Target reached!
We started this year thinking we had a home until the end of March. Happily, the Gra...
We're 6 Months Old: Help Us Take Our First Steps!
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
Aim
We're 6 months old and growing! Will you help us to take our first steps? Help us deliver a full year of the Together Culture prototype.
Oh, that Together Culture feeling, you helped to bring it to life. Thank you!
Six months have passed since you became a Founding Member or a supporter of Together Culture. And what have you done? You have helped to build a community of people power that at the time of writing is 231 souls strong and we expect to reach 400 by the end of this year.
We started this year thinking we had a home until the end of March. Happily, the Grafton Centre has extended our lease until the end of 2024. That gives us a full year of prototype to build momentum and inform our case for a permanent home.
It also poses a seed capital challenge. Our prototype costs about £8,000 per month to run. Our earnings are growing month by month, but average about £4,000 per month. We have a £36,000 gap that we need to fill to deliver a full year of prototype.
That’s a real and honest fundraising need. Transparency and asking for help are bedrock values of Together Culture, after all. And we need your help.
Social enterprises struggle to get seed funding as they don’t provide big financial returns, despite their potential to provide big social impact. Together Culture is designed to do both when we have a permanent residence (we’re looking for 30,000 square feet). However, we’re an asset locked Community Interest Company, so all of our earnings will go back into the work our community is doing to build a more inclusive and ecological creative economy in Cambridge, not to shareholders. Investment in our current paradigm is challenging.
We’re having exciting conversations with prospective funders to help us with a permanent space. But to get there, we’ll need to bridge this gap to keep building momentum over this year, together.
Can you help?
The Impact You’ve Already Helped Make Happen
Together Culture at the end of the day is really, just people. I could bombard you with numbers to talk impact (and check out the video of our ‘State of Together Culture’ meeting below if you want to binge on KPIs). But, at the six month mark, I think the impact is best measured by the stories people have shared about how Together Culture has affected their lives. Once a month we have a Lunch and Learn session where members share their stories with people thinking of becoming members. Here’s what some members have shared:
"Together Culture is safe. I’m my whole self here. I share my ideas and I know people care and help. They want to know me. I don’t need a shield here."
"There’s not a single place in this country that I know of that has created a workspace that feels like family. That is truly building community and working to use our talents to help the geographic community. It just feels good to be here."
"I knew that my well-being could improve. I was too isolated. Then I joined Together Culture. I feel so much better in my own skin. My confidence has improved. I have new friends. I am doing things I never realised I could do."
"Together Culture. It’s just my happy place."
"I am tired of small talk. What good is small talk? I want deep connections. I want to change things. I come to Together Culture because it is the home of BIG TALK! It happens so naturally."
"I was thinking of leaving Cambridge. I just couldn’t find a place where I fit, then along came Together Culture. Now I belong. Now I’ll stay. I belong somewhere with people who get me."
The State of Together Culture 2024
"I was scared to join because I didn’t think of myself as a creative. But, every time I came in and had a conversations with someone sat on the sofa I realised that because I am curious and because I have a lot of love to give, that’s creative. And really valuable."
"Cambridge desperately needs a place that builds civic pride if we ever want to move beyond the distinction of being the home of social inequality in the UK. Together Culture is building civic pride."
"This place is….hope!"
What We’re Doing Next
We’re working our way through our first cycle of our Theory of Change, which was co-designed with over 150 members of the community. Central to our Theory of Change is our Citizens’ Studio.
The Citizens' Studio
Each year we take a question that bubbles up from the community and we run a three month co-design (the Citizens' Studio) to answer it, together. Lots of data will emerge from all of the Citizens' Studio sessions we run over that three month period. Together, we'll decide on one priority to focus on, and then we’ll run our first Systems’ Change Incubator, where we’ll turn ideas into new programmes, services, and start ups (over the past few months, ten members have been taking our 'Business Unusual: Upskilling for Change-Makers' course to learn, amongst other things, systems mapping). That's how we’ll put our intention into action.
This year’s question is: “In 10 year’s time, if our neighbourhood, ‘The Kite’ is heart of Cambridge’s inclusive and ecological creative economy*, what would be different and where shall we start?"
Do you know much about The Kite? Check out its extraordinary progressive, cooperative and creative history in this film made by ARU film student James Hartley of a recent Together Culture tour lead by Dr Sean Lang of ARU and local historian Antony Carpen:
I can’t tell you the priorities that have emerged from the Citizens’ Studio so far, as it’s still a work in progress. There are sessions running into early May, so book now!
Part of the experience is a Mad-Libs exercise. Here’s a peek of what some members are envisioning:
To build momentum, we’re working together with Anglia Ruskin University and East Side Community Arts develop a heritage project fund that collects word of mouth histories and makes the FULL story of Cambridge, beyond the University, accessible to all, a story everyone who lives in Cambridge can identify with, and celebrate their remarkable heritage. And from there, we’ll build! We’ve been invited to submit a full project plan to the National Heritage Fund (formerly HLF for those in the know).
It’s a critical component of our plan to secure our permanent home. More on that in a future update!
This project successfully funded on 18th April 2024