About us
Our purpose is to build strong grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises by supporting them to work together and take a lead role in creating change.
The POP Team
• Raphaelle Ahmad (Administrator & Social Media Coordinator)
• Matt Bell (CEO)
• Rowan Edwards (Comms & Digital Support)
• Stuart Jones (Network Connector)
• Patrycja Loranc (Core Lead)
• Karen Pilkington (Network Convener for Belong in Plymouth)
• Imogen Potter (Capacity Building Manager)
• Simon Travers (Funds Sensemaker)
POP Associates
• Rebekah Coombes – Finance & Liaises with payroll
• Caroline Blackler – PR capturing and telling our stories
• Stephane Kolinsky (Skyspace CIC) – Belong in Plymouth, system leadership & community research training
• Martyn Lowesmith (Skyspace CIC) – Belong in Plymouth, system leadership & community research training
• Rebecca Muncey – Belong in Plymouth, community research support
Matilde Zadig – Belong in Plymouth, core team support
• Kiven Emmanuel – Belong in Plymouth, emergency department project support
• Paul Read (Drift) – POP ideas team
• Susan Moores – POP ideas team
• Gareth Hart (Iridescent Ideas) – POP ideas team
• Juliette Jackson (Seadream CIC) – Belong in Plymouth / Unify Plymouth, community conversation analysis
• Simon Sherbersky (Spindl CIC) – Belong in Plymouth
• Zebra Collective – facilitating a community of practice for Community Builders
POP supports and leads real, purposeful and lasting change in Plymouth
Our purpose is to build strong grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises by supporting them to work together and take a lead role in creating change.
We are driven by the energy, passion and skills of local people taking action to make our society and environment a better place to live. A small team of dedicated staff, associates and trustees do this by influencing, connecting, training and creating opportunities.
Our values define everything we do:
- building and strengthening trust and relationships
- collaborating with others
- being innovative
- strive to learn – and encourage learning – through our actions.
With all our work we strive to learn – and encourage learning – through our actions.
- We advocate and support the growth of active citizens and social connectivity
- We have a membership of grassroots groups and organisations who we nurture through our core offer.
- We work strategically to support grassroots organisations, charities and social enterprises.
We are known for:
- Convening and facilitating exciting, innovative spaces in which people connect
- Providing provide excellent advice to grassroots groups
- Being system thinkers and bringing new ways to understands the challenges we face
- Our funding advice & support to members
- Achieving high levels of success regarding funding applications
- Our appetite for risk; our willingness to try new things and to learn as we go
There are different ways POP amplifies the voices of communities and community groups. Our starting point is to create times and places where people can meet one another and share their passions and energy. This is why we support networks across Plymouth.
Within this we are working with Diversity Business Incubator to develop approaches that better support Diverse Voices across Plymouth to be heard.
We also ensure that the VCSE sector and community groups is recognised strategically. We do this in two ways:
- Collect and share data & intelligence about the sector
- Represent the sector at strategic meetings
Finally, thanks to a significant investment through the National Lottery Community Fund, we have taken significant steps in developing approaches to co-design that place citizen voice at the very centre of the process.
Equity, diversity & inclusion
A particularly strong drive for shifting decision making, governance and increasing citizen voice is the need to ensure voices can be heard and have routes to influence and take leadership roles.
It is a moral imperative but, ultimately, it will also lead to creative process likely to produce an outcome that is richer and more valuable in terms of its potential insights and solutions. Through our experiences, we believe that there is another level of work that exists especially in level two of the Place Based Evaluation Framework. The foundation that affords ‘enablers for change’ is clearly fundamental, but we believe we also need to focus on Diverse Voices, that is, a specific focus to support those people who are, through one reason and another, excluded from integrating with the open structures, processes and practices. POP’s role is to seek to ensure that, as citizen-led action and groups arise out of these communities, dedicated attention is given to increase capacity and connection.
Diverse Voices
We believe our efforts can be best spent in amplifying the voices of those on the edge of society. Where needed, we therefore support organisations and people to connect to ensure these voices are heard.
