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.
Firestarters x The Good Business Festival events
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 to develop 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.
Guest speakers at the event included:
- Liam Kelly, MAKE
- Alison James, The Women’s Org
- Rachael Forde, Liverpool Cares
- Emeka Onuora, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA)
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.
Guest speakers at the event included:
- Will Smith, TRED
- Richard Hagan – Crystal Doors
- Gill Wood – Growth Platform
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.
Guest speakers at the event included:
- Ngunan Adamu – iWoman/BBC
- Ni Maxine – Artist/Musician
- Char Binns – Homotopia
- Kevin McManus – UNESCO
What are the next steps?
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.
