Applications invited for £1.5million Social Leadership Programme
(27 May 2009)

The Clore Social Leadership Programme, established in 2008 by the Clore Duffield Foundation as a new initiative to develop emerging talent in the third sector, is inviting applications for its first group of Fellowships with a bursary of up to £20,000 each. Fifteen Fellowships, to be announced in October 2009, will be awarded in the first year. The first programme will begin in January 2010. Applications are open to any UK resident who has substantial work or volunteering experience within the third sector, including one specifically reserved for those from Britain's ethnic minority communities. The closing date for applications is 30 June 2009.

The flexibly designed Fellowships will last for one year, during which Fellows will attend two intensive residential courses including a variety of site visits to challenging contexts, receive individual tuition and mentoring, fulfil an extended outplacement and have an opportunity to engage in reflection and research. A bursary of up to £20,000 will be available to support Fellows or the organisations which currently employ them. Direct associated costs, including tuition fees, will be met by the Programme.

Five Fellowships, co-funded with other organisations, will be dedicated to specific areas:

• The NESTA Fellowship for a Fellow interested in developing practical solutions to gaps in the supply and demand for risk capital;
• The NHS Institute of Innovation and Improvement Fellowship for a Fellow working within children’s or youth services in a role in direct contact with the NHS;
• The Office for the Third Sector Fellowship for a Fellow from BAME backgrounds;
• The RNIB Fellowship for a registered blind or partially sighted Fellow;
• The Youth Sport Trust Fellowship for a Fellow working in or with the School Sport Partnership network.

Dame Mary Marsh, Director of the Programme, said: “The Clore Social Leadership Programme will equip the next generation of third sector leaders with the skills and confidence to handle risk, manage complexity and make the most of opportunities to innovate in the recession and beyond. We need diverse leaders with courage, passion and focus to meet the growing needs of civil society”.

The Clore Duffield Foundation will contribute £1.5 million to the new Programme over its first three years. In addition to this support from the Clore Duffield Foundation, the Programme is supported by funders including the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the funders of the five specialist Fellowships listed above.

The closing date for applications is 30 June 2009, and interviews will be held between 7 September and 2 October 2009.

Full details are available at: www.cloresocialleadership.org.uk or by calling 0207 7420 9408.

The Clore Duffield Foundation

The Clore Foundation was founded in 1964 by the late Sir Charles Clore, one of Britain’s most successful post-war businessmen and one of the most generous philanthropists of his day. After Sir Charles’ death in 1979, his daughter, Vivien Duffield, assumed the Chairmanship of the Foundation and created her own Foundation in 1987 with the aim of continuing and consolidating her family’s history of philanthropy. The two Foundations were merged in 2000 to become the Clore Duffield Foundation (CDF). The Foundation is chaired by Dame Vivien Duffield DBE and concentrates its support on arts education, museum and gallery education, cultural leadership training and health and social care.

The Clore Social Leadership Programme is modelled on the influential Clore Leadership Programme for the cultural sector, which was founded in 2004, with the aim of helping to train and develop a new generation of leaders in the arts in the UK. Fellows have been selected annually from the cultural sector and beyond, to undertake an individually tailored programme of tuition, research, mentoring and secondment designed to develop their leadership skills, knowledge and experience.

Dame Mary Marsh

Dame Mary is founding Director of the Clore Social Leadership Programme. Before joining the Clore Social Leadership Programme in October 2008, she was Chief Executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) for eight years. Prior to this, her career was in education. She was headteacher of two large comprehensive schools in the 1990s, the second being Holland Park School in inner London.

Dame Mary was appointed a non-executive Director of HSBC Bank plc with effect from 1 January 2009. She was also appointed by the Government in January as the interim Chair of Skills-Third Sector (the new third sector skills body). She has been a member of the National Council of the Learning and Skills Council since 2005 and she is a Trustee of Young Enterprise. She is co-chair of GRIT, the alumni voluntary sector interest group, at London Business School and a Governor of Shooters Hill Post 16 Campus school near her home in Greenwich.