The Best of Both

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.

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

incorporating

RECIPROCATE

L-R Back Row: Heather Carter, Robert Pinheiro, Mark Beard, Richard Rosser, Grant Hayward. L-R Front Row: Jayne Woodley, Kate Walker, Anne Davies

Whilst it is often difficult to leave our egos and organisations at the door, by optimising the three resources we all have at our disposal:

- our TIME - our INFLUENCE - our CURRENCY

we believe this will bring incremental benefit to both Reciprocate and NEXUS.

We are extremely grateful to all those who have given so much of their time, influence and currency to support Reciprocate since its launch in 2016, not least all our members and thanks to our Chairs former High Sheriffs Tony Stratton and most recently Richard Venables. We are delighted too that Mark Beard has agreed to become a Patron of NEXUS going forward.

Mark has been a long-term supporter of both Reciprocate and OCF, Mark is currently High Sheriff in Nomination for shrieval year commencing April 2022 following in the footsteps of Tony and Richard and we know he has our aims at heart. Our appreciation too to Grant Hayward who is also well known to

businesses across both organisations and will remain proactively involved in the future development of NEXUS.

“We are extremely grateful to all those who have given so much of their time, influence and currency to support Reciprocate since its launch in 2016

”

Jayne Woodley, CEO - Oxfordshire Community Foundation

By pooling our resources and blending the best of Reciprocate and NEXUS in this way, we see this evolution as having huge potential to really evidence that we are better together when we choose to collaborate rather than replicate.

Richard Venables

To hear more about this and find out how you can get involved please do join us at one of the monthly events NEXUS will be hosting at the Jurys Inn or at BIO2020. Let’s make 2020 a year in which we change the way we think, and all do more together.

Visit nexus.b4-business.com to find out more.