THE RED THREAD FELLOWSHIP
Building more compassionate leaders and more caring and inclusive communities.
A leadership development programme with a difference!
Welcome to the Red Thread Fellowship, an award winning ‘not-for-profit’ community initiative bringing together leaders of local businesses and the voluntary organisations that deliver services and work in their community.
Launched in 2016 , the Fellowship programme has become a recognised feature of the vibrant City of Milton Keynes business and voluntary sector landscape and is acknowledged for growing great leaders and delivering real organisational change. It has expanded to Oxford, Northampton, Cambridge and Leicester.
Drawing on elements of our Frontier Leadership book, it is a year-long leadership development programme structured around participants’ experiences from volunteering.
Fellows support a charity/voluntary organisation within their community in becoming more sustainable for the long term and also commit to raising a minimum of £500 each for their charity.
Through 7 action learning workshops, participants reflect on their experiences and explore: strategy setting, team dynamics and relationships, difficult conversations, civic leadership, effective performance management, influence, leadership styles, creativity and change. They then use these insights to develop their leadership practice in their work.
Develop yourself, your organisation and your community.
What’s not to love?
What do Fellows Say?
“Really good to be encouraged out of my comfort zone.”
“Benefited from time to reflect on the gaps in my own leadership practise.”
“Ring fenced time out of the day job/family to focus on me and my growth.”
“The unique combination of theoretical, practical, application through the volunteering can’t be found anywhere else.”
“Do it in a heartbeat – I can’t say anymore than that!”
What do businesses and charities say?
Thank you to our Fellow and to The Red Thread for allowing such dynamic collaboration. Without this, we would have hugely struggled to complete our office move and still maintain the running of the charity. Simply wonderful and very heartening for staff under a lot of pressure.
CEO of Quest For Learning (Oxford Charity)
Working with Red Thread has been a really rewarding experience. The support that that we received from the students was great and the project ideas that they came up with (and helped implement), has significantly impacted our staff team.
Executive Assistant - King's Arms Project (MK Charity)
The RTP Fellowship Programme has contributed greatly to the personal development of our team, the values and sustainability of our organisation, and challenged us to enhance our collaboration with the local community and charities.
Director - Ashridge Group Ltd (MK Company)
We have had two of our managers on the fellowship programme this year. They have both grown as managers (and people), learning to work with other colleagues and taking these learnings when managing their own teams. The other benefit, which matches our company values, is to support and give time to develop a local charity.
Group Development and Performance Manager - Personal Group (MK Company)
Some of the many charities The Red Thread Fellowship has supported.
Our Sponsors
Ringway
We are delighted to be partnering with The Red Thread Fellowship. Our core values of integrity, versatility, openness and resilience underpin our strategy of ‘investing in our people and partnerships’ so it was perfect to be able to support an organisation that does just that, invests in people of Milton Keynes and partners with voluntary sector organisations to develop compassionate leaders and build more caring and inclusive communities”
Lewis Bridgman Divisional Manager RIS East Midlands
CEng MICE, FCIHT, MEng (Hons) DIS
Freeths
We have a strong ethos about supporting local charities in our community and helping businesses to develop. Supporting the Fellowship allowed us to do both of those really effectively”.
Alison Foxton, Marketing Manager, Freeths Solicitors
