ensured Firestarters events are inclusive
We fundamentally believed that traditional networking events can often feel like a closed shop, leaving many people feeling like they don’t belong. A major contributing factor to this feeling is the lack of diversity. At our events, we emphasise inclusivity as we want Firestarters to be a place where people can have productive conversations whilst being their authentic selves. Achieving true inclusivity is complex, so we take this challenge as an ongoing creative problem to solve. While we know that it cannot be solved overnight we used our expertise in user experience design to make steps in the right direction within our community of change-makers.
Before each event, participants are invited to complete a brief survey which delves into various aspects of their identity, including ethnicity, sexuality, and which industry they work in. This approach allows us to gain valuable insights into the diversity of our audiences. To guarantee the effectiveness of the survey we developed it to be inclusive and sensitive. The survey drew inspiration from the ‘Do Ask Do Tell’ document by Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBT rights organisation, and consulting with the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) consultant, Rachel Gnagniko.
To ensure our diversity was representative of the local area, we sense-checked our participant data with census data from the region. Doing so allowed us to gauge whether our events effectively attract underrepresented groups within the community. Remaining reflective and being committed to making incremental improvements underscores our commitment to fostering a truly inclusive environment.
A Segment of our pre-event survey collecting attendee details such as age, gender, ethnicity, etc.
As part of our commitment to representing the broadest spectrum of people possible, we have created this survey which will help us understand who our participants are and who they are not reaching (yet). All questions will give us an insight into who you are however, you are under no pressure to answer any of these questions, so only be as honest as you are comfortable with.
Create actionable insights
Having spent years attending long, boring networking events but leaving empty-handed we wanted to break the mould. After each event, we create a report with actionable insights for attendees.
During events, we have a dedicated note-taker who records the panel’s discussion. We capture the thoughts of our participants in breakout rooms on sticky notes. At the end of each session, we have hundreds of sticky notes filled with ideas which we can affinity sort into a few key insights. With these insights, we create a report with valuable resources and next steps, empowering our community to start their own fires.
Finally, at the end of each session, the people at our events are invited to sign a pledge to take one actionable step related to the event topic. Signing this pledge is symbolic but helps to create a sense of momentum, helping make our events more impactful.
Key insights from our ‘Start-up Culture’ Firestarters event:
‘1. Always work on culture – If companies want to create a positive company culture it should be understood that it cannot be created through strategies, it is something that must be consistently worked on by people at all levels of the organisation.
2 – It’s important that companies focus on being values-driven as there is a real appetite for it both from consumers and potential employees.
3. Difficulty finding investors – It can be difficult for businesses to be purpose-driven as business advisors do not always understand the value of being a purpose-driven business and being ethical can also scare off potential investors’
TL ; DR
Too many words to read? Ok let’s sum up
Firestarters is an ethical networking community that addresses purpose-driven issues.
Matchstick Creative used user experience design principles to create a community committed to putting people first.
To hold our own feet to the fire and ensure our events are truly inclusive we track participant details, ensuring that our audiences are as diverse as possible.
To maximise the impact of our events we record discussions, create insights reports and encourage participants to sign a pledge to take a positive action based on the event topic.
Resources we think you may find useful
There are many great resources available to help you understand more about service design, here are some of our recommendations that we think are particularly helpful;
When it comes to all things user experience, Nielsen Norman Group is the gold standard.
Stonewall is a truly excellent resource for learning more about LGBTQIA+ issues and how to make improvements within your organisation
This article from Survey Monkey is a highly useful resource which provides advice on the best practices for creating surveys
Ready to start your own fires? Get in touch
Interested in what you’ve read? Want to explore a purpose-driven topic and gain a unique perspective? Get in touch with us and start your own fires. If you’re looking for insights and top tips from our Firestarters events then follow us on Instagram. To be the first to hear about all things Firestarters, sign up for our newsletter.
Firestarters made a groundbreaking return this month with a brand-new virtual event. To celebrate Global Goals Week 2023 and how Firestarters are committed to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the event focused on the role of cross-sector collaboration in sparking change and putting the goals into action.
Get to know Firestarters
Firestarters brings together a diverse range of people from the private, public and third sectors, focused on taking action and sparking positive change across the Liverpool City Region and beyond. Through a range of live and virtual events, we create a community of changemakers, working to facilitate hard-hitting conversations and tackle key challenges. Firestarters is community lighter fuel.
Why Global Goals Week?
Global Goals Week is a universal week of awareness, with this year marking the halfway point in the UN Sustainable Goals. As part of a week-long programme of events across the city, we did things in our unique Firestarters way, bringing people together to understand how we can work collaboratively to put the sustainable goals into action. As an organisation committed to the SDGs through our value-driven approach, we wanted to bring the brightest and best minds together, working as a catalyst for change and creating accountability in working towards the goals.
What we discussed at Firestarters Global Goals Week
The event brought together a panel of local and global industry experts and a range of change-making guests from various sectors to discuss the core challenges and opportunities for effective collaboration and meeting the SDGs.
At the event, we heard some inspiring ideas from five guest speakers:
Kyle Soo, Partnerships and Product Manager at B Corp UK
In true Firestarters style, the event kicked off with a Q&A from our panel of experts. Angela Lake was up first, where she was asked to discuss the changes that she’d like to see to allow businesses to collaborate more effectively. Angela highlighted that the actions taken towards collaborating and meeting the goals need to become less of a box-ticking activity and more about funding and resources being put into action.
It’s about the importance of organisations investing into resources that allow them to drive impact and meet the goals.
Next, we heard from Stephen Painter who shared his insights into overcoming the challenges faced by businesses in working collaboratively. Stephen talked about the importance of reframing our thinking, and changing the focus from profit to the planet.
At Hemsec, we changed our thinking and started to educate ourselves on what more we can do and how we can drive change.
When asked about the advantages of working collaboratively, Sara Wilcock explored the importance of educating the next generation and providing them with the right tools to drive change.
Impact comes from people learning what they can do as leaders and organisations. We can only do this by working to understand the goals and then finding potential collaboration opportunities.
In order to collaborate effectively, Benjamin Nathan highlighted how we don’t need to achieve all 17 of the goals alone, and the key is teamwork.
If we shift the conversation from competition to collaboration we can drive impact. We need to surround ourselves with the brightest minds and the best ideas and then see how we can learn and grow from that.
To close out the panel of inspiring insights, we headed to Kyle Soo, asking him about the role of core organisations such as B Corp in helping organisations to meet the SDGs. Kyle spoke about how our mindsets are linked to successful collaboration, through a spirit of openness and transparency.
It’s important for individuals and organisations to have vulnerability and being able to have the openness to say when they don’t know the solution to all of their problems. That’s when we can find opportunities for points of collaboration.
Taking the core insights and ideas that we learned from our panel, the event then brought attendees and guest speakers together into smaller breakout sessions. Here, we facilitated much more in-depth conversations and the creation of a group pledge in order to develop actionable next steps and measure accountability.
The community pledges were live and co-designed, developing a cross-sector commitment and creating future actions to help towards meeting the goals. The pledges worked to provide a solution to the core challenges identified within the in-depth group discussions. By requiring attendees to make a commitment to implementing the solutions within their organisations, the pledges provided the next stage to spark change and put the SDGs into action.
What’s next for Firestarters?
We have a host of exciting events coming up across 2023 and 2024, designed to help us tackle issues and drive impact across the Liverpool City Region and beyond. Are you ready to spark change? Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear about our latest news and events. Stay up-to-date by following us on Twitter and Instagram.
From the 15th to the 24th of September 2023, Liverpool is taking part in Global Goals Week 2023 to support the halfway point in the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Back in 2015 the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created and adopted by all United Nations Member States. The 2030 Agenda for Sustanable Development is effectively a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity through the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals focusing on the core tenets of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.
Here at Matchstick Creative, we fully support the SDGs and have chosen to use the goals as a reference point to align our social and environmental purpose and activity.
“Unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been.”
António Guterres Secretary-General, United Nations
Firestarters as a catalyst for change
We founded Firestarters in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the clearly visible inequalities in how people across our communities and the wider world were being treated. We wanted to create a community for change and a vehicle for how we could all work together.
If you know anything about our journey, we have strived for tangible ways to make progress and place purpose at the heart of our business and the organisations we work with. The 17 SDGs have given us a framework to make sure that we’re steering in the right direction and that we can align our activity with other purpose-driven organisations, local authorities, national organisations, NGOs, and global corporations.
Collaboration over competition
We have found that it can be very difficult for SMEs and microbusinesses to have any real stake in a global conversation – we’re often at the mercy of decisions made by bigger organisations and structures outside of our world of influence.
Part of our approach with Firestarters is to look at how we can get a diverse range of stakeholders in a room to discuss challenging topics so that we facilitate more equitable conversations and enact change.
Here we lean on the ‘quadruple helix’ model for engagement and innovation – looking at how government bodies, academia, private industry, and our communities can work together to create real and sustainable action.
As such, we have decided to make a public commitment with our Firestarters programme to focus on three of the SDGs where we feel we can have the greatest impact:
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
So, through to 2025 our Firestarters programme will work on:
Partnerships for the goals
Decent work and economic growth
Reduced inequalities
Within this context we also expect to support conversations around:
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
The first of our Firestarters events under this commitment is a virtual session as part of our Global Goals Week activity and is aimed at how we can work together to understand our role in the SDGs and how even SMEs and microbusinesses can create a positive impact, regionally, nationally and globally.
Firestarters presents…Global Goals Week – September 2023
How to work together across sectors to put the sustainable development goals into action.
We’re partnering up with Growth Platform to produce a special six-month programme of Firestarters events called ‘Growth for Good’. The events will support businesses in the city region who are looking to learn from expert speakers, gather strategic insights and have the opportunity to grow their network with purpose-driven people.
Get to know Growth Platform
Growth Platform is Liverpool City Region’s growth company, designed to support people and businesses to realise their potential and generate growth. Their role is to strengthen and simplify the business landscape, creating a sustainable economy that reflects the needs of our community.
What is the ‘Growth for Good’ series?
The ‘Growth for Good’ series will be hosted across the city region’s six boroughs and will be covering six core subject areas that address the biggest challenges facing businesses today.
Diversity and Inclusion
Net Zero Carbon
Fundraising & Investment
Purpose-driven Business
Start-up Culture
The ‘Growth for Good’ Showcase
Join us at our final event in the series…’Growth for Good’ – Showcase
The final event in the series will welcome purpose-driven businesses to reflect on the successes and learnings from the previous events and enjoy an afternoon and evening of meaningful connection. It will centre around “sparking change” across the city region by connecting purpose-driven people from the private, public and third sectors. Even if you haven’t attended our other roadshow events, you are very welcome to attend our showcase event.
What can you expect from ‘Growth for Good’ – Showcase?
Attendees will hear from expert speakers covering themes of diversity & inclusion, net zero carbon, fundraising & investment, purpose-driven business and start-up culture. Our expert speakers and signature Firestarters format will ensure attendees feel empowered to ask questions about How purpose-driven businesses can find success, whilst enabling positive change across the Liverpool City Region.
Who will be speaking at the event?
We’re welcoming back a host of speakers from each of our previous roadshow events, including:
Michael Wolffe, Climate Change Officer at St Helens Council
Amy Yarker, Co-Founder, Managing Director and Fermenter at The Fermentation Station
Natalie Denny, EDI Consultant at Skywriters and the Anthony Walker Foundation
Christine Spriggs, Collaborating Communities Lead at Kindred
What’s happening at the event?
An awesome panel of speakers from across the city region
Inspiring real-world success stories
Intimate networking groups for a chance to have real, meaningful conversations
Community fire building! We’ve got real campfires for people to chat around as well as the chance to “make a commitment” in our community fire art – more to be revealed!
Free, ethical giveaways from local businesses
A book stand from a local bookseller
Your ticket includes a hot drink, a drink at the bar and delicious pizza!
A bit of joy; sparklers and fire pits
Attendees will come away from the event with:
Shared real-world experiences from inspiring, local businesses
Practical advice and takeaway tools that enable positive change to happen quickly
A diverse network of contacts that can offer ongoing support and insights
A chance to ask experts questions about building a more purpose-driven city region
Insights on relevant Growth Platform services and a chance to meet their team face to face
How can you get involved in ‘Growth for Good’ – Showcase?
Want to be part of the discussion of how purpose-driven businesses can find success whilst enabling positive change across the Liverpool City Region? Join us at Firestarters X Growth Platform ‘Growth for Good’ – Showcase on Wednesday 29th March 2023 by booking your ticket to the event on Eventbrite. To keep up to date with the latest news from Firestarters and Growth Platform, follow us at @heyfirestarters on Twitter and Instagram, and @GrowthPlatform_ on Twitter and Instagram.
Firestarters’ new series ‘The Purpose Accelerator,’ concluded with its third and final event; Startup Culture. For this event, we focused on the challenges faced by founders of startup and scaleup businesses across the Liverpool City Region (LCR) and how we can drive regional innovation and growth through supporting startup culture. The Purpose Accelerator series has been sponsored by Gather, who provide advice and support for digital, creative and tech businesses, helping to form a supportive community encouraging development.
What is ‘Firestarters’ and ‘The Purpose Accelerator’?
Firestarters is a community of change-makers that come together both as individuals and from purpose-driven organisations, to spark positive change and tackle some of the current issues facing the region. Providing a platform that brings together members of the public, private and third sectors, Firestarters works to facilitate discussions and conversations that help towards making a positive impact, through the delivery of live events, both virtual and in-person.
Consisting of three events, ‘The Purpose Accelerator’ is our newest series, centered around providing advice and support for socially-driven startup and scaleup businesses within the region to access better opportunities and networks of support. ‘Startup Culture’ is the concluding event in the series, bringing together key stakeholders and value-led organisations to build a positive entrepreneurial culture throughout the region.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a shifted narrative surrounding business, representing a new era for entrepreneurship. These developments have fueled a shift in the role of social change within the business world, with many organisations making social impact, diversity and inclusion a key priority in the development of new business models and frameworks.
This changing climate has led to a ‘sink or swim’ circumstance for businesses both locally and nationally, seeing many organisations being left behind to the changing mechanism, or adapt to the new era of business. ‘Startup Culture’ brought together a network of industry experts, business leaders and value-led thinkers within the startup and scaleup communities, to highlight the challenges and opportunities available, through shared experience and valuable insight.
Why is ‘Startup Culture’ so relevant now?
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, records reveal that across the Liverpool City Region over 4,700 new businesses were founded between March and December 2020. This gave the region the title of 7th most successful ‘hotspot’ lockdown startup businesses. Due to the rapidly changing social climate, a large majority of these businesses were built as purpose-driven organisations, striving to tackle social and cultural issues surrounding governmental approaches to COVID-19 ordinance and a decline in equitable ways of life.
The region has responded by developing a range of programmes and resources designed to provide support for the new era of entrepreneurs in the growth of their value-led enterprises. Initiatives such as LCR Founders, brought together by a recent collaboration between Liverpool John Moores University and the Baltic CIC, alongside Startup Grind’s Tech Expansion Programme have been innovative and groundbreaking in its approach to supporting entrepreneurs across the region. Nonetheless, founders of startup and scaleup businesses are still facing many challenges, including obtaining funding and accessing a network of support to fuel growth and innovation.
What we discussed at ‘Startup Culture’
The event provided a platform for value-driven entrepreneurs, industry leaders and business leads to deliberate the question “How do we help fuel purpose-driven growth and innovation by supporting startup culture in the Liverpool City Region?”
We heard from a panel of four industry experts at the event:
In true Firestarters style, the event commenced with a panel Q+A, where we got to hear expert insight from our guest speakers. We came to Jonathon Clark first, who began by discussing his experience of startup culture within the Liverpool City Region and how this differs to other areas. He also shared his insight into opportunities for change and how we make this visible.
For its size, we (Liverpool City Region) are good in some metrics. We punch above our weight in social change companies.
Next, we came to Waf Njonjo-Shaw, an Innovation Coach for LCR founders who works to support young entrepreneurs at university and graduate levels. Waf shared her knowledge of the challenges and obstacles facing young founders in creating and developing their enterprises.
One of the main challenges for entrepreneurs is getting your business funded.
Young people coming out of university may not have a good credit rate or a strong network to tap into.
The panel Q+A with our industry experts allowed us to develop key topics of discussion and the frameworks to begin to assess the questions surrounding startup culture and how we demonstrate a positive culture for new entrepreneurs. These discussions were continued with more depth, when the session was split into breakout rooms. Each group was asked to consider the challenges and opportunities across the region, as well as the changes that we need to see in supporting purpose-driven enterprises to expand and evolve.
The third speaker on today's panel is Rio Gill who is a current student and Project Support Intern at @LivUni
Rio is providing his views on what changes we need to see in the Region's Startup Culture🔥 pic.twitter.com/VmSyYw7v9S
Our guest speakers provided valuable insights and demonstrated their experience , which were taken into the breakout sessions and built upon. Within these sessions, a collaborative approach to the discussion was taken, by university students, business leaders across a plethora of sectors and industry experts within these fields. Some of the key points of engagement were:
The challenges surrounding startup culture in the Liverpool City Region and how we can work to overcome them
Regional inequalities in opportunities and how networks of support can be accessed
The opportunities available through programmes, initiatives and funding within the region
Ideas around driving collaboration between purpose-driven organisations to help support local startups
The steps required to create a healthy culture for startup and scaleup enterprises
We need to rid of this failure mentality, this ‘work to the death’, Silicon Valley-esque culture.
Set the example you want to see, set the culture you want to see.
Vimla Appadoo- Honey Badger/Culture-Shift
What’s next for Firestarters?
We will be taking key insights and themes from the event and turning them into a report that produces actionable next steps. We’ve already started so many fires in 2022, and it doesn’t end there. We have some exciting events coming up to continue sparking positive change across the region.
Are you ready to be a changemaker? Join our community of Firestarters by signing up to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Want to know more about the fires we’ve started? Read our Spark Change report, to learn more about all of the things we did during the first year of Firestarters.
Spark Change; the first annual Firestarters impact report
After launching during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, Firestarters has now hosted its first year of online events – aiming to improve the social impact of businesses in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). The key takeaways from all seven 2021 sessions have now been summarised in their annual Spark Change! Report; gathering all the findings and talking points from the community’s discussions.
What is Firestarters?
Firestarters is a community of changemakers putting purpose before profit. Through live events with actionable next steps, we gather together inspiring people from the private, public, and third sectors to discuss how we can make positive action happen in the LCR.
What is included in the Spark Change! report?
The Firestarters events covered a wide range of topics, including Building Back Equal 1, 2 and 3 – which focused on economic recovery post-pandemic – Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace, Establishing an Ethical Framework for Personalised Care, Is This The North? and Zero Carbon Liverpool.
Some key partnering companies came on board to deliver the sessions; including:
We encouraged contributions from attendees and panelists to source opinions, challenges and opportunities across the Liverpool City Region. Some key takeaways from the events were:
Black people in LCR are paid £1.10 an hour less than other employees
The Liverpool City Region has more economically-inactive people than almost any other part of the country
The increase in home working will lead to local businesses thriving
78% of people wouldn’t trust surveys on Mental Health and Wellbeing in the workplace in case it got back to their employer
Meet the team behind Firestarters and the friendly faces of @heymatchstick 🔥
Whilst @akfont19 & @RuthHartnoll lead Firestarters, the whole team contributes with creative ideas & supporting events.
After realising that in the past too much focus has been placed on profit; with businesses paying little attention to the environment and people around them, Firestarters was launched. A purpose-driven business networking community that truly values diverse voices was what Liverpool City Region was crying out for. We began as online-only networking events in the depths of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Building Back Equal 1: Inclusive Economic Recovery from Covid-19
‘Building Back Equal 1’ was designed to bring ethical business leaders together to explore the recovery of the LCR economy after Covid-19. The lockdowns disproportionately affected marginalised groups; the aim was to discuss how to build up the region whilst prioritising those most affected.
Guest speakers at the event included:
Emeka Onuora, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Race Equality Programme
Natalie Denny, Programme Manager for The Anthony Walker Foundation
Firestarters presents…’Building Back Equal’, the networking event to make purposeful connections with ethical business leaders from the #LiverpoolCityRegion.
Building Back Equal 2: Destination Tourism and Culture
Our second event sought to build on the findings from Building Back Equal part 1, diving deeper into industry-specific topics – bringing together 40 of Liverpool’s most influential tourism and culture organisations.
The panel included:
Yaw Owusu – LCR Music Board, LIMF, PRS foundation,
Kevin McManus – Head of Music for Liverpool on LCR Music Board
Sarah Lovell – Lead Officer for Culture for the Liverpool City Region
The pandemic had a big effect on employment and retaining employees, with several demographics – including older, disabled and lower paid workers – seeing the most impact on their livelihoods. For Building Back Equal, part 3, we brought together a panel of local experts to explore the challenges this posed for LCR.
Guest speakers at the event included:
Paul Amann – Principal Officer, Employment & Skills at Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
Amanda Follit – Senior Manager Marketing Operations Services at EPAM
Ben Osu – Senior Lead – Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Everton Football Club
The initial three Building Back Equal events saw multiple companies partnering up with the Firestarters to utilise our event structure. Their aim was to draw out solutions and opinions to big questions they had for the future. Firestarters ignited – events hosted by Metro Mayor Steve Rotherham and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority followed.
Zero Carbon Liverpool
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has a target of carbon neutrality by 2040. We worked with them to address this with a key group of guests, at an event designed to make further strides with their action plan.
Our Keynote Speaker was Rachel Waggett Principal Environment Officer at LCRCA
Partnering with The Growth Platform to host an event to target the topic of wellbeing at work was right up our street. Addressing the impact of the pandemic on mental health, with a focus on how to support employees in the workplace, was the target of the campaign we were helping them to plan.
Establishing an Ethical Framework for Personalised Care
Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership needed to create a first-of-its-kind ethical framework for designing personalised care for its users. 15 people from various socially-driven companies attended.
Our keynote speaker was Dave Sweeney, Director of Partnerships at CMHCP.
Is this the North?
We partnered with NP11 for a topic close to our hearts – the North and Liverpool. NP11 brings together public and private sectors to improve the lives of Northern people. Key stakeholders were engaged for this event, with the aim to form a proposition for the future.
Our keynote speaker was Clare Devaney, Programme lead for NP11.
Where can I find the Spark Change! Report?
Our goal is to bridge the gap between local and global stakeholders and work to help the Liverpool City Region build back better, measure the social impact of our region’s organisations, and become business ready for the green revolution. Find out more about the events and the future of Firestarters by reading The Spark Change! Report here.
Want to get involved in future Firestarters events?
We’ve got plenty of exciting events planned for Firestarters this year and would love to have you join us! Sign up for the Firestarters newsletter to be the first to hear about upcoming events, news and opportunities in the Liverpool City Region.
To stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates, make sure to follow Firestarters on Twitter and Instagram.
For the second event in our new series, ‘The Purpose Accelerator,’ we explored the challenges surrounding the recruitment and retainment of the next generation of talent across the Liverpool City Region (LCR). Bringing together purpose-driven industry leaders, education and training providers, the event set out to discuss how organisations across the region can work together to reduce the ‘brain drain,’ and provide better opportunities for emerging talent. This event was sponsored by Gather, who work to provide advice and support for organisations and leaders within the digital, creative and tech industries.
What is ‘Firestarters’ and ‘The Purpose Accelerator’?
Firestarters is a community of purpose-led organisations and individuals that strive to spark change and create a positive impact within industries across the region. Working to bring together members of the private, public and third sectors, Firestarters leads a series of live events which aims to formulate discussion and provide communities with the support and advice to take action towards positive change.
New for 2022, ‘The Purpose Accelerator’ focuses on supporting value-led start-up and scale-up businesses to grow, develop and provide better opportunities through the formation of more valuable connections across the city region. ‘Next Generation Talent’ is the second event in the series, bridging gaps between various sectors and organisations.
During the 2017 ‘Centre for Cities’ think tank, it was discovered that migration patterns across the Liverpool City Region were dominated by the movement of students and graduates. This identified a loss of the talent that Liverpool attracted as a university city, demonstrating a lack of opportunity for graduates to begin and develop their careers within the industry. This highlighted an area of concern and spurred key stakeholders within the city to take action. The loss of such talent from the city correlates with the struggle facing businesses in recruiting and retaining prospective employees with substantial knowledge and potential.
‘Next Generation Talent’ provided a platform for industry leaders to supply ideas, actionable next steps and chances for collaboration, in order to create cross-industry connections and create better recruitment and training opportunities.
Why is ‘Next Generation Talent’ so relevant now?
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of job vacancies remain available, despite rates of employment remaining high. There is an emerging need for industry-based roles to be filled, despite a growing disillusionment by unresponsive employers and an apparent lack of opportunities and understanding for new talent to navigate the industry and undertake their desired roles and professions.
As a region, there have been a number of steps taken to combat the brain drain and loss of talent. This was through the implementation of various graduate schemes, created by universities as a way to support businesses in recruiting and developing students and graduates within the city. Despite this, the issue still remains, leading us to search for new ways to support emerging talent and what further steps we can take in order to tackle the challenges surrounding recruitment.
What we discussed at ‘Next Generation Talent’
The event brought together industry and educational leaders to consider the question, “How can we bridge the gaps between industry, education, and next-generation talent to fuel purpose-driven business growth in the LCR?”
At the event, we heard from a panel of four guest speakers:
Kicking off the event was a panel Q+A, which Chelsea Slater began by discussing the changes that she would like to see by businesses and individuals to tackle issues of gender inequality within the tech industry. She also gave us some insight into the work that InnovateHer does to address these issues and fabricate better opportunities for talent.
We need to make sure that inclusion is a high priority within businesses. If we can retain diversity it can equate to more profitable and productive organisations.
Next, we heard from Ben Dalton, Programme Manager at Agent Academy who gave us some insight into the best ways to identify young talent and how Agent does this so well.
Its all about being open. Understanding what the young person wants, what their skills are and how we can align them with the industry.
Hearing from the industry experts of our panel during the Q+A elicited a framework for some key discussions and concepts, which were continued in more detail during breakout rooms, which occupied the remainder of the event.
Our third speaker Shulah Jones from @GraduateLcr gives us some insights into the opportunities available to recruit and retain young talent in the region.🔥@LJMUpic.twitter.com/GYUF2GioXA
Our panel of industry experts raised some excellent points of discussion and offered some key insights that were later developed during the breakout sessions. These discussions were developed and evolved, through a collaboration of individuals from various organisations across different industry sectors. Some of the primary points raised were:
The challenges surrounding recruitment and development and how we can solve them
What opportunities are available within industry and graduate schemes
How we can work within our organisations to provide better opportunities and support students and graduates on their transition into industry
Ideas on how to create an accessible platform that bridges the gap between industry leaders, educational institutions and training providers
If we want that pipeline of talent to stay in the city and we want to be responsible for them, we need to create the next steps that they need. We are not supporting our graduates enough when they leave.
Fiona Armstrong-Gibbs, Liverpool John Moores University/Baltic Creative CIC
What’s next for Firestarters?
Following the event, we’ll be gathering insights; including key ideas and discussions and turning these into actionable next steps. Firestarters is bigger and better than ever and we have a lot of exciting events coming up to help us to spark positive change across the region! Do you want to join our community of changemakers? Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about all things Firestarters and stay up-to-date by following us on Twitter and Instagram.
With 2021 being a year of strictly virtual events, we couldn’t wait to engage with our Firestarters community in the real world in 2022. We recently teamed up with The Good Business Festival to deliver our first ever set of in-person events!
Through the Good Business Festival, we brought together local community and socially-driven organisations to help form connections across the Liverpool City Region (LCR), and discover how we can create a more community-driven, ethical and inclusive region.
What is Firestarters and The Good Business Festival?
Firestarters is a community of changemakers putting purpose before profit. Through live events with actionable next steps, we gather together inspiring people from the private, public, and third sectors to discuss how we can make positive action happen in the LCR.
The Good Business Festival is a multi-day, multi-venue festival that brings together inspiring creatives from across the LCR. The festival creates the chance to connect with like-minded peers, hear from influential people, and drive important conversations about how we can do business better in our region.
Our events at The Good Business Festival set out to create a lasting impact on people, place, and business. We aimed to build a support network for the region’s business community to help them become more purpose-driven. The three events we held were: ‘Powering Communities’, ‘Green Revolution’ and ‘Cultural Inclusion’.
Firestarters x The Good Business Festival – Powering Communities
‘Powering Communities’ was designed to help the LCR continue todevelop unique specialisms and become recognised on the international stage as a hub of good business and innovation. It brought together some of our region’s key players to sit down and explore ways that we can collaborate to empower communities.
Firestarters x The Good Business Festival – Green Revolution
Our second event, ‘Green Revolution’, aimed to start conversations about how our region can become recognised as a pioneer in sustainable approaches to living, travel and business. 30 of the Liverpool City Region’s organisations came together to discuss and outline opportunities for green development and potential threats to businesses.
Firestarters x The Good Business Festival – Cultural Inclusion
‘Cultural Inclusion’, our final event, focused on how we can make LCR’s cultural offer more inclusive. This event connected The Good Business Festival’s global partners with local cultural organisations across our region. The event worked to bridge gaps between cultural organisations and national partners and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Our concluding event at @goodbizfest highlighted some key ideas surrounding #diversity and how we can work to make #inclusion a priority across the #Liverpool City Region.
There were so many great comments, ideas and connections that came from our three events which we want to share with the wider community in our region. To ensure that we make the most of the outcomes that we discovered at the events, we’ll be putting together an impact report that will provide insights into the impact that our events have had.
We’ll also be sharing our outcomes across our social media channels and directly with all attendees of the events.
Our goal is to bridge the gap between local and global stakeholders and work to help the Liverpool City Region build back better, measure the social impact of our region’s organisations, and become business ready for the green revolution.
Want to get involved in future Firestarters events?
We’ve got plenty of exciting events planned for Firestarters this year and would love to have you join us! Sign up for the Firestarters newsletter to be the first to hear about upcoming events, news and opportunities in the Liverpool City Region.
To stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates from our three events in partnership with The Good Business Festival, make sure to follow Firestarters on Twitter and Instagram.
