Blending the best of both for everyone In the Chinese New Year, 2020 is the year of rat and whilst the rat might perhaps not be everyone’s favourite little animal it is one whose determination might inspire many of us as we look to achieve our organisational goals for the new decade ahead. Written by: Jayne Woodley, Chief Executive, Oxfordshire Community Foundation
Grant Hayward
Jayne Woodley
So, with 2020 considered a great year for founding and evolving we have some exciting news to share about a new collaboration and partnership between Reciprocate and Nexus. Reciprocate is the responsible business group currently hosted by Oxfordshire Community Foundation (OCF). Reciprocate member companies have always believed that, by working together, sharing ideas and collaborating on projects, they could increase their support for the local community and improve the lives of people in Oxfordshire. NEXUS is a new programme designed by B4 (Oxfordshire’s leading business networking organisation) to provide opportunities for businesses to build meaningful connections with either a charity, social enterprise or start-up business, creating mutual benefits and enabling both to build their profile within the B4 network. OCF has always believed that collaboration will take us further than competition every time and wherever possible we should seek out opportunities to pool our resources, for our common good, rather than duplicate our efforts. We also know we will only ever achieve more if we focus and prioritise those efforts. Not least because the challenges we face in addressing deep-seated social problems are more often a lack of co-ordination between all our various efforts as organisations and individuals rather than being solely about insufficient funding or beyond the capacity of any one organisation.
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Richard Rosser
Which is why together with the support of our members we believe the launch of NEXUS offers such a welcome and timely opportunity to blend the best ideas, experiences and people from Reciprocate with the signposting, events and masterclass muscle of B4. Therefore, over the past few months and since the launch of NEXUS in October 2019, we have been planning the evolution of Reciprocate by working together with NEXUS to: • shine a light on all the great stuff that is already happening • make it easy for others to take action in a more joined up and coordinated way
Going forward, NEXUS will now incorporate Reciprocate, providing signposting and practical advice on employee volunteering, work experience and charitable board appointments, enabling businesses, social enterprises and charities to improve their social impact by working together and sharing their experiences through masterclasses and events
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