SPW’s Hackathon at Welsh ICE and our new branding name revealed
SPW were invited to Welsh ICE to be one of the community groups to be the subject of one of their Hackathons.
Hackathons were originally a tech invention where employees got together to set about solving a particular tech problem they had, and to collaborate on computer programming.
Welsh ICE have developed the hackathon days to be perfect for smaller charities and social enterprises to get ‘group think’ and a variety of people and businesses together to work to solve ‘one problem’. They combine it with training so that all the participants on the day have enough knowledge to help solve the situation and have the pitching skills needed.
SPW has been working hard behind the scenes to ensure we are a sustainable organisation and that when grants come to an end we are able to keep projects running. We know though, that we have some challenges in generating enough income to keep employees in posts and to pay for the resources needed to make the projects run successfully. We thought this would be the perfect topic to speak about at the hackathon.
The day started with us showing a presentation detailing about SPW’s vision and mission:
Our vision is to empower single parents to thrive emotionally and socially in a connected community.
Our mission at Single Parents Wellbeing is to empower single parent families by providing a supportive, peer-led community that enhances mental wellbeing, nurtures connections, and combats social isolation, enabling families to thrive together.
We then presented the issues we come up against:
Stigma
Single Parents have a negative connotation in society despite the facts
Our community fundraisers only get single parents attending
People are less inclined to support fundraising efforts
Reliance on Grants
98.9% of our income has been grants
The funding landscape is changing and getting tougher to compete
Our projects are successful and continuation funding is harder to attain
And to round off the presentation we told everyone what we saw the solution we should be working towards as:
Our Solution
Utilise our CIC status and operate a profit generating business arm (as well as grant funded projects) that aligns with our core values and mission enhancing mental wellbeing, nurturing connections, and combating social isolation, enabling families to thrive together.
Then came our ‘Hack Request’ and we asked for all the participants:
Considering the stigma of single parents, we need a new name for our business arm when selling services that are not exclusively single parent focused.
It needs to be an ‘umbrella name’ that will work for events, a barista van, and creative workshops
It would be lovely if it also encompassed how we want people to feel when engaging with us i.e. safe, connected, empowered
As participants pondered our request they were then treated to a series of training sessions hosted by Welsh ICE:
A branding workshop where participants were led through how to make the customer feel about the products or services offered.
A sustainable business workshop which was an absolute treat to learn how innovation in business that benefits the environment can also benefit businesses too.
A pitching workshop so that the teams of ‘hackers’ could eloquently present their answer to our request, and ‘pitch’ their solution.
The day ended with the teams in the room going away and coming up with a new business name for us to use when we are not running project based work exclusively for single parents.
The pitches were brilliant and people had put in a lot of time and care into their thoughts and ideas for what our new name could be.
It is with absolute delight we get to reveal that not only was the name picked by a team that includes single parents, but it aligns perfectly with what we wanted it to be. So much so we are adopting it as the new name for Single Parent’s Wellbeings business arm …
RAISE
Raise encapsulates raising voices, raising awareness, raising each other, raising a community and raising money!
We would like to thank everyone who attended and participated. It was a day filled with laughter, learning, co-production and community. We couldn't think of a better way to spend time together birthing a new name for our business enterprise!
Read more about the branding around Raise here.