Jamie and Hannah from OxFizz had a very interesting meeting last week with the CEO of The Teaching Awards, Caroline Evans. They are passionate about identifying teachers that make a difference, and learning and disseminating the best practice that these teachers inspire.

If you know an excellent teacher, do nominate them:

Say thank you to inspirational teachers and schools

The Teaching Awards is an annual celebration of teaching and learning. It’s a unique way to recognise teachers and schools for their dedicated work in giving children and young people the best chances in life.

The closing date for nominations is 1 March, so now’s the time to say a special ‘thank you’ to a teacher, headteacher, teaching assistant, governor or a school team at www.teachingawards.com

There are twelve award categories and everyone can nominate. Each ‘thank you’ makes a huge difference to teachers and schools, and it’s a great way to acknowledge their hard work and dedication. Nominate now at the www.teachingawards.com.

Thanks to our friends at Escape the City for their latest blog post on volunteering with our new London tutoring venture:

Want to learn to teach and raise money for your favourite charity?

OxFizz is a new and exciting social enterprise looking for intelligent, socially aware graduates to be volunteer tutors.

The money that you raise as a tutor is donated to a charity of your choice and a unique bursary scheme to help disadvantaged students.

This is a great opportunity to:

• Teach a subject you enjoy
• Work with young people
• Receive excellent training and experience
• Raise money for a charity of your choice
• Be part of a team of like-minded graduates
• All in a 1-2 hour commitment per week, it’s a mini escape!

If you’re interested then drop Hannah an email.

A welcome to Rob, an old friend of Bobby and Jamie’s, who has set up an exciting new enterprise, Escape the City, and writes a guest post for OxFizz.

The news is filled with dire warnings about climate change, overpopulation, deforestation, economic collapse, war and terrorism. However, for every challenge there is a potential solution.

The 21st century’s challenges (which are sizeable) are mainly going to be faced by people born after 1980. Leadership guru Warren Bennis is calling this generation the next ‘Greatest Generation’.

Here are 4 reasons why young people today have the potential to change the world in a positive way (there are many more):

• There is a growing feeling of social responsibility amongst the university-age generation. Young people today are less motivated by money and more motivated by having an impact and making a difference.

• It has never been easier to start a business, a social enterprise, or a charity with no money. The new tools and technologies that we all have at our fingertips mean that anyone with a good idea and the drive to make it happen can succeed (see The Bootstrapper’s Bible).

• Being young doesn’t have to count against you. In fact, many of the most exciting tech and social entrepreneurship innovations of the last decade have come from people in their 20s (Facebook, TribeWanted, u8, OneYoungWorld). Being unrestrained by the limitations of experience can actually be a competitive advantage.

• The future of business is social, transparent and connected. Growing up in a world where the Internet and mobile technology are ubiquitous means that the generation currently entering the workplace has a strong understanding of the tools that will define the way the world works over the coming decades (see Here Comes Everybody).

To have a further think about what this might mean I would strongly recommend reading the following books:

• The Meaning of the 21st Century: a Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future
• Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success
• Tribes

And if you’re leaving university and not sure what direction to head in, come and check us out at Escape the City - we’re about to launch our new platform which provides exciting options for young professionals who want to ‘do something different’.

Out of the 13,000 children who got three As at A-level last year, just 189 came from the poorest eighth of our society, those eligible for free school meals. We live in a society where parental income is still the single biggest indicator of where you end up in your life. Sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference; Teach First would like 2 hours of your time to let 3 sixth formers shadow you.

Over Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th February Teach First will be bringing 160 sixth formers from our gifted and talented Higher Education access programme London to Oxford University. As well as listening to talks from admissions tutors we would like sixth formers to be able to shadow an undergraduate for a couple of hours. There are 2 days Teach First will be bringing pupils up, you do not have to volunteer for both, just let us know which days you are interested in when you reply. We will need you from 1-3pm and volunteers will meet the sixth formers at Somerville college.

The idea is that students get a real feel for undergraduate life; it would be great if you were doing something vaguely academic, even better if you have a class to go to, but equally important is getting to ask you questions and see what university life looks like, you may well be the first university student they have ever met. If you are interested we would love to hear from you and if you have any friends who are interested then please pass it on. Please click on the link below to email your degree subject, college and day(s) you would be interested in helping out asap!

Graihagh Crawshaw
Senior Officer
Teach First Higher Education Access Programme for Schools
Ambassador Department

Every year the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) publish a detailed review of philanthropy in the UK, and the latest one has recently been published. Unsurprisingly, in challenging financial times where people are counting the pennies, the headline figures show a drop in giving:

- Charitable donations have dropped 11% by £1.3bn to £9.9bm - The average person gave £10 per month this year, a decrease of £1 on the previous year - The number of adults in the UK donating to charity each month fell by 2% to 54% (i.e.: 774,000 fewer people are giving)

OxFizz is particularly interested in youth philanthropy. While the proportion of 65+ year olds giving to charity has increased by 6% in the past three years (from 52% to 58%), the proportion of 16-24 year olds has decreased from 41% (2006/7) to 38% (2008/9).

CAF Chief Executive John Low strikes an upbeat tone, and is right to celebrate the continued giving extant during the recession:

Yet there are important learning points here for charities, that the need to engage people and encourage philanthropy in a positive yet unpressurising way, is stronger than ever, and that there needs to be more of a focus on inspiring young philanthropists - the givers of the future.

Last Saturday saw the Oxbridge Interviews team visit Oxford to run our first training session of the year for our team of budding volunteer interviewers. We are very keen to provide a high quality service to our interviewees, so the training is important. We also want to support our interviewers well, and ensure that they all feel comfortable interviewing with us.

As always, we were delighted to welcome Barbara Shellard, an Oxford University tutor and interviewer of many years, who helped to run the training programme, ably assisted by her dog, George.

The action-packed schedule included training on interview techniques and the opportunity for our interviewers to practice interviewing. Feedback received on the day was excellent, and we look forward to running more sessions in the coming months.

If you know any Oxbridge graduates interested in hearing more about us, do please let Hannah, our Coordinator, know. It’s an excellent opportunity to develop new skills, meet different people, generate money for a charity of your choice, and support our bursary programme for less advantaged pupils.

For more information, please go to our Oxbridge Interviews page.

Written by one of the OxFizz Directors, a version of this article was first published by Think Publishing in Engage, the magazine of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations.

As Posh, Scary, Baby, Sporty and Ginger bopped in the official Comic Relief song of 1997, ‘I said who (oo oo) do you think you are?’. Inspired by the success of the BBC programme of the same name, library archivists are doing overtime as more and more people seek to revisit their family ancestry. As the National Council for Voluntary Organisations celebrates its 90th anniversary, it gives this commentator a welcome opportunity to champion charities to rediscover and reconnect with their roots.

A fundamental motivation to reflect on the origins of charities is to confront what may be one of the bigger challenges the sector will face in forthcoming years - that of trust. There is a debate to be had over the extent to which the public has confidence in charities. nfpSynergy’s research late last year suggests that 65% of British adults trust charities, commendably up from a nadir of 42% in 2007. One of the unique aspects of civil society organisations is trustworthiness, that informal bond with service users, donors and volunteers that charities need to thrive. Yet the fact that 1 in 3 people don’t claim they trust charities presents a real challenge.

Detractors of the sector - rightly or wrongly - level a number of criticisms at some charities. They might highlight a fundraising fatigue, tired of ‘chuggers’ and regular requests for donations. Some query the emotive advertising campaigns. Others question the relationship between charities and government, suggesting some have become an arm of the state - witness the newly set up FakeCharities.org. There is perhaps a feeling that some organisations are becoming disengaged from the public.

So what can history teach us? The foundation of philanthropy and charity isn’t a solely faith-based one, but for many religions the act of almsgiving was a central tenet. From this developed small, informal, voluntary-based grassroots organisations grounded in the local community. Most charities have started as a result of an individual or group of people inspired to change invidious problems of societal inequity. The charity I chair, Jacari, which teaches Oxfordshire children who don’t speak English as their first language, was set up by a handful of motivated students in 1956 and has a fascinating history. NVCO was founded in 1919 thanks to the legacy of one man, Edward Vivian Birchall.

The challenge third sector organisations face is how to develop from these initial historic roots to provide a better service for more people. How can the informal, volunteer-centric community groups - as most civil society organisations start off as being - develop into formal, structured, sustainable charities without losing the personalised, community-focused, special and unique quality that they start with?

It would be wrong to pretend there was ever a romantic halcyon era for charities. The early stages of existence can be an enormous challenge and stress. And yet in those formative stages a new charitable project has to be at its most bonded to the community. Unable to rely on a track record, the organisation has to be able to justify to supporters and funders that there is a need. This is only possible through a real community connection.

We have a lot to learn from our history. As civil society organisations we are rightly encouraged by governance textbooks to cherish our values. But while values often arise from our history, a focus on values is often at the expense of revisiting that history.

Sadly many historical archives have been lost, or some charities don’t have the time to collate records. But an internal focus on organisational roots, and an external championing of history, may help to see off the challenge of public confidence in the sector by ensuring charities retain the personalised and cohesive character that marked their foundation. So dust down and rustle through the yellowed parchment of your organisation’s history. And as the Spice Girls would say, ‘trust it, use it, prove it, groove it, show me how good you are’.

A warm welcome to Hannah Knight, our first ever member of staff at OxFizz. She’s heading up our Oxbridge Interviews branch, working closely with Sophie (our Recruitment & Training Coordinator) and Jamie, Bobby and Chris (Directors). Hannah has a huge range of experiences and talent within charity work, and charitable trading. We’re very much looking forward to working with her.

Hannah writes:

Hi, I’m Hannah and I’m joining OxFizz as the first ever Coordinator for Oxbridge Interviews. I’ll be in charge of running the day-to-day activities of the enterprise. I will also be helping with volunteer recruitment and support, developing new partnerships and making sure the interview season runs smoothly. I am excited about being part of such an innovative, pioneering organisation. I look forward to working within OxFizz and hope to meet many of you in the future.

Hannah has a background in charity and volunteering. She was a member of St. John Ambulance for eight years. While at Oxford University, Hannah was Charities Rep and ran the large scale St. Catherine’s College Charity Naked Calendar project for Emilie’s Charities. Since graduating Hannah has been a production assistant, a volunteer teacher in Jaipur, India and worked with the Charities Advisory Trust. She has also been a volunteer for Save the Children, The Children’s Society and a mentor for Digitall, a TimeBank project that aims to bridge the generation gap through technology. She is a trained youth helpline worker and has recently been selected as a Youth Educator for Envision, a charity that seeks to empower young people to make a difference. Hannah is a member of TimeBank’s newly formed Youth Advisory Group, which assesses and suggests improvements for youth volunteering schemes. She is excited about being Co-ordinator for Oxbridge Interviews and hopes to bring a lot to the role. She is particularly keen to use her superior knowledge of tea and cakes at volunteer training days.

OxFizz is really pleased to support a new charity, Free Cakes for Kids UK, recently set up by Jette Lundgren. Jette has been one of our star volunteer interviewers at Career Interview Coaching, where she has also been our Recruitment & Training Consultant.

Modelled on a successful American charity, Free Cakes for Kids UK is a non-profit service to families in Oxford who find it difficult to provide a birthday cake for their child. The cakes are baked by volunteers from the local community.

It’s a simple, low-cost idea, and one with real community benefits - for children, parents and families, as well as the volunteers who get to use their time and skills in a different and accessible way.

Jette is always interested to hear from anyone who can support the project. Perhaps you know a family who can benefit from the service, whose child’s birthday is coming up and for whom baking a cake would be difficult. Or if you know anyone interested in becoming a volunteer baker or anyone who can help support with ingredients or kitchens do get in touch with her: oxford@freecakesforkids.org.uk or 01865 242207.

See below for a recent article for Leys News on Free Cakes for Kids.

OxFizz would like to wish her the very best for her project.

Charity Baking at the Dragon School
It’s Monday morning and a group of eleven ladies from the Oxford University Newcomers’ Club gather in front of the Dragon School Lodge on Bardwell Road in North Oxford. In their bags and backpacks: flour and chocolate, strawberries and vanilla essence and an apron each. Their plan for the morning: to bake lots of cupcakes, brownies and shortbread for the Leys Youth Programme activity groups.

So the baking starts. “We scheduled the strawberry cupcakes to be baked first because they take a long time to cool down and be decorated,” explains Henriette Lundgren who also runs the Free Cakes for Kids project in Oxford. While a group of bakers equip themselves with mixing bowls and hand mixers to prepare the delicate cupcake dough (with fresh strawberry puree - yummie!), the other half explores what it takes to knead, roll and cut shortbread biscuits.

Coming from different national and cultural backgrounds and with different levels of baking experience, everyone is really enthusiastic about the baking morning. For some of the ladies, baking cakes does not form part of their food tradition but the ladies particularly enjoyed making these cakes for charity.

As noon approaches, an impressive range of 70 strawberry cupcakes, 60 shortbread biscuits and 45 chocolate brownie bars are cooling on the baking trays.

We finish just in time for Richard Colbrook, leader of the Leys Youth Programme who organises activity groups for children from Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, to come and pick up the cakes. “Wow! So many cakes? The cheerleaders will love them!” We later received a thank you letter from Richard in which he describes how much the children enjoyed the cakes: “They couldn’t get over the taste of the cakes: how nice they were compared to the bought stuff they’d normally eat. You made a huge impression and your kindness will be remembered for a long time.”

Also Danny Gill, Director of Social Impact at the Dragon School, seems very pleased with this successful charity baking event. “When do you come back next term?” he asks us while we switch off the lights and close the kitchen door.

Article for Leys News / August Issue. Written by Henriette Lundgren. Pictures by G.F. Sturt

The recent words of an unattributable senior civil servant.

With the recession biting, how is it impacting on social enterprises? The evidence is mixed. Some suggest that in tough economic times social enterprises are well placed as they are mainly motivated by societal aims rather than profit. As George Leahy, Director of Research and Policy at the Social Enterprise Coalition comments:

One might add that social enterprises may be seen by consumers as having a more trustworthy brand, so while other businesses might face customer desertion, social enterprises are more likely to retain the client base. This might be true, for example, of ethical banks or microfinance institutions.

Others claim that social enterprises are primarily business (albeit with community goals), and hence suffer during credit crunch times. They are faced with the double-whammy of a lack of income through trading and other sources, coupled with a rising social need.

Some suggest the tough economic times have created a heightened social awareness, and a drive towards social innovation. There has been a ‘snowballing’ in Community Interest Company (CIC) applications during the economic downturn. Sara Burgess, the CIC regulator, has commented that CICs have been going from

The big challenge for social enterprises is how to fund the organisation during the period from infant startup to self-sustaining enterprise. At OxFizz, we pass the majority of profits generated through the trading activities of our three enterprises to charity. We’ve generated over £5,000 for charity since starting trading in November 2007 and only now are we moving towards financial sustainability. During this period we have had to rely on the generosity of our Friends of OxFizz, individual supporters who donate £5 a year, plus family handouts, in-kind support and the generosity of charitable trusts such as Coutts, HEACF, the Dragon School Sale and the Oxfordshire Community Foundation. The latter trusts have had the faith to support a social enterprise and have believed in what we do. Many others have turned us down because we’re a CIC rather than a charity, while others argue social enterprises need to be self-sufficient from day one. This isn’t feasible, and we would argue a greater maturity is needed by funders. Thanks to our supporters, we are on course to generate £30,000 for charity this year in addition to providing a wider social impact.

The other challenge social enterprises face is the funding relationship with the state. An increasing number of social enterprises are funded by the government to provide public services. To return to the quote at the start, a growth paradigm has existed within public services and the state. As today’s Prime Minister’s Questions demonstrated, the 2011 comprehensive spending review will inevitable mean cuts in statutory contracts, whichever hue of party is in power. Many social enterprises, and charities, have sought to diversify their income to become more ‘sustainable’ through winning public service contracts. The big challenge of the next fifteen years, or at least the next five, may well be how to cope with a contraction paradigm. Within this context, the prevailing interpretation of ‘sustainability’ may need to be reassessed.