Category: Firestarters

  • Firestarters X  Gather presents…Next Generation Talent

    Firestarters X  Gather presents…Next Generation Talent

    Firestarters have put together another event in collaboration with Gather to reduce Liverpool City Region’s ‘brain drain’. ‘Next Generation Talent’ will support purpose-driven leaders with their business growth and bridge gaps between different sectors, industries, businesses and suppliers.

    The Liverpool City Region ‘Brain Drain’ 

    In 2017, the ‘Centre for Cities’ think tank found that Liverpool’s migration patterns were dominated by the movement of students and graduates. This raised alarm bells for many of the region’s key stakeholders as it showed that, as a region, we are losing a lot of the incredible talent that we attract through our leading universities, renowned culture and thriving social life. Losing our best and brightest minds breeds stagnation for business growth, as our leading companies struggle to recruit, develop and retain the best talent.

    As a region, we have responded to this challenge in a number of ways. Our universities have responded with employment schemes; these include LCR Interns, Graduate Futures and the LCR Grad Scheme. All these schemes support businesses aiming to recruit and develop talented students and graduates. 

    There has also been a response from the purpose-driven businesses and the third sector with companies and initiatives like InnovateHer, Transform Lives Company (TLC) and Agent Academy all helping to bridge the gap between young talent and industry. 

    But where can we go next as a region and what options are available to both graduates and businesses alike when it comes to future-proofing talent?

    Who is the event for?

    This event is open to everyone but is specifically aimed at purpose-driven entrepreneurs, business leaders and Liverpool City Region’s influencers who are navigating the world of recruiting and retaining talent. Some of the benefits of attending our Gather-sponsored event include: 

    • A chance to hear from industry leaders on the challenges around recruitment
    • Connect with talented young people and industry leaders seeking and offering opportunities
    • Get tips and guidance from universities on how to take advantage of internships and grad schemes
    • A chance to network with fellow socially-driven innovators and thinkers, with a potential for future collaborations
    • Space to think about your recruitment challenges, explore opportunities and how your company may respond to them

    What will this purpose-accelerator event do for the region?

    Firestarters have put together this event in collaboration with Gather to reduce Liverpool City Region’s ‘brain drain’. Next Generation talent will support purpose-driven leaders with their business growth and bridge gaps between different sectors, industries, businesses and suppliers.

    Firestarters has developed a rich, diverse community in the last year, and we will tap into their knowledge to provide valuable insights to our community to help address inequality in opportunity in LCR. By giving new and known start-ups and scale-ups a platform to connect, Firestarters will drive collaboration between purpose-driven organisations who put purpose before profit. 

    How can you get involved in Next Generation Talent?  

    Want to have your say in how the Liverpool City Region can retain as well as attract great minds and talent? Join us at Firestarters X Gather ‘Next Generation Talent’ on Thursday 21st April 2022 by booking your ticket to the event on Eventbrite.
    Keep up with Firestarters by following us on Twitter and Instagram

  • What we learned from The Purpose Accelerator – Ethical Investment

    What we learned from The Purpose Accelerator – Ethical Investment

    For our first Firestarters event in our brand new 2022 series, ‘The Purpose Accelerator’, we explored Ethical Investment and the ways in which our region’s purpose-driven business leaders can ethically raise more for their world-changing ideas. We brought together values-led people and organisations to discuss how we can use ethical investment to fuel growth in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). This exciting event was sponsored by Gather, a community for digital, creative and tech leaders in the Liverpool City Region. 

    What is Firestarters and ‘The Purpose Accelerator’?

    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 Liverpool City Region. 

    ‘The Purpose Accelerator’ is our brand new event series for 2022, which will focus on helping purpose-driven start-ups and scaleups to grow, develop and provide value to the region. ‘Ethical Investment was the first event in the series, bringing together the regions’ best and brightest innovators and entrepreneurs.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CZM7mt4M1nc/

    Why is ‘Ethical Investment’ so relevant now?

    Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a significant change in local organisations as they adapt to the new normal. As a result, many have had to retreat, whilst others have found success through pivoting their brand, innovating, and finding new ways to work together to provide value. In the LCR, the impact of the new normal created fertile ground for entrepreneurs and innovators, resulting in the opening of thousands of new organisations – many of which were values-led. 

    Ethical Investment set out to connect the best and brightest entrepreneurs and innovators in the LCR and help continue to fuel this rise in purpose-driven organisations. 

    What we discussed at ‘Ethical Investment’

    The event gathered together the region’s innovators, entrepreneurs and ethical business leaders to start conversations around: “How do we make investment in the Liverpool City Region more ethical?”. 

    During the event, we heard from four guest speakers:

    Erika Rushton began by explaining her work at Kindred and detailing her experience with ethical investment. She highlighted how Kindred is using its money to support organisations and people that investment doesn’t usually reach, saying:

    [Kindred is] putting money to people and to places that other money doesn’t reach. We’re investing in entrepreneurialism that other money doesn’t support. 

    Erika Rushton, Kindred. 
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CZR65sqMibB/

    After Erika’s opening talk, we heard from Clare, Jonathan and Matt before moving on to a short Q&A with all four guests. Here, we discussed how each of our speakers defines what a socially trading organisation is and the challenges that face these organisations. 

    Often, purpose-led organisations are focused on slightly smaller markets. They’re trying to address people where maybe there’s a market failure or there isn’t as big of a profit market. That can sometimes put off investors.  

    Clare Lewis, FORM.

    Then we broke up into smaller groups to have further discussions in breakout rooms. This created the perfect opportunity to dive deeper into everything that had been discussed so far. 

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CZR_P4FFBfX/

    What we’ve learned from ‘Ethical Investment’

    Our fantastic panel helped to start off some brilliant conversations at the event, which were only further developed during our breakout room discussions. Some of the main topics of discussion included: 

    • The challenges that surround ethical investment and how we can tackle them
    • Opportunities that are available to us within ethical investment
    • Tips and best practice for those who are interested in learning more about ethical investment or are considering investing in an ethical way 
    • Suggestions around how we can make ethical investment easier and more accessible to those who are wanting to invest 

    What are the next steps?

    We’ll be feeding back important insights and information from the event to Gather and FORM, who will be working towards actioning the outcomes. Once we’ve created these next steps, we’ll share them across the Matchstick Creative social channels. To keep up-to-date with the latest news from Ethical Investment, as well as what’s coming soon for Firestarters, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and sign up for the Firestarters newsletter. 

  • What we learned from Firestarters presents… ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace’ | Growth Platform

    What we learned from Firestarters presents… ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace’ | Growth Platform

    Our most recent Firestarters event was delivered in partnership with Growth Platform as part of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s engagement around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

    Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram – who delivered a keynote speech at the event – is championing a campaign to promote good mental health and wellbeing at work, in support of World Mental Health Day. The campaign launched on Monday 11 October 2021

    What is Firestarters?

    Firestarters is a community of values-driven organisations that’s striving to be a force for good in the LCR. Through live events driven by action, insight, and social impact, Firestarters aims to build meaningful connections between purpose-driven people and achieve real change.

    Why Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace?

    Poor mental health costs the UK economy over £74 million every year – and that’s without factoring in the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has placed upon our mental health and wellbeing. It is one of the most pressing issues facing our region, with the workplace a key area where poor mental health can manifest.

    What we discussed at ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace’

    The event brought together some of the region’s most influential and purpose-driven organisations to discuss: “What does transformative mental health and wellbeing support in the workplace look like post-COVID-19?”

    During the event, we heard from three keynote speakers:

    • Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram of the LCR Combined Authority
    • Elaine Derbyshire of Merseycare
    • Mark Basnett of Growth Platform

    They each discussed various challenges facing the LCR with regards to workplace mental health, and highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges. One of the key points raised in these speeches was the need for attitudes to change with regard to speaking out about our mental health, as well as the need for resources to be made more readily accessible for those who need them.

    Both Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram and Mark Basnett emphasised the resources made available through the LCR Combined Authority’s ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’ campaign. These include free online mental health awareness training for employers and employees, mental health first aid courses, organisational frameworks to better support employees, and workplace-specific helplines, as well as other initiatives.

    A Q&A with all three keynote speakers followed, where the Firestarters community offered their own valuable experiences and insights, and built upon the points made by our speakers.

    It’s not self evident where the problem is coming from. If you’re in a workplace, there are so many factors that contribute towards your poor mental health in the workplace specifically, it could be yourself, it could be your team, it could be the culture, so that’s not clear.

    After the Q&A, we broke off into three smaller groups for more in-depth discussion about what can be done to improve mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, with discussions led by members of the Matchstick Creative team.

    Each of the three groups discussed two key questions around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace:

    • What resources are needed to help support businesses in the LCR?
    • How are these resources made available most readily?

    What we’ve learned from ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace’

    Our smaller group discussions allowed the Firestarters community to dive deeper into the issues facing the LCR. Some excellent points were raised by our participants, and we identified running themes across all three group discussions:

    • The main challenges around providing mental health support in the workplace revolve around trust and workplace culture
    • The main opportunities for overcoming barriers and creating change lie in education, empowerment, and flexibility and control of working arrangements
    • The approach to improving workplace mental health and wellbeing has to be preventative and holistic for maximum impact

    A lot of organisations have employee assistance programmes. When we work with organisations we do a lot of surveys, and currently 78% of staff say they wouldn’t trust it in case it got back to their employer. I think that is a barrier in itself.

    Where can I learn more about ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’?

    Head to Growth Platform’s website, and the LCR Combined Authority website. You can find a range of helpful resources for individuals and businesses, from organisations including the Zero Suicide Alliance, Mental Health First Aid England, and Mind.

    What’s next for Firestarters?

    Our ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills event! If you want to join the conversation around how we can build back employment equality, head on over to eventbrite to book your place.

    Make sure to follow us @heyfirestarters on Twitter and Instagram for all the latest Firestarters news.

  • Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills

    Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills

    ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills

    Employment and Skills is the third event in our four-part ‘Building Back Equal’ series. Each event in the series focuses attention on reducing inequalities in the Liverpool City Region, facilitating discussion on how to build back better. Read on to find out how this event will address this challenge.

    Insights from our first event in the series helped identify what sectors needed to be prioritised to achieve our community’s goal of sparking real change in the region. Having already completed our second event on Culture and Destination Tourism, our third event will focus on Employment and Skills, bringing together values-led organisations to discuss what more can be done in their sectors and industries to take action, spark change, and ensure a fair recovery from COVID-19.

    Why this event is needed

    Predictably, COVID-19’s impact across different industries and sectors over the last 18 months has not been even. In fact, the pandemic and multiple lockdowns have exacerbated inequalities at a national, regional, and local level. 

    Widening inequalities on all three levels have left the region disproportionately vulnerable to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, with diverse groups over-represented in job losses associated with COVID-19.

    ‘Building Back Equal – Employment and Skills’ will open honest discussions regarding these issues and help find local solutions to a growing challenge.

    Who is the event for?

    ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills will create the space to discuss these issues and consider how the region can respond to them. The event is open to everyone but will be particularly beneficial if you’re looking to:

    • Hear from industry leaders within the Liverpool City Region about equality of opportunity
    • Share your thoughts on how the region can build back equally
    • Make meaningful cross-sector connections with purpose-driven individuals and organisations
    • Help inform the Firestarters Building Back Equal Insights report
    • Become part of a community that’s working together to do good

    Who are our guests for ‘Employment and Skills’?

    Guest speakers at Employment and Skills include Amanda Follit, Paul Amann, and Tracy Fishwick OBE. Further guests will be announced very soon on our Twitter and Instagram.

    How you can take part

    Want to have your say in how the Liverpool City Region can build back equality of opportunity? Join us at Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills on Thursday 4th November by booking your ticket to the event on Eventbrite.

  • Firestarters – Building Back Equal 2: Culture and Destination Tourism

    Firestarters – Building Back Equal 2: Culture and Destination Tourism

    How can the Liverpool City Region’s culture and tourism sector come together to champion diversity and build back equal?

    Building Back Equal…

    Culture and Destination Tourism is the second in a four-part series of ‘Building Back Equal’ events focusing on bringing people together to take action, spark change and ensure a fair recovery from COVID 19. Insights from the first event in April 2020 have been used to identify priority sectors for underrepresented groups. Other sectors that the remaining events will focus on include ‘Health and Wellbeing’, and ‘Employment and Skills’

    A year in culture…

    The cultural sector has always been recognised as being one of the more progressive and diverse; in the past 12 months, many of our cultural organisations have suffered from financial loss and had their futures cast into uncertainty due to covid regulations. This is another element of COVID-19 that has disproportionately affected marginalised groups. 

    Building on our first Firestarters event

    Our last event brought together a diverse range of cross-sector stakeholders to reflect on their experiences and to have input in what steps they felt needed to be taken for the region to build back equal. The discussion highlighted three barriers to building back equal: 

    • Networks – Diverse business owners aren’t locked into the networks they need to be for support and advice that will enable them to grow
    • Measurement and accountability – Change needs to be positive but also measurable
    • Diverse voices – More needs to be done to amplify diverse voices in the LCR
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CSPTVdDjTFX/

    SMART Commitments 

    Firestarters aims to be different. We started Firestarters because we wanted to establish a peer support network that was driven by action, insights and social change rather than sales and profit. From our first building back equal event that took place in April, measurability and accountability were highlighted as two of the barriers to creating real change. SMART Commitments are our way of addressing this challenge. We will set ourselves three SMART objectives from each event that will help us to manage our progress and our impact and will help us to keep ourselves accountable. The way we define our SMART Commitments are categorised in three ways:

    As a business

    What commitments can we, Matchstick Creative, make as a business? How can we change our processes? How can we introduce fairer ways of working? How can we improve the impact we have?

    As a community

    What commitments can we, Firestarters, make as a cross-sector community? What changes can we make? What should our priorities be? What should our agenda be?

    As an activist

    What commitments can we make as activists? What issues can we raise awareness of? What agenda can we get behind? How can we influence people with our actions? 

    As a Business 

    How do we inspire positivity and creativity in young people? How do we inspire them to go on and build on what’s happening now? 

    Sarah Ogle, Marketing and Communications Director, Everyman Theatre and Playhouse

    Problem: How do we inspire the next generation to build on the work that’s already been done? 

    Response: Matchstick Creative is going to help inspire and support the next generation of young people by supporting the Culture Deck Music Project with a strategy workshop.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CSFI94RBTvn/

    As a Community

    How do we actually change, “nothing’s changed”? How do we stop having this continuous pattern? We are now on a loop. 

    Andrew Ibi, Head of Fashion, LJMU

    The main thing that struck me from our conversation is that there are plenty of examples of people who are making changes, but we’re not very good at sharing. We’re not good at optimising some of the resources that we have and the knowledge we have. 

    Sarah Lovelle, Head of Culture, LCRCA

    A few people in the group are like myself – they’ve been around for a while, and we’re conscious that we’ve seen initiatives, and statements and manifestos come and go and nothing much changes. 

    Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music

    Problem: We seem to be stuck in a cycle. A lot of the conversations we’re having have already been had. There are some people doing great things, but we’re not very good at sharing it. How do we galvanise these groups into action and collaboration?

    Response: We’re going to help improve knowledge sharing by creating a newsletter that sign-posts resources and shares news. 

    As activists 

    Problem: A lack of connection between different purpose-driven organisations leads to repeated efforts and repeated work

    Response: Reach 1000 people with a feature campaign on 6 LCR activists, Raising awareness of what is already being done around the city regarding activism and social action.

    What’s next?

    What’s next for Firestarters and Building Back Equal? We’ll provide regular updates on our progress with our SMART Commitments via our social channels (Twitter and Instagram). We also have a further two Building Back Equal events around Health and Wellbeing, and Employment and Skills, the dates for which are still to be confirmed. If you would like to be notified when we have a date then get in touch via email: firestarters@matchstickcreative.co.uk.

  • What we learned from Firestarters ‘Destination Tourism and Culture’

    What we learned from Firestarters ‘Destination Tourism and Culture’

    For our second Firestarters event, we chose to focus on our region’s tourism and culture sectors to start conversations about how we can build back better and achieve inclusive growth for the sectors. Read on to discover what our Firestarters community discussed at ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture, and what our next steps for the tourism and culture sectors are. 

    What is Firestarters and ‘Building Back Equal’?

    Firestarters is a values-driven community that’s striving to be a force for good in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). Through live events that showcase a diverse range of speakers and audiences, Firestarters aims to build meaningful connections between purpose-driven people and achieve real change. ‘Building Back Equal’ is a four-part event series that focuses on finding solutions to our region’s biggest challenges and building back the LCR in a fair and inclusive way. Destination Tourism and Culture was the second event in the series and gathered the LCR’s cultural organisations in one (virtual) space. 

    Why Destination Tourism and Culture?

    Our first Firestarters event, ‘Building Back Equal’, allowed us to gain more of an insight into the challenges that the LCR is facing. We looked into the most pressing matters that are affecting our city region, and what sectors, in particular, were in need of attention. From here, it was clear to us that our city’s tourism and culture sectors were the highest priority. With this in mind, we designed the second ‘Building Back Equal’ event, Destination Tourism and Culture, to be in direct response to what our region’s culture, creative and tourism sectors need.

    Why is ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture so relevant now?

    As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the LCR has seen huge losses across its tourism and culture sectors with 31,000 jobs having been lost within our region’s tourism sector alone. In a study from the Visitor Economy Team at Growth Platform, it was found in 2019, spending within the LCR’s tourism sector reached £4.98bn. However, due to the COVID-10 restrictions, throughout 2020, income generated from the sector dropped by a massive 58%. This highlights just how severe the situation is and how essential it is that we work together to build back our region’s tourism sector. 

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CR6yWW2jMAY/

    As well as this, there have also been huge challenges for the arts and culture sector as the government has recently announced that it will be going ahead with plans to cut funding to university arts subjects by 50% by this Autumn. This is yet another setback for the arts and culture sector and emphasises the need for community events like Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ if we’re to achieve fair recovery from the pandemic.

    What we discussed at Destination Tourism and Culture 

    ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture brought together 40 of our region’s most influential creative, cultural and tourism organisations to discuss the question of: “How can the LCR’s culture and tourism sector come together to champion diversity and build back equal?”. 

    During the event, we heard from Yaw Owusu (The Playmaker Group, Liverpool International Music Festival, PRS Foundation and LCR Music Board) who ran a Q&A all about the PRS Foundation’s Power Up Programme, as well as starting off some brilliant discussions with the Firestarters community about the tourism and culture sectors. One of the key points that came from Yaw’s Q&A was around the areas that the LCR is both succeeding and failing in, with regards to its tourism and culture sectors. Yaw highlighted Liverpool’s ambition for, and commitment to, creatives and the creative sector as something that really stood out. However, he also spoke about the unique issues that Liverpool experiences as a city. 

    We are dealing with stuff here that’s very different. Our history means that certain things need to be taken a lot more seriously. But our ambition in terms of culture and tourism and its worth to the city, particularly with music and arts. Not every city has that power coming from a certain sector.

    Yaw Owusu, The Playmaker Group, Liverpool International Music Festival, PRS Foundation and LCR Music Board.

    After Yaw’s Q&A, we broke off into six smaller groups for more in-depth discussions about how we can build back the culture and tourism sectors. These were led by our incredible guests: 

    • Andrew Ibi, Co-Founder of FACE, Programme Leader at LJMU and Founder of Bold Agency
    • Claire McColgan, Director of Culture Liverpool
    • Emma Smith, Artistic Director & CEO of the Liverpool Irish Festival
    • Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music
    • Sarah Lovell, Head of Culture at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
    • Sarah Ogle, Marketing & Communications Director at Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CSFI94RBTvn/

    Each of the six groups discussed three key questions around the culture and tourism sectors: 

    1. What are the challenges around reducing inequalities as we build back better?
    2. What are the changes you would like to see in your own sector/industry?
    3. What tips and best practices can you share? 

    What we’ve learned from ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture

    The smaller group discussions enabled us to dive deeper and uncover some of the key issues and challenges that the sectors are facing. There were so many amazing points that came from these discussions, but what seemed to be a running theme across all of the groups was the need for:

    • More arts and culture education for young people in schools
    • Diverse representation at the top level of organisations
    • Structural changes within organisations 
    • Making actual change happen, not just talking about making change 

    A few people in the group are like me they’ve been around for a while, and we’re conscious that we’ve seen initiatives, and statements and manifestos come and go and nothing much changes.

    Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music

    What are the next steps? 

    If we want to spark change for our region’s culture and destination tourism sectors then it’s all about the next steps. We’ll be sharing some of our top insights as well as putting together plans for what our next steps will look like. Keep an eye out for our next blog post where we’ll be sharing it all! 

    Want to catch up on all of our Firestarters community discussions from ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture? The full event video is up on YouTube now for you to watch back! To keep up-to-date with all the latest news from the Firestarters community, make sure to follow us at @heyfirestarters on Twitter. 

  • What we can do next after Firestarters’ ‘Building Back Equal’

    What we can do next after Firestarters’ ‘Building Back Equal’

    For our first Firestarters event, we wanted to create a space to spark real change in the Liverpool City Region, and approach rebuilding in a more inclusive way following COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. Follow us as we discuss our findings from the event and what we can all learn from ‘Building Back Equal’.

    What is Firestarters and why did we start it? 

    Firestarters is a values-driven networking community focusing on sharing the voices of diverse speakers, exciting live events and relevant content. Firestarters first came about in response to the lack of authentic networking events that brought value to attendees, and set out to create an engaged community of purpose-driven ethical leaders, entrepreneurs and inspired change-makers, who all share the same goal: to actively make a difference to the Liverpool City Region.

    What makes Firestarters so relevant now? 

    Following COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Government’s Race Report for this year, it’s more important than ever to build communities like Firestarters and work towards achieving inclusive growth. But, what is it that makes Firestarters and ‘Building Back Equal’ so relevant at the moment?

    In an article for The Guardian entitled “No 10’s race report widely condemned as ‘divisive’”, Director of British Future, Sunder Katwala, said: 

    Black and Asian Britons in our society today face less prejudice than their parents or grandparents, they may well fare better than those in many other countries. But such comparisons make little difference to the lives of ethnic minority Britons in 2021.

    Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future. 

    This highlights one of the key short fallings from the Government’s Race Report which is the thinking that just because some progress has been made, that enough progress has been made. While it’s important that change has happened, it’s hardly reassuring when there’s still so much that needs to be done.

    Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ event

    ‘Building Back Equal’ was the first public event for Firestarters, which brought together the Liverpool City Region’s community of change-makers to tackle the question of “How can the Liverpool City Region’s business community come together to champion diversity and build back equal?”. ‘Building Back Equal’ gathered together 40 of the region’s most influential stakeholders, all of whom had the same goal: the desire and capability to help the Liverpool City Region become the change that it wants to see.

    During the event we heard from an incredible panel of diverse speakers including; Emeka Onuora (Liverpool City Region Combined Authority), Chelsea Slater (Innovate Her), Natalie Denny (The Anthony Walker Foundation & Skywriters) and Francesca Manca (Underwing) who helped to open up the conversation of how the region can approach fair recovery and start on its journey to creating positive change.

    Emeka Onuora also gave a keynote speech that highlighted the reasons why more action is needed in the Liverpool City Region to create a plan to approach building back equally. He shared a study from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority which showed that black people in the Liverpool City Region are:

    • Twice as likely to be born into child poverty
    • Paid £1.10 an hour less than employees
    • Paid 10% less after graduating
    • 3 times more likely to be stopped and searched
    • Twice as likely not to own their own home 

    It’s statistics like this that prove that there is still so much more to be done, which is why communities like Firestarters are so important to create the space to have necessary conversations.

    What we discovered from Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ 

    Not only were there key points highlighted during Emy’s speech, but there were also plenty of points that came from our panel discussions, including: 

    • The inequalities that exist in having access to advice, resources and funding as a black business owner
    • A need for measurable change that can be sustained
    • The importance of language when speaking about diversity, inclusion and equality
    • The issues that can come from focusing on competition rather than community
    • The need for unconscious bias training at the top of all organisations 

    Some of the challenges we’ve found for black business include not having access to the same advice, support or funding, and not being able to grow and develop.

    Emeka Onuora, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 

    What’s next for Firestarters? 

    Firestarters is just beginning and there’s so much more yet to come from its community. Following ‘Building Back Equal’ we’ll be speaking to our community about how we can go about actively making a difference and putting the key findings from our first event into practice. Based on what we’ve learnt from ‘Building Back Equal’, we’ve also set specific short, medium and long term goals that we set out to achieve.

    1. Activists (short-term)

    Challenge: Amplifying diverse voices in the LCR

    Response: We’re going to run a social media campaign amplifying the voices of diverse stakeholders, helping to educate the region on the challenges they face and their experiences. The campaign will last six weeks and will focus on 10 Liverpool City Region stakeholders from diverse backgrounds. A blend of different content will be distributed across Matchstick Creative channels to provide some insights into the experiences of diverse stakeholders in the Liverpool City Region. 

    • Board level 
    • Employer Level 
    • Employee level 
    • Third sector 
    • Public sector

    2. Business (medium-term)

    Challenge: Change needs to be positive but also measurable

    Response: We’re going to set a number of internal SMART objectives around equality and diversity. This will include introducing quotas for our speakers at Firestarters events and tracking the number of diverse businesses we support through Torchlight Talks. We will publish our SMART objectives and provide updates on our progress to encourage more open discussion around these challenges.

    3. Community (long-term)

    Challenge: Diverse business owners aren’t locked in the business networks they need to be for support and advice that will enable them to grow

    Response: The expansion of ‘Building Back Equal’ to include three more events in 2021. The events will focus on building networks for diverse leaders in priority sectors and industries including hospitality and culture, health and well-being, and employment and skills. 

    We’ll be sharing more information about our findings as well as announcing some exciting things over on Twitter so make sure to follow @heyfirestarters to join in the conversation. If you missed your chance to get involved in our first Firestarters event then don’t worry, you can watch the full ‘Building Back Equal’ event over on YouTube.