SOCIAL IMPACT
REPORT 2018-19
OUR IMPACT
2019 sees the company celebrate its tenth birthday - and there’s been much to celebrate in the past year. We recorded strong sales figures and a profit for the year, enabling us to invest in our expanding community projects. We were also pleased to be one of four local businesses short-listed for Plymouth Business Awards in the Social Enterprise category.
WHY FOTONOW IS NEEDED:
WHO WE WORK WITH:
The world is flooded with photos, and social media is packed with video - creative media plays a critical role in today’s society.
As a social enterprise the majority of our income comes from trade. This year was a record year for turnover, and trade represented 60% of our income.
We believe education in the interpretation of images and films, and the ability to use media to communicate are hugely important. But we also use media as a tool to do a lot more... we find that photography and filmmaking are excellent ways to engage people, to help explore new ideas and to challenge people to think differently. In all of our projects we look for social outcomes beyond learning to use a camera or make a film. As educators, we take a holistic approach to those we work with and help them to grow and succeed.
We’re commissioned by a range of clients and we often work on projects where there is a strong synergy with our own ethics and approach; a number of our key clients are also social enterprises. We also apply for grant funding to extend the impact of our work. This year we made five successful grant applications for the delivery of four of our community projects, alongside receiving funding for some core activities through Rank Foundation. This meant that grant funding represented 40% of our income for the year, an increase of 11% compared to last year.
WHAT WE MEASURE
Our social impact measurement is built on five overarching aims which we measure our performance against. All of our socially-focussed projects are designed to deliver outcomes that contribute to as many of these aims as possible. In each of these themes, we collect data relating to six impact categories, which relate to the people we are aiming to support.
Educate
Empower
Entertain
Present
Participants These are the people who get directly involved in our projects. This might be as part of short interventions, perhaps a one day workshop, all the way through to our longer term strategic projects where participants are supported through a more in depth experience. Audience and Beneficiaries Audiences are the people who view or experience our work, both off and online! Beneficiaries are people who have benefited indirectly with our work; they may not have taken part in a project, but perhaps they have seen positive changes in a family member or friend who has participated in our work. Communities The geographical places we work in and groups of shared interest. These are places where our work has made positive, tangible changes to people and the place they live in. Partners Lasting change often comes from long-term engagement with an issue or cause, so we develop partnerships with a range of organisations to work together to help solve problems. Where appropriate, we also support partner organisations to grow and develop. Our People Our team work to make a difference in the lives of others, and we recognise that to do so, our staff need to be supported too, so this impact category is focussed on the impact Fotonow has on our staff and volunteers. The City and Beyond We’re a small team, but have big ambitions! We want the positive effects of our work to ripple out across our city and beyond. It can be hard to measure cause and effect directly, but we look to evidence where Fotonow is contributing to the cultural and social enterprise ecosystems in Plymouth and further afield.
Sustain
HOW WE DID
15
Community Projects
306
Participants
ÂŁ20,000
Spent With Local Artists
1,239 hours
Work Placements
475 hours
Volunteer Time
157
Supporting Local Causes
hours
8
Emerging Artists Supported
1
Touring Exhibition & Publication
PARTICIPANTS
We worked directly with 306 participants during the course of our fifteen community projects. This is a 42% increase on last year. Whilst in 2017-18 we engaged a very large number of participants through just two projects, this year our engagement figures were more evenly distributed between our projects. Nevertheless, The Island Stories remained our largest project and engaged 25% of our participants.
Projects Also significant in the year were our ‘Street Photo’ youth workshop programme and our ‘Darkroom: Light Mind’ mental health project, funded by Awards for All. Work Experience This year we provided a total of 1,239 hours of work placements, slightly less than last year. We also continued our successful ‘Photo-Food’ project with Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support and developed a pilot photography project with Sunflower Women’s Recovery Centre.
We continued our relationship with Tellus College English Language School programme and hosted five international students over the year. We ran our regular work experience week for secondary school students in July. During the week we put on additional activities for the students and set a ‘live brief’ for them to engage with. “I have always wanted to have a career around videography, however work experience has made me want to achieve it even more.”
COMMUNITY BARNE BARTON
We continued to develop our work in Barne Barton following the success of our The Island Stories project. As The Island Stories ended, we developed a number of other projects feeding from the engagement and community involvement we had nurtured. In particular local interest in social history was expanded. We recognise that for meaningful social impact to be achieved spending more time with fewer communities makes sense - we intend to build on relationships. ‘The Island Stories’ project The year saw the final few months of our Heritage Fund, North Yard Community Trust and Clarion Futures supported The Island Stories history project, which we’ve been running since 2017. Highlights included running history walks during Plymouth History Festival, creating 360 films and presenting project outcomes in Barne Barton during the Plymouth Art Weekender, one of the few exhibitions outside of the city centre. ‘The Hall’ project: Thanks to a Heritage Fund and a Clarion Futures grant we worked with residents to explore the history of William Sutton Memorial Hall.
‘Windows’ Project This project enabled work produced by local residents and commissioned artists to be shared back in their community via outdoor display at the Tamar View Community Centre. The aim of this work was to enrich and humanise the public space in Barne Barton, by visibly placing residents at the heart of the community.
The community collected oral history, and collated material relating to the hall and wider history of William Sutton. The intergenerational project also engaged young people to make a film and we presented their work alongside an exhibition celebrating the hall’s history as part of Plymouth History Festival. The work was also publised into a booklet.
“It has opened a door for me to get to know my local landscape so much better. I started to find out a lot of things that I had never noticed before.” (Kim, volunteer)
Individuals Engaged:
592
Volunteers Supported:
24
OUR PEOPLE
Throughout the year we seek to find ways to support the growth and development of our staff and volunteers. We create meaningful jobs with a strong social purpose and are an accredited Living Wage employer. We are also a committed Disability Confident employer.
Number of hours Employment generated:
7,065
Hours Volunteers gave us:
475
Hours of Work Placements:
1,239
CASE STUDIES
ARTIST PROFILE: MAISIE MARSHALL We were commissioned by the Active Neighbourhoods project to evaluate the impact of their work with volunteers. This multi-dimensional commission involved a written evaluation report, short film and enabled us to commission recent graduate Maisie Marshall to produce a series of contemporary portraits which were exhibited at Ocean Studios.
“By using photography I knew that it would help celebrate the volunteers work but also encourage more members of the community to get involved.”
VOLUNTEER PROFILE: SAM HEWITT Sam has been our most committed volunteer this year. He got involved initially with The Island Stories project. “Volunteering has definitely improved my confidence in and out of the workplace ”
“When I first started coming to Fotonow I was unemployed. I wanted to improve on my skills I learnt at school and learn some new ones.” “Volunteering has definitely improved my confidence in and out of the workplace as I have met new people.”
AUDIENCE
Our audience engagement work is two-fold; we use media to help amplify the voices of those who may not get heard, and more broadly we seek to promote the work of the creative sector in the South West to a wider audience. We staged a number of exhibitions over the course of the year, with our flagship South West Graduate Photography Prize running for its ninth year. We provided a paid residency for the 2018 winner, Molly Budd.
Online Photo Audience:
219,626 views
Online Video Audience:
5,840 views
CITY AND BEYOND
We believe our way of working and supporting individuals has a wider, though harder to define, impact on culture and social enterprise economy in Plymouth and the wider region. By actively seeking new partnerships, bringing established artists to the city and volunteering our time where we can to support valuable initiatives, we can help put Plymouth on the map!
Socially Engaged Photography Network: We joined Open Eye Gallery’s newly formed ‘Socially Engaged Photography Network’ and offered to be the South West’s regional lead for the network. Associate Artists: Our Associate Artist scheme enables collaborations with a number of established artists based across the UK. We were particularly proud this year to bring Karen Ingham’s interdisciplinary series ‘Deluge’ to Ocean Studios. The exhibition was supported by Arts Council of Wales and Arts Council England and showcased research into climate change, sea-level rise and our relationship with natural resources.
We hope to further develop links between South West based socially engaged practitioners over the coming years.
Plymouth Business Awards: We were shortlisted for the Plymouth Herald Business Awards “Social Enterprise” category and came runner-up. It was an honour to be included amongst some great other local businesses at the awards, and help advocate for the growing social enterprise sector in Plymouth.
CONNECT
Fotonow CIC www.fotonow.org Instagram www.instagram.com/fotonow_cic Twitter www.twitter.com/fotonow Facebook www.facebook.com/fotonow-cic Flickr www.flickr.com/fotonow_projects Vimeo www.vimeo.com/fotonowcic Eventbrite www.fotonow.eventbrite.co.uk Soundcloud www.soundcloud.com/fotonowcic LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/fotonow-cic Issuu www.issuu.com/fotonowpublishing South West Graduate Photography Prize www.facebook.com/southwestgraduatephotographyprize Camper Obscura www.camperobscura.co.uk The Island Stories www.theislandstories.co.uk Foto Plus Collective www.foto-plus.org The Plymouth Studio www.theplymouthstudio.co.uk
‘North Sea Plankton’ from Deluge by Karen Ingham