
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.
Mark Walker – Director Ashridge Group
Welcome to the Red Thread Fellowship, a unique ‘not-for-profit’ community initiative bringing together leaders of local businesses and the voluntary organisations that deliver services and work in their community.
The Red Thread Fellowship has grown year on year since its launch in 2016. It is becoming a recognised feature of the vibrant Milton Keynes business and voluntary sector landscape and is acknowledged for growing great leaders and delivering real organisational change. It has since expanded beyond Milton Keynes to Oxford, Northampton, Cambridge and Leicester and you can find your nearest location here.
Drawing on elements of our Frontier Leadership we have since developed our Frontier Fellowship programme which offers aspiring early to mid-career leaders from businesses ILM certified leadership development. Delivered over a year through 7 action learning workshops by highly experienced leadership development tutors/coaches it covers strategy setting, team dynamics and relationships, difficult conversations, personality profiling, civic leadership, effective performance management, enabling others, leadership styles and more. All we ask in return is that participants give the equivalent of an hour a week over the year to support a charity/voluntary organisation within the community to become more sustainable for the future by raising both money (minimum £500) and the profile by co-developing a project.
The leadership programme covers:
Launch workshop – 2 days
Getting to know each other and choose the voluntary sector organisation – building trust, teams, design the project, feedback, coaching, action planning
Workshop 1 -Role modelling
Values, emotional intelligence, civic leadership, coaching to win, prioritising
Workshop 2 -Inspiring a shared vision
Strategy, organisational and stakeholder expectations, future challenges, opportunities/threats, boundaries, success, visionary leadership, civic leadership
Workshop 3 -Enabling others to act
Delegation, collaboration, challenges, conversations, decision making, civic leadership
Workshop 4 -Challenging the Process
Creativity and innovation, leading for creativity, change, experimentation, transitions, influencing, civic leadership
Workshop 5 -Encouraging the heart
Motivation, appreciative inquiry, storytelling, civic leadership
Graduation
Upon completion of the course Fellows, their charities and managers are invited to celebrate at the programme Graduation.
Is the Fellowship for you?
Read our frequently asked questions here.
If you are interested in taking part, as a fellow, business or a charity then please get in touch.
What Fellow’s 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!”
contact usBenefits for Employers
Develops highly successful teams
Grows great leaders
Enhances employee engagement
Employees feel valued
Attracts, retains and grows talent
Develops next generation leaders
Raises organisation brand and profile in the community
Benefits for Employees
Enhances leadership skills
Grows professional network
Builds confidence as a leader
Deepens understanding of self and role
Enhances creativity, communication, collaboration, management,
resilience and coaching skills
Peer: peer coaching helps solve real workplace challenges
Timeout to reflect builds sense of fulfilment and wellbeing
Working with Red Thread has been a really rewarding experience. The support that that we received from the participants was amazing and the project ideas that they came up with (and helped implement), has significantly impacted our staff team.
Sarah Fellows – King’s Arms Project
ILM
Since September 2017 the Red Thread Fellowship™ has been endorsed by The Institute of Leadership Management as one of their approved leadership development programmes. This external validation and recognition means that our participants are assured of the quality of the programme. All learners also get an ILM certificate on completion of the programme. We are delighted to be working with MK College as the approved centre, working to the ILM’s benchmark of quality in order to provide this accredited certification.
Our Partners
We simply couldn’t run The Red Thread Fellowship programme without the generous help and support of all our partners. They offer us workshop space and source potential charities for us and we would therefore like to publicly acknowledge the support of…
Our Sponsors
We couldn’t without the generosity of our sponsors. We are therefore incredibly grateful for past and present organisations for their sponsorship.
The UoN
“The University is delighted to be working with the Red Thread Partnership in developing and supporting a leadership programme that is truly unique. The University believes in supporting positive social change – and being involved will enable our own staff to develop their own leadership skills and at the same time give something back to the communities we serve. Being associated with the fellowship programme fully supports the University mission to inspire change and transform lives” Deborah Mattock BA LLM Director of Human Resources, Marketing & International Relations
Freeths Solicitors
“One of our core values is ‘doing the right thing’ and 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
Be part of something amazing and sponsor The Red Thread Partnership Fellowship Programme™.
Business Impact in the Community
We are justly proud to have been awarded the Business Impact in the Community award at the 2019 Milton Keynes Business Achievement Awards. The innovative Fellowship programme really caught the judges’ imaginations combining first class leadership development with improving outcomes for a wide range of charities across Milton Keynes and further afield.